Lightwave
Lightwave 3D 8
Platform:MAC/PC
Another long established package, used in a wide range of work, notably TV effects.
The most complete, extensive, and accessible guide for LightWave 8. Inside Lightwave 8 is chock full of step-by-step tutorials on every topic LightWave users need to know. It is also clear, well-organized and easy to use–essential for a comprehensive book when you need to find answers to their questions quickly.
Dan Ablan, award-winning animator and LightWave author, offers Inside LightWave X to get you up-to-speed and enhances productivity with NewTek’s LightWave 3D software. No other LightWave book is more comprehensive, packed with clear step-by-step tutorials and helpful tips. Coverage includes plug-ins, Motion Designer, SubPatch modeling, Graph Editor, expressions for complex animation control, Motion Mixer, compositing techniques, inverse kinematics to control complex characters, modeling and surfacing methods for architectural animation, skeletons and bones for precise animation control, logo creation, camera and lighting techniques, particle animation, and using motion-capture files.
LightWave (or, more properly, LightWave 3D) is a computer graphics program for 3D modeling, rendering, and animation. Although the program originated on the Commodore Amiga, it has since been ported to support Mac OS X, Windows, and the render engine has also been ported to Linux platforms. It was once licensed by and is now entirely developed by NewTek.
Lightwave has long been known for its excellent rendering abilities and unusual user interface (for example, icons are not used; instead functions are all given descriptive titles). Like many other 3D packages Lightwave is composed of two parts, an object modelling environment where 3d models or meshes are created and an animation environment where models are arranged and animated for render. Unlike most other packages these two parts are stand-alone programs. There is also a separate rendering application which can be run on multiple machines.
LightWave is a multi-threaded application and can use as many as eight processors in the same machine at the same time when rendering an image.
Programmers can expand LightWave’s capabilities using an included SDK and also a special scripting language called LScript. This SDK is based in the powerful C language and almost anything can be created, from a custom shader to a different scene format exporter. LightWave itself includes dozens of free plug-ins and many more can be obtained from different developers around the globe.
LightWave gained additional fame as the program used to create special effects for the Babylon 5 and seaQuest DSV science fiction television series; the program was also utilized in the production of the recent Sin City and Star Wars movies.
LightWave was once part of the Video Toaster suite. It has been available as a standalone application since 1994 and version 3.5 and now runs on Mac and Windows-based PC computers.
NewTek and LightWave have been honored with Emmy Awards since 1993 and won their 10th and 11th awards in 2004. In 2003 NewTek was awarded an Emmy for technology that has had a major impact on television.
Now in its ninth version (as of 1 August 2005), its market ranges from hobbyists (because of its low price point) to high-end deployment in video games, television and cinema. The company recently announced its 64-bit version of LightWave 3D, and was featured heavily in a keynote speech by Bill Gates at WinHEC 2005.