LightWave 3D v9 for Mac and Windows from NewTek is a powerful 3D modeling and rendering software suite that runs on both the Windows and Macintosh operating platforms. LightWave is a professional application that has been used in many film and television productions. It has many advanced animation, rendering and modeling features as well as a powerful SDK that puts the power of the application squarely in the hands of artists and animators. LightWave 3D is an excellent software choice for 3D artists.
Animation Tools
Animation Controls
LightWave 3D gives you complete control over your animations. It supports fractional frames and Bake-able Match Goal Orientation for IK Booster. You'll find tools that allow you to move, rotate or modify an object's channel. Animators will also be able to take advantage of the Hybrid Inverse/Forward Kinematics engine that uses free-form and locked IK goals.
Relativity 2
Relativity 2 allows you to setup objects using a point and click interface based around "professors." It supports multiple levels of expressions that can react to IK-based motion. Relativity 2 also allows objects to follow points on other objects.
Motion Mixer
Motion Mixer is a non-linear animation system that allows you to blend any curve track inside the application. This allows you to blend motions, endomorphs or any parameter in the program that can be animated. This is useful if you want to blend multiple motion tracks together or set pre- and post- behaviors for HMOT behaviors.
Spreadsheet Editor and Dope Sheet
The spreadsheet editor and dope sheet are useful when you need to make mass scene changes quickly. This is great for making changes to an extremely complex scene. You'll be able to make changes to bone, light and object properties, motion options, item flags, item names and statistics, tags and channel values with ease. This is all done from within a customizable workspace.
Graph Editor
The Graph Editor is a channel editing system that is powered by an OpenGL interface that allows you to edit hundreds of curves and thousands of key frames in real time. It is able to handle data rich curves such as Match Footprint Time Slice, Key Reduction, Curve Filtering and Key Bins. It can even handle multiple curve types, including linear, bezier, stepped, hermite spline and TCB.
Motion and Displacement Controllers
LightWave 3D features a multitude of motion and displacement controllers. These include a modified bones deformation algorithm, spline-based motion and deformation, facial animation and many more. This makes animating character movement much more realistic and natural.
Particle FX and Dynamic Systems
The software has a powerful Particle FX and Dynamic Systems engine. This toolset will allow you to realistically animate wind, cloth, hair, fire, explosions and other dynamic particle systems.
Rendering
Adaptive Subdivision
LightWave 3D supports Catmull-Clark subdivision surfaces and Adaptive Pixel Subdivision. This improves displacement performance and gives you better control of detail levels when rendering.
Material Shader Node Editor
The node editor allows you to create intricate shading networks and trees. You'll be able to connect parameters of various shaders to create powerful shaders without having to write a single line of code.
Advanced Camera Tools
LightWave 3D features arbitrary cameras and warps that allow you to render your images in fantastic ways. You'll find such unique features as camera plane deformations, UV map generation, space warp simulations and many more in the software.
Timewarp
Timewarp features shader remaps for various visual effects when rendering. These include freeze-time, slow-motion effects and fast-motion effects. You'll even find "bullet-time," a style popularized by "The Matrix."
Additional Rendering Features
In addition to all these rendering features you'll also find advanced shaders such as a CCTV shader that simulates closed-circuit TV images, an HV deformer, a stress map, a sketch image filter, realistic fog, pixie dust and much more.
General Features
Layout Workflow and UI Enhancements
LightWave 3D features an intuitive user interface and workflow. Experienced animators will feel at home in the application while new users will find the program extremely intuitive to learn. You'll even be able to customize the user interface to meet your preferences.
Modeling Tools
The software features a powerful interface for creating 3D models of objects. You'll also be able to import models that are in industry-standard file formats. Color wireframes, rail modeling tools, and "skelegons" for skeleton creation are just some of the modeling features you'll find in LightWave 3D.
Modeler Workflow and UI Enhancements
You'll be able to customize the modeler user interface in the same way that you can customize the general UI of the program. This allows you to customize the modeling screens to fit your style of working. You can even customize system warning messages to a beginner, intermediate or expert level.
Node Graph SDK
The Node Graph Software Development Kit gives expert users the tools they need to create powerful scripts that can help to streamline their workflow. LightWave 3D uses the LScript system which allows you to work in an object-oriented environment and even add scripts to toolbars.
General Workflow and UI Enhancements
LightWave 3D features an inline help system, ensuring that you will always be able to find answers to questions about the software. The software also gives you OpenGL support and an optimized workflow. It will autosave your work in an incremental fashion, allowing you to go back to a previous version if you made a mistake.
Electronic Manual
LightWave 3D comes with an electronic manual in PDF format. This allows you to read the manual directly on your computer screen. Of course you can print out all of it or only the portions you need if you desire.