Lightwave 2020 released

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83

I just checked here (2.82a) and CTRL+SPACE maximizes every Window, not just Viewports. I >did< have to click once in one Window, but after that it behaved. Views, Timeline, Outliner, Properties, all became full-screen.

If it doesn’t work for you (tablet? extensive alterations to the keymap?) you might want to revert to factory settings.

No I answered that before your post, but you must have missed it, zeauro gave an answer to it as well…
"By default, Lock option is enabled in panel dedicated to Quad View in sidebar.
If you disable this option, you are able to pick desired viewport by using shortcut."

Still using mouse.

So that was it, if it was working for you…you most likely had that turned off from start anyway?
Did you really test with quad view defaults? the toggled version?..and check if lock options was off or on.

Not at all – IMO the camera icon is immaterial. But the Camera navigation is CRITICAL, and I just don’t like how the Blender Camera moves, I find it really difficult to place it artistically, especially compared to the Lightwave camera. --That said, I find most software’s 3d camera placement lacking-- frigging AE’s is a g.d. nightmare, but at least they have an excuse.

Understood and I agree on that as well…apart from that I think the camera icon still is nicer in Lightwave.

But all that…still too much that didn´t take place in Lightwave 2020 …and I said to myself I will not upgrade until I see these eventual or never modeling tools in layout, and local action centers for modeling IN modeler that …which seem to also have been poorly implemented, can´t change that.

So much more focus on blender from now on, and less lightwave and less lw forums…but from time to time I will use Lightwave.

There was two main things that probably would have made me upgrade, one would be implementation of model creations, tweaks in layout, the other would have been a GPU render solution natively.

84

As long as the windows’ borders align, grabbing one border affects all viewport windows.

No…you got that wrong, I was talking about the default quad view…not those you set up as windows.
You can not change the default quad views borders.

Ah well, now you are talking about your personal preferences, which is seated upon decades of LightWave use. That is entirely subjective, of course.

Which is understandable, although it has little to do with the discussion of the usefulness of a quad view.

Yes…of course, but I never said anything to indicate that comment would have anything to do with quad views in any case, the discussion can live without setting a law to pertain only quad views.

PS lights are called “lights” in Blender. Not “Lamps” anymore.

I said that as well in the same comment…that they now are called Lights, you must have missed it and your tips is only confirming what I already said previously.

Good they did that with conformity with standards, that is what I wanted for quad views as well…and that a blender philosophy should not be do some things differently like calling a light a lamp…or making static quad views just to be different or something.

And talking about multi-views: it is not possible in LightWave to set up a layout with MORE than 4 viewports. Not possible in docked mode.

Well…if we are going from almost every blender user talking about only one view is necessary in blender…to go to over 4 views…then it starts becoming funny.

I have never had any use for more than 4 views in Lightwave…and in blender most likely no more than that for any modelin or staging, it´s another thing to open tools or graphs etc…but there blender works differently which may require this, while lightwave just pops up it´s window modules with scene editor or graph editor.
so no…I do not need 100 …or 10 viewports. :slight_smile:

tiburbage
What I’m seeing (2.82a) is that Ctrl+SPACE does indeed both maximize the view the cursor is over as well as hide most of the non-viewport controls. Perhaps there is a preference setting which controls this behavior.

As for viewport layouts as in LW, Maya, etc., I do miss that to some extent. But I have noted that the viewport arrangement and assigned “view” (Editor Type) is saved as part of a Workspace. So if one constantly uses a specific combination, you can create a new Workspace to represent that, and then save it to your Startup File. Although I haven’t done it quite yet, I plan to create at least one custom arrangement for modeling, and another for rigging.

Same answer to you as I did to Jeric Synergy…no, that will not work on quad view unless turning locked views off in the sidebar.
You either just tested on your own window setups, not the default quad view, or you simply had the locked option off for the quad views.

Herbert123
After all is said and done, a good usable quad setup can be created in Blender. If a quad view is what you need in Blender, create a separate workspace and set things up as required, and save as the default file.

You shouldn´t even have to, I know how to…but the option to do that workaround should not be an excuse to neglect fixing a poorly implemented quad view …wich is there as default, and excuse it with set it up your own…go to sidebar and turn off locked etc.
Not very nice in regards to new users.

if everyone silently accept this workaround or so called workflow, blender will never get that fixed…a fix will make blender better…and also easier for any newbie or crossover user …not worse.

