LightWave 3D is designed for independent artists who desire control of their vision from start to finish. Affordable, complete, easy to learn and use, LightWave is well established as one of the leading 3D systems on the market. With the ability to model, animate and render stunningly realistic imagery and animation, LightWave allows you to create new worlds, build your brand and shatter expectations. LightWaverefined and retooled.
LightWave 3D fits seamlessly into large multi-software pipelines - with its powerful interchange tools including FBX, ZBrush GoZ, COLLADA, Unity Game Engine Support, and Autodesk Geometry Cache. Unlike other software packages, LightWave 3D offers artists and studios a complete end-to-end solution right out of the box. Robust polygonal and subdivision surface modeling, unique. Interchangeable layered and nodal texturing, along with powerful dedicated node material shaders. Powerful animation and rigging tools. Eye-popping volumetric and dynamic effects systems. A production proven, award-winning GI (Global Illumination) render engine - built in.
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Two New Global Illumination Render Engines LightWave, long known for the beauty of its render engine, gains new advancements in LightWave 2020 with the redesign of the Global Illumination rendering engine, bringing two versions for artists: Brute Force, an unbiased radiosity engine, and Irradiance Cache, an interpolated radiosity engine. Using the new render engines independently or in concert will assure you get the real-world render results you seek, with higher quality and more control. |
Two New Shaders in FiberFX The new hair shaders in LightWave 2020 deliver more realistic hair leveraging the physical based renderer. Principled Hair Material is based on the Principled BSDF settings. The five inputs: Color, Cutical Tilt, Roughness, Radial Roughness and Index of Refraction provide a simple interface for spectacular results. With AFC Hair Shader (Artist Friendly Control — a simplified approach) the specular settings are divided into two sections: Primary, for reflection of the front side of the stroke and Secondary for the reflection bounced off the backside of the stroke. Now, you have the option to select a simple artist friendly shading option or complete control for the look you desire. |
OpenVDB Gets New Set of Production Tools Leading the pack in the LightWave OpenVDB roster is support for Partio particle objects. What you gain is the power of Houdini particles with the simplicity of the LightWave interface. Also included in the new OpenVDB toolset is: |
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Redesigned Motion System LightWave 2020 provides the ability to change Rotation Order per item and is saved with the scene file. This allows for an easier transition from other applications to LightWave. Additionally, instances of Gimbal lock can be avoided and items you are animating can be allowed to follow a more natural rotation order. |
Local Action Center LightWave Modeler allows you to impact a group of items all at once in the Local Action Center. Select disparate edges or polygons in your model and act on them as one, locally. The Local Action Center works on multiple layers at a time for fast and easy changes. |
Tone Mappings Gain greater control over the look of your render with the new Pixel Filter in LightWave 2020. Tone mapping is a technique used in image processing and computer graphics to map one set of colors to another to approximate the appearance of high - dynamic - range images in a medium that has a more limited dynamic range. Further, as a Pixel Filter it can be used in VPR for quick results. |
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Shedding New Light In LightWave 2020 the Environment Light has taken on new importance. Now, Environment Lights are connected directly to the environment, adding the direct sampling of the backdrop. The updated Environment Light opens as part of the default scene in Layout, and the new light results in the streamlining of environmental systems. |
Scene Editor Improved workflow in Scene Editor allows you to manage large, complex and layered scenes with ease. |
FBX Interchange LightWave 2020 provides enhanced pipeline support, increasing access to motion capture for auto - rigging. More features are support in the FBX format, which provides greater flexibility when working with other animation tools. |
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Instancing Processing time for third party render engines is improved with the added ability to set Surface instances to static to stop evaluation at render time. |
OpenGL Updated shaders deliver visualization in the viewport that is closer than ever to the final render. |
Improved SSS Better subsurface scattering algorithm delivers fast, better SSS for your renders. |
LightWave has really come into its own with 2019. Although not a huge upgrade from 2018, it really rounds some of things that have been missing from LW while still remaining easy to use. New to 2019 is a animated sculpting tool called Metamorphic which has a lot uses for anyone doing medical animations. Also new is OpenVDB ceation tools for creating cool goo etc.. An Unreal Engine bridge has been added that works really well. I have imported several of my archvis projects into Unreal from LightWave with great success. Plus there has been a bunch of other stuff added, but for me the two best additions have been the Despike setting in the render properties and the Nvidia Optix Denoiser. The Despike eliminates fireflies that are common with PBR renderers and the Denoiser cleans up your renders allowing you to back off on samples which in turn decrease your render times by 50 to 75 percent. I love the Denoiser. Also there is a new Patina shader and a bunch more material options. It's a great update. LightWave has retained its ease of use while adding some great benefits to its user base. I highly recommend LightWave to new users because of its ease of use.
