LightWave v9.2 Development News

[ed209]

I had the honor of meeting some of you this week at the London Hilton where NewTek showed off some of our newest product offerings, including an excellent demonstration of LightWave’s upcoming release v9.2 by Andy Bishop of Darkside Animation. LightWave v9.2 has been in Open Beta testing for some time now and we’re just getting started showing the extraordinary capabilities of this free update to LightWave v9.

As I have stated previously, LightWave v9 is a development cycle that will see dramatic improvements throughout the point series. LightWave v9.2 is the first example of exactly what that means. We previewed some of our new technology at SIGGRAPH 06, such as new motion blur, depth of field, OpenGL capabilities in Modeler, additions to Advanced Camera Tools and improved sub-surface scattering, but what we’re delivering in LightWave v9.2 far exceeds anything we discussed at SIGGRAPH.

Rendering - The LightWave render engine has undergone a major overhaul in a number of areas, including the photorealistic motion blur we showcased at SIGGRAPH, along with new anti-aliasing, new global illumination and radiosity and limited render region improvements. Further, we have made sure these new capabilities render significantly faster so that you can take advantage of them without suffering overly long render times. The new LightWave renderer will give you far more photorealism with real world lighting effects and the ability to dial in the look you want while balancing your speed of render.

Modeling - You’ll find the workflow improved dramatically in all areas of Modeler. The new OpenGL support provides accelerated display throughout which lets you get more creative faster. Modeler’s editing performance has been vastly improved by making both modification of geometry and the selection system much faster.

Camera Tools - You’ll find the new real lens camera ideal when you need to match photographs and film plates for compositing. And as promised, depth of field rendering has been improved, providing photorealistic lens effects including f-stop, exposure blooms and lighting artifacts, all of which can be previewed in real time in the user interface.

Materials and Node Editor - The most dramatic new addition to LightWave v9, the Materials and Node Editor now offers several new sub-surface scattering shaders including: Kappa II, Sigma, Skin and a new occlusion shader, Occlusion II. To top it off, we've added refraction/reflection occlusion to all nodes. But, forget the fancy words... these new shaders give you the power and control you need to create realistic skin and other shading effects to get the perfect end result. We’ve also streamlined the functionality of the Node Editor by creating Material Nodes which combine the features of low level nodes into a more convenient and easier to use node presentation. The new Material Nodes will give you realistic metal, glass, liquid and more in a snap.

Core Changes - Of course, no solid update would be complete without some significant work “under the hood;” this isn’t the sexy stuff but in the long run, it may be the very thing that makes your life easier day-to-day. We have dramatically improved our object handling and referencing, we’ll provide a detailed account of what this means on our web site, but suffice it to say that you’ll find many things in LightWave v9.2 more reliable than they have ever been.

Software Developers Kit - And last, but certainly not least, we have developed extensive SDK improvements that provide additional information for the node system and the Advanced Camera Tools. The bottom line is this, LightWave v9.2 is designed for improved operation with interactive preview applications.

Well, that’s wrap-up from my end. Words don’t do this update justice so look out for new videos, tutorials, imagery, etc. to show up on the LightWave web site as well as other 3D sites throughout the coming days and weeks. There’s a lot to show and talk about here and the discussion is just getting started.

Here’s to LightWave v9.2!

[moc]

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