85

And if we talk a little about Lightwave 2020, tone mapping finally…not sure how it compares to blenders…but I´ve been missing that in Lightwave.

I still need to install the demo, but I rather mess around with the latest blender build which I also need to install before checking Lightwave.

In Newtek forums I have been very harsch on the fiberfx renderspeed, not sure…some says you now can reduce the rendertime with some refraction samples…and that the quality should be better for the hair with new ACF shaders etc…it would be interesting to see how the actual hair rendering looks would compare to blender, personally from lw 2019 and comparing to blender 2.8 hair shading…I love the hair in blender…so for me Ivé stopped using fiberfx.

But I need to see more samples there from Lightwave 2020 fiberfx material and also see some speed improvements if I am going to try that out again.

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Well, gee, gosh, they really are pushing the boat out!

87

I don’t know man. We have to have a little empathy and at least a modicum of respect to the few people left developing. They are just doing their jobs. And they are continuing to improve the application with what little rope they have been given by NewTek who has long since pulled the plug on LightWave’s major push development wise.Unfortunately job security is not the thing that comes to mind when I think of these guys. Hope they will be OK. Maybe when the whole gig is up those guys can come and work at the Blender Foundation.

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88

I agree, this program which is also rightly criticized, was the one that allowed many to do graphics on the home computers, I hope they can soon catch up with others, it is not easy, many pieces of code are definitely obsolete and it will be a long re-code work, a software that is 30 years old, few survived, their mistake was they not begin reactive with changes around them, which has put many programs in crisis, that struggle to leave behind a glorious heritage.

I found a nice video about Lightwave, in Russian with subs.

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Oh for sure, I have no animosity to the devs, it’s the management that is and always has been the issue at Newtek. I am sure there have been ideas floated that have been shot down, “that’s not the direction we want to go in”. I get it, I really do, I fought for years to upgrade our software and only when we had lost a lot of customers, did the management finally cave and ask me to develop it. Sometimes ya just gotta grit your teeth and keep paying the bills.

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Bullet motors is already in Blender.

Bone dynamics can be done as easy as in LW with this addon.
https://github.com/SAM-tak/gen_rigidbodies

IKBooster like setup with this addon https://blendermarket.com/products/freeik
You can also use the AutoIK setting in pose mode.

91

Is this what you are talking about?
Industry Compatible Keymap

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92

That’s the puppy!

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Yeah. And I think we all more or less agree about that. I just felt like making the distinction because I imagine as a developer it could be frustrating having to know there are threads here and there with a mile long of negativity when they are working just as hard or harder and still putting out quality work. And I think both are true. I guess just a shout out, if you are reading… we get it. :slight_smile:

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Same applies to all the devs of all other DCC’s I would say.
My negative thoughts are always aimed at the management or other suits who make these decisions, i have no beef with the devs. A stable program that works well is a success that should be attested to them, mismanagement and stupid decisions should be blamed on the bosses.
Honor to whom honor is due.
I know i can be very emotional in my anger and be very foul mouthed and it might appear like a scattershot, but i actually do know the difference.

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95

Well said. Also the same for me goes with the app. And in this particular case with LightWave. It might appear at times I am “Hating on LightWave”, but I am not really. It is just frustrating to watch someone miss-manage a tool to the point you can’t use it anymore. And that you once put your trust in. And most importantly invested time in. It was no small decision for me to move from LightWave to Blender in 2008. But my eyes were wide open at that point. And I saw the aspersions NewTek was casting on the situation. And I watched as people got sucked into CORE. I just did not believe a word they were saying anymore at that point. When Rob came on board, at first I was not that impressed. But over time I saw that he really had some good ideas. And I upgraded to LightWave again. 2015. Took my chances. Waited…

The rest is history.

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Bullet motors is already in Blender.

Bone dynamics can be done as easy as in LW with this addon.
https://github.com/SAM-tak/gen_rigidbodies

IKBooster like setup with this addon https://blendermarket.com/products/freeik
You can also use the AutoIK setting in pose mode.

Thank´s Mikael, always helpful with providing alternatives.
More tools to mark as checked for a future crossover.

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97

This is looking very cool. It appears to look smoother than IK booster ever did.

