| Developer(s) | NewTek, Inc. |
|---|---|
| Stable release | 10 / December 30, 2010 |
| Operating system | Amiga, IRIX, Mac OS X, Windows |
| Type | 3D computer graphics |
| License | Proprietary |
| Website | http://www.newtek.com/lightwave/ |
LightWave 3D is a high end computer graphics program developed by NewTek. The latest release of LightWave runs on Windows and Mac OS X.
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LightWave is a software package used for rendering 3D images, both animated and static. It includes a rendering engine that supports such advanced features as realistic reflection and refraction, radiosity, and caustics. The 3D modeling component supports both polygon modeling and subdivision surfaces. The animation component has features such as reverse and forward kinematics for character animation, particle systems and dynamics. Programmers can expand LightWave's capabilities using an included SDK which offers LScript scripting (a proprietary scripting language) and common C language interfaces.
In 1988, Allen Hastings created a rendering and animation program called Videoscape, and his friend Stuart Ferguson created a complementary 3D modeling program called Modeler, both sold by Aegis Software. NewTek planned to incorporate Videoscape and Modeler into its video editing suite, Video Toaster. Originally intended to be called "NewTek 3D Animation System for the Amiga", Hastings later came up with the name "LightWave 3D", inspired by two contemporary high-end 3D packages: Intelligent Light and Wavefront. In 1990, the Video Toaster suite was released, incorporating LightWave 3D, and running on the Commodore Amiga computer.
LightWave 3D has been available as a standalone application since 1994, and version 9.3 runs on both Mac OS X and Windows platforms. Starting with the release of version 9.3, the Mac OS X version has been updated to be a Universal Binary.
The last known standalone revision for the Amiga was Lightwave 5.0, released in 1995. Shortly after the release of the first PC version, NewTek discontinued the Amiga version, citing the platform's uncertain future.
LightWave was used to create special effects for the Babylon 5, Star Trek Voyager, Space: Above and Beyond and seaQuest DSV science fiction television series; the program was also utilized in the production of Titanic as well as the recent Battlestar Galactica TV-series, Sin City, Star Trek, 300 and Star Wars movies. The acclaimed short film, 405 was also produced by two artists from their homes using Lightwave. In the famous Finnish Star Trek parody Star Wreck - In the Pirkinning, most of the visual effects were done in LightWave by Finnish film maker Samuli Torsonnen who operates Energia Productions in Tampere where as of November 2011 had just completed the VFX work for the full length feature film Iron Sky. In Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, the entire film was made in Lightwave 6 and messiah:Studio.
NewTek and LightWave have been awarded Emmy Awards since 1993 and won their 10th and 11th awards in 2004. In 2003 NewTek was awarded an Emmy for technology.
In 2007, the first feature film to be 3d animated completely by one person without the typical legion of animators made its debut, Flatland the Film by Ladd Ehlinger Jr. It was animated entirely in Lightwave 3D 7.5 and 8.0.
In its ninth version, the market for LightWave ranges from hobbyists to high-end deployment in video games, television and cinema. NewTek shipped a 64-bit version of LightWave 3D as part of the fifth free update of LightWave 3D 8, and was featured in a keynote speech by Bill Gates at WinHEC 2005.
On Feb 4 2009, NewTek announced "LightWave CORE" its next-generation 3D application via a streamed live presentation to 3D artists around the world. It features a highly customizable and modernized user interface, Python scripting integration that offers realtime code and view previews, an updated file format based on the industry standard Collada format, substantial revisions to its modeling technologies and a realtime iterative viewport renderer. It will also be the first Lightwave product to be available on the Linux operating system. A paid-betatest release of Core and Lightwave 10 was recently canceled and NewTek announced that the CORE advancements would become part of the ongoing LightWave platform.
In late 2010, NewTek officially released LightWave 10, which is the latest major release to date.
LightWave is composed of two separate programs: Modeler and Layout. Each program is specifically designed to provide a dedicated workspace for specific tasks. When the two programs are running simultaneously, a third process called the Hub can be used to automatically synchronize data.
Layout contains the animation system and the renderer which provides the user with several options including ray tracing options, multithreading, global illumination, and output parameters. Modeler, as the name implies, includes all of the modeling features used to create the 3d models that are used in the animation and rendering component. This differs from most 3D computer graphics packages which normally integrate the renderer and the modeler. A long-standing debate in the LightWave user community has consisted of whether or not to integrate Modeler and Layout into a single program. In response to this, NewTek has begun an integration process by including several basic modeling tools with Layout.
There is also a command line-based network rendering engine named Screamernet which can be used to distribute rendering tasks across a large number of networked computers. This is used to reduce the overall time that it takes to render a single project by having the computers each rendering a part of the whole project in parallel. Screamernet includes all the features of the rendering engine that is integrated in Layout but without an interactive user interface.
Lightwave is equipped with all the required dynamics such as hard body, soft body and cloth. Hard body dynamics equips the user to simulate effects like rockslides, building demolitions and sand effects, using realistic forces like gravity and collisions. Soft body equips the user with a tool that can simulate jelly or jiggling fat on overweight characters. This can also be applied to characters for a dynamic hair effect. Cloth can be applied to clothing for characters. This can also be used for hair to simulate more realistic hair movement. The CORE subsystem of Lightwave 10 includes a new rigid-body dynamics engine called Bullet.
Hypervoxels are a means to render different particle animation effects. Different modes of operation have the ability to generate appearances that mimic:
Lightwave comes with a nodal texture editor that comes with a collection of special-purpose material shaders. Some of the types of surface for which these shaders have been optimized include:
With LW 9, Newtek added Node editors to the Surface Editor and Mesh Displacement parts of LightWave. They also however release the Node SDK with the software, so any developer can add their own Node Editors via plug-ins, and a few have done so, notably Denis Pontonnier, who created free to download node editors and many other utility nodes for all of the sdk classes in LightWave. This now means users can utilise nodes for modifying images and renders, procedural textures, modifying the shape of hypervoxels, controlling motions of objects, driving animation channels, and use things like particles and other meshes to drive these functions. This has greatly enhanced the abilities of standalone LightWave. The node areas of LightWave continue to expand, with volumetric lights now controllable with nodes.
LScript is Lightwave's scripting language. It also provides a comprehensive set of prebuilt functions you can use when scripting how Lightwave behaves. Lightwave CORE will use Python as its scripting engine. However any scripting language (eg. lua, ecmacript) could be implemented by third party developers using C++ and the CORE SDK.
The SDK (Software Development Kit) provides a set of C classes for writing native plugins for Lightwave. In Lightwave CORE the SDK will be in C++.
A more comprehensive list can be found at the Lightwave website.[1] Some notable highlights are:
Prior to being made available as a stand-alone product in 1994, LightWave required the presence of a Video Toaster in an Amiga to run. Currently, LightWave licenses are bound to a hardware dongle (e.g. Safenet USB or legacy parallel port models). Without a dongle LightWave will operate in "Discovery Mode" which severely restricts functionality. One copy of LightWave supports distributed rendering on up to 999 nodes.
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