I have always loved the power and ease of use Lightwave has.
I love to model and animate my creations.
3D printing got popular and I wanted to print real models of my creations. I also build real robots and wanted to make my own parts in LightWave.
LightWave 11.6 came out and made 3d printing so much easier than ever before.
11.6 adds import and export of STL files and also lets me know why an object wont print.
They took this amazing software and made it more powerful and easier to use.
Rigging any creature you build is so much easier. You want i/k, now it is easy.
The morphs you make to give your creations life will also print out in 3d for very cool statues or working robots.
You can download free models from Thingiverse and customize them and print out what you have made.
I have tried many 3d programs and I am so glad I found LightWave.
I get more done than ever before.
I am a long time Lightwave user. That said I thought about switching to Maya this time. Maya is all around a better program. The only reason not to switch is the cost. After much thought, I simply couldn't justify the expense of a few thousand dollars every couple of years when Lightwave still meets my needs. So for me it was all about price point, but that is why Lightwave is still around and will be for the foreseeable future. It is the only reasonably well supported (by vendors) $1000 software package.
Lightwave 11.5 new features and fast rendering has paid for itself in one job. same day download was great.
Best information with pdf manual for learnig this softwere but we have spend lot of time for certain combine fonction.
And it's lower price for the good render in the layout.
LightWave has really come into its own with 2019. Although not a huge upgrade from 2018, it really rounds some of things that have been missing from LW while still remaining easy to use. New to 2019 is a animated sculpting tool called Metamorphic which has a lot uses for anyone doing medical animations. Also new is OpenVDB ceation tools for creating cool goo etc.. An Unreal Engine bridge has been added that works really well. I have imported several of my archvis projects into Unreal from LightWave with great success. Plus there has been a bunch of other stuff added, but for me the two best additions have been the Despike setting in the render properties and the Nvidia Optix Denoiser. The Despike eliminates fireflies that are common with PBR renderers and the Denoiser cleans up your renders allowing you to back off on samples which in turn decrease your render times by 50 to 75 percent. I love the Denoiser. Also there is a new Patina shader and a bunch more material options. It's a great update. LightWave has retained its ease of use while adding some great benefits to its user base. I highly recommend LightWave to new users because of its ease of use.
I have always loved the power and ease of use Lightwave has.
I love to model and animate my creations.
3D printing got popular and I wanted to print real models of my creations. I also build real robots and wanted to make my own parts in LightWave.
LightWave 11.6 came out and made 3d printing so much easier than ever before.
11.6 adds import and export of STL files and also lets me know why an object wont print.
They took this amazing software and made it more powerful and easier to use.
Rigging any creature you build is so much easier. You want i/k, now it is easy.
The morphs you make to give your creations life will also print out in 3d for very cool statues or working robots.
You can download free models from Thingiverse and customize them and print out what you have made.
I have tried many 3d programs and I am so glad I found LightWave.
I get more done than ever before.
I am a long time Lightwave user. That said I thought about switching to Maya this time. Maya is all around a better program. The only reason not to switch is the cost. After much thought, I simply couldn't justify the expense of a few thousand dollars every couple of years when Lightwave still meets my needs. So for me it was all about price point, but that is why Lightwave is still around and will be for the foreseeable future. It is the only reasonably well supported (by vendors) $1000 software package.
Lightwave 11.5 new features and fast rendering has paid for itself in one job. same day download was great.
Best information with pdf manual for learnig this softwere but we have spend lot of time for certain combine fonction.
And it's lower price for the good render in the layout.
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