But IK booster had some very strange quirks that made Character Animation never work or look right when it came to pinning. I did all of the tutorials back in the day and I was playing with it quite a lot. My conclusion was that it was not production ready. And the examples given by people like Larry Shultz even, god bless him, just looked off.

This rig, at first, looks like something is not quite right on the character stuff. Hard to tell if it is the guy’s skill or the rig kind of forcing you into certain behaviors or what.

To my knowledge there is no real good looking full body IK not even in MotionBuilder which has the best I have seen or used.

Overall like this though. It is a very cool find. Used tor the right purpose I guess.

Just my main suspicion is there is going to be some kind of gotcha someplace when it seems “too good to be true”.

98

Speaking of mismanagement (and beating dead horses):
I invested several months to learn XSI and put money to the side with the intention to switch to it half a year before it was killed off - i totally missed all the rumors of its impending doom ( or unconsciously ignored it ).
Back then i shrugged it off and went back to C4d for (a while), but now when I look back at it, I probably would have loved it. Goodnight, sweet prince, i barely knew you. :cry:
I still like Maya even if its a Frankenstein monster made up of dead plug-ins, but it puts me in a strange relationship with Autodesk, I like/respect some of their products but i absolutely loathe the upper management.
Similar with Maxon and C4d i guess, only that i kinda fell out of love with C4d itself - it’s still a nice tool, but it’s not for me, there is no future timeline i can see myself using it unless someone throw lots of money at me.
In regards to Lightwave - this one is special:
I somehow always stayed away from it - I admit I never had more than a very superficial knowledge of it, but I always felt that I was not really compatible with me and the modeller/layout separation was just absurd in my mind.
So in order to give it a serious chance, I was waiting for the unification of these tools…
Back then when I used C4d, Lightwave was clearly superior in a lot of disciplines, often things I would have needed, but the design philosophy of the program actively prevented me from accepting it as it was.
You may call me stubborn or wise :wink: but I had this instinct and sticking to it was a matter of principle for me.
I admit sometimes I looked down on Newtek and their inability to get the curve and some of that may have brushed of to the Lightwave users occasionally. (Sorry guys)
But if i activate my mirror neuron network then i can feel the pain of all the Lightwave users who see what their tool has become and what it could have been.
In this timeline some things are not meant to be.
All you can do is feel the emotional reaction inside of yourself, accept it as it is, adapt and move on (also rant on an online forum to your heart content).

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I must admit that I havn’t used the addon myself, but it looks way better or more stable than IKB. But as you say I never felt that IKB was really that good for CA work. It could be good for certain things but not a solution that will take traditional rigging away, not yet anyway.

This IK solver also look very promising. In the end of the thread you can also see the latest preview with a node based workflow. I don’t think it is released yet but looks quite powerful.
https://blenderartists.org/t/ghost-ik-virtual-inverse-kinematics-bone-physic-bone-ik-c/1101771

100

Just found out that changing pivot point in blender seems to be way more tedious than how you do it in Lightwave…at least for modeler.
If I haven´t missed something that is?..if there is a better way…jump in and correct me.

In Lightwave I just select a face or a point or edge, and go to layers and click on center pivot…Done, and if I set that as a shortcut even faster.

Also if I simply drop the mesh to ground I will have the pivot point at the bottom of the mesh, or drop to center and it will be there in the center of the mesh.

Now in blender…go in to edit mode, go to mesh…snaps…then cursor to selected, then go back to object mode, object then set origin, origin to 3d cursor.

Isn´t there really faster ways of doing this pivot change?

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Yes there is. Since 2.81 there is a new way to move origin with the move and rotate tool.

Try to rotate the pivot in modeler and see how easy it is. :grinning:

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Yes there is. Since 2.81 there is a new way to move origin with the move and rotate tool.

Try to rotate the pivot in modeler and see how easy it is.

Well…not sure what you mean about rotating the pivot in modeler, you can´t unless rotating just the mesh around the pivot, but I just use the transform tool with it´s rotate gizmos, and right click to set any desired face or point as a pivot point for that rotational action…then it´s just a matter of mouse dragging on the rotation handles, but keep in mind to choose pivot button for it to snap without the normal direction.

So what´s the problem with that Mikael :slight_smile:

Thanks for the tips in blender though…will check it out before I return with comments on that.