Newtek/Vizrt have just sent out an official message that LightWave 3D is switching owners at the end of this month.
The new owners are LightWave veterans who plan to update the software to match the competing DCCs’ feature set and turn it into a competitive product once more.
Based on the information released so far on the temporary Discord thread LightWave’s split architecture (Modeler and Layout) will, for time being, not be unified into one app.
A FAQ is expected later today.
The new team will have a momentous uphill struggle ahead of them. That said, being a former LightWave user, I am happy to see it revived.
What they also need to do is hire Lightwave’s old plugin developers, so even if they do not at least pursue a ‘source available’ model for license holders the community will end up having a lot of influence on its revival.
They also need to document every big mistake Newtek made and make sure they do not repeat them, as the new team cannot afford to make any if they want to bring Lightwave back to where it is again being used in TV shows and other productions like in its glory days.
Then there’s the price, they will probably want to start with perpetual licensing at mid-range prices if they want to have a chance at rebuilding the community (as for one thing, it will actually re-introduce a mid-range, which has largely been extinct since Carrara and Bryce ceased development).
I got the mail about acquisition too, but I’ve not seen any official info indicating LW development would be resumed. It all sounds just like rumors so far.
Most communication seems to be on the Discord they set up as a stopgap.
Andrew Bishop, the person behind the acquisition has answered a few questions over on the Newtek forums.
The most explicit information from the forum about future development I came across was this.
Initially with LW we need to finish the last set of planned updates and de-bug the existing software, we also need to complete the updating of the code (which had a load of work done on it, but is incomplete). Then we need to add some functionality that would allow LW to be competitive with current software.
We also need to further develope the tools we have that are currently highly competitive such as Unreal Bridge etc.
It is not like they have a high bar to beat for initial development. Once they get familiar with the code, they might be pushing more user visible changes in a day than what Newtek called a year’s worth of development in the last release under VizRT.
Oh, and various users will probably be happy they don’t have to face abandoning the Spline Bridge tool (because of it being attached to dead software).
And indeed, Lightwave is in fact getting up and walking again.
They have it really tough, who knows in what condition the software now is and how much tons of work needs to be put into it in order to get into an operational state.
Eventually in the far future the final point is that they go for a subscription based licensing as well, since there is no other way to make the company viable (based on the conditions and competitors). So whoever good people are willing to support the software must not be surprised and get angry when this happens.
While I’m pleased that LW isn’t dead, I won’t be going back… too much time has passed and Blender has passed it by lightyears (no pun intended). The split software, ancient interface, destructive workflow, and lack of features are just too much for me at this point, not to mention cost.
I personally think it’s a weird decision. I think it might be based in nostalgia. The core code must be ancient and a nightmare to maintain and update.
The only viable solution I see here is to keep the trademark and build the new software from the ground up keeping the best features from the old design/architecture and updating it for the current and future needs.
Only then maybe there could be a success story. Otherwise, I highly doubt it.
I still have a working copy of LW which runs on my PC. In those days my goto 3D on my Amiga 4000/060 was Imagine, although I had Caligari24, POVray and Real 3D2 as well.They were all very clunky back then and history took me away from 3D. Having fairly recently become totally obsessed with Blender, I am very unlikely to move back to any ex Amiga packages that I would need to subscribe to.
That makes me even more skeptical to be honest. “We need to update and debug the software, then we also need to update code and then we need to add some features to be competitive with other software.”
That’s very unspecific and very obvious statement at the same time, but catching up with other DCCs these days is extremely hard unless you have A Team, and if you don’t have excessive amount of funding to begin with, you probably don’t have an A Team.
And lastly, if you really had an A Team, I am having hard time believing such A Team would decide to start fixing up 30 year old software architecture instead of starting from scratch.
Has there been many new polygon dcc apps in last 10 years? I feel like most have roots back to 90s. I think Rocket 3F is newest from 2017? Unless it’s also based on something older.
Some, not much, but most of them kept up with the tech… Such as migration from DX/OpenGL viewports to things like Vulkan or DX12, so that they can support modern graphics feature such as ray tracing and micro meshes.
Replacing a viewport tech alone is a huge undertaking, and it doesn’t help when the tech you are building it into is 30 years old.
Then there are modern standards like principled PBR shaders/materials, USD, alembic… Modern animation systems, modern path traced renderers, and so on. By modern path tracer I don’t mean their “Volumetric PBR renderer” they teased years ago, I mean something truly modern, that supports nVidia Optix, AMD HIP, and/or Apple Metal.
Then, there’s whole new age of procedural content creation. Node based modeling systems… etc.
People are just really used to modern tech and workflows these days, so polished Lightwave just isn’t gonna cut it, especially if it’s the ancient one separated into two different executables based on what you do.
You are exactly right. I think it’s too much of a challenge to update 2 apps at the same time, all the while trying not to break functionality between the two. The OP title is quite on point: Reviving LW is like trying to fix a Frankenstein’s monster – It will walk around and moan, but it will never be like the real thing.
The biggest challenge they face is something they have no control over, public perception. The public’s perception of 3d tools has always been a bit off. Now people literally expect everything in real time and think AI can just make all the things. My boss thinks 3d modeling is dead and everything can just be downloaded and thrown into Unreal for “real time rendering”. Any DCC app that does not have a gpu accelerated render at this point is pretty much doomed.
I’m really happy about this news. Lightwave has never been an overpriced, unstable monster like all the Autodesk stuff. It’s track record in film and television speaks for itself. Still one of my favorite apps for modelling. I also like the workflow with the two apps being separate. It can still do a lot of things Blender can’t. Looking forward to see what they do with it.
Well, I think it is a bit more complex than, just, “Can LightWave survive in this modern world?”
There are a lot of factors at play here. And it is not going to be that simple. There are a lot of little boxes that the new owner will have to check off. And if they do it right, they might have a chance. And also there are several things they could do wrong and be shortsighted about. There is definitely the potential for that, being a old timey LightWavers themselves.
And rebooting LightWave from the ground up was never going to work anyway, so that would be a useless. pursuit. Though at times it has seemed like trademark was all that was left of LightWave under the old owners.
But now, the best thing for LightWave, regardless of the outcome, is that someone has it who at least cares about LW enough to do the work.
They probably had a good look at the books, and made a business decision they felt they could manage. How they manage that will determine the sucess.
LightWave is not ever in any foreseeable future going to come out all clean and new and modern. There is just too much work. But I don’t think it has to. If they play it right, get the pricing right, and listen to the users and do some proper marketing, they could continue to eek out the niche market that LightWave has always enjoyed.
And I do think that market it there. Even with Blender thriving and people like me, probably never going back to LightWave for a major production.
