Who is eric schwartz? My searches aren’t turning up any answers that make sense.
Here is the deal. The 90s are over. Yeah I lived through all of that. Stories abound. But isn’t it interesting how all of these threads eventually lead back to this?
And also to the Amiga. Also dead. Also misunderstood and mismanaged to the point it eventually was allowed or intentionally orchestrated to die off. Whatever.
The point is back in the day the Amiga was ahead if it’s time. Technologically way ahead of it’s time as a platform for common users that took years to be surpassed.
But it died off and it was surpassed.
One could argue - and many do - that this platform is still alive and has potential. I think recently someone started developing it again… And many over the years tried to “keep the dream alive”.
Fine.
Hard truth of it is that the Amiga is gone.
LightWave had many similarities to the Amiga.
Both were low cost alternatives to much more expensive systems.
Both in their own way were ahead of their time.
Both also developed a niche almost cult following.
Both had issues “getting accepted” in professional circles.
Both wound up being accepted and used in professional capacity. Amiga less so than LightWave of course. Because it died first.
Both were managed and owned by a company that either did not understand it or know now to continue to develop it or both.
The truth of the matter is that LightWave died the day Allen and Stewart walked away and continued their dream under another platform, Modo.
Because NewTek performed CPR on it for an additional two decades is besides the point. Does not matter how many attempts were made to perform organ transplants. And I speak on this purely on a technical level.
That users (self included) continued to find use for and leverage it’s power over the years is not an argument against this technical fact.
And if you are a LightWave user now and you find this offensive, just stop it…lol
Don’t invalidate yourself as an artist. And don’t read anything else into this. You are using the tools you see fit. And no one has the right to comment on that in my opinion.
And you don’t need to change the truth of this story to back up your personal preference and reasoning. Just stop doing that and acknowledge that you - in sound frame of mind - are capable of making up your own mind. Thank you very much.
I can tell you as a Blender user over the last 10 years that that line of thinking is not healthy for you as an artist. It does not matter. All that matters is you making the decisions you make for the good reasons you have. Period.
Take that advice or leave it. Up to you.
At the same time there is no evidence to suggest NewTek will actually correct the issue that LightWave fell behind the technologal curve due to neglect. None. Zip. They failed for nearly 20 years. And now they are completely silent.
If I felt there was any hope of this, I would be upgrading LightWave and supporting them as much as possible.
I wanted what Rob wanted. I wanted to see the LightWave organ transplant work, happen and move into the future. And I supported this publically often with posts like this…lol.
But when it was clear NewTek was not behind this and when Rob stated that NewTek did not have a clear vision for LightWave that spoke volumes to me.
So there you have it. Coffee break over.
Back to life…lol
VizRT will be the end of LW. Might not be this year, but definitely within the next few.
Several reasons. First and foremost, Tim Jenison is out of the picture. He sold his NT stock he’s no longer got any sway. Tim Jenison might be the only reason LW has lasted as long as it did. The only other person in management who at all was an advocate of LightWave was Chuck Baker. Now he’s retired. That only leaves Andrew Cross. Who doesn’t care at all for LightWave. The only time he’s stepped into the LightWave fold was when they were in the middle of firing LW heads of development namely Jay Roth after CORE and Rob Powers before 2018 came out.
Next, they have thinned their team. They got rid of their head of rendering right after they spent 3 years rewriting a new renderer for LW. Mark Granger is now gone after NT eliminated his position. They also got rid of David Ikeda, their only modeling engineer. They aren’t replacing either position. They had an ad for a modeling engineer on their site for something like 5 years (and it was filled with impossible qualifications) and they finally removed that last year.
They’ve lost a lot of star talent and key user advocates like William Vaughan, Oliver Hotz, Chris Jones, Lino Grandi among others… These were the kind of people who were keeping LightWave visible. They have all moved on. I’m not seeing any new ones coming along either, because most people in this industry have no idea that LightWave even still exists.
Many users have still not upgraded from 2015 after they created a brand new (CPU) renderer and threw out the old one. They left a lot of users flailing in the wind trying to figure out how best to use the new renderer or deciding they simply didn’t need to upgrade for it.
But another large reason is that LightWave is simply no longer relevant, the software hasn’t moved forward in any meaningful way, and they seem to have no direction or plans for the future. Modeler and Layout are still separated, Modeling has been stagnant now for almost two decades and no procedural options and they created a brand new renderer that is built on the CPU with no possibility for GPU acceleration when most of the industry is now taking advantage of RTX.
The VizRT acquisition is still not even a year old, once they see just how little LightWave contributes to their bottom line (which is probably negative), they’ll shelve it or try and sell it off. Selling it would probably be the best thing that ever happened to LightWave if it goes to a decent company. Its just a question of whether anyone would want to buy it.
I know for a fact that two quite notable companies have made offers to buy LightWave in the past. Newtek (more likely Tim Jenison specifically) refused to sell it. Newtek is a video company that doesn’t care about LightWave, and they were just bought by another video company that doesn’t give a crap about LightWave either.
If anyone is using LightWave, I’d say its finally time to jump ship.
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Right on point.
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I stopped using LW completely a few years ago – after they cancelled CORE and decided to stick with the modeler/layout system it was downhill for me. I think the fact that the department heads at NewTek refused to listen to their users and modernize LW to compete with other programs was their biggest mistake.
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If anyone were to buy LW, my money would probably be on a Japanese company.
And again, steve white and the rest of you are either misinformed or have been mislead. Don’t take it personally. Just understand that much of what you are discussing is factually incorrect, put in front of you by those who bet on the wrong horse and lost and always because of their refusal to accept or acknowledge their mistakes or motives being self-centered and disconnection from the real solutions to produce the most cost effective technology based products for customers. It’s a hard business to be in. Still in business, LightWave3D
is.
No worries. Sorry you are not ok with that. 10 years later. Or more. Some of us are very thankful for it because the alternatives are not what we want to use. So no woriries… right? ok. Cool… but steve… well… let’s understand that this next bit is a favor to you in the blender community courtesy of the LightWave3D community- the original redheaded step child of 3D programs and applications, much like blender.
He’s here to screw you on behafl of the other application born from LightWave3D and a hatred of newtek that really wasnt’ shared by all by sadly did damage to so many more.
He’s here to target with no thoughts of being inconsiderate of other factors most certainly, as he’s the same Steve that has been used in the past to try and cause further damage to anything any anyone associated with LightWave3D and its community. But now hiding motives more so than before.
Be warned, he’s here to make it seem like LightWave3D is dead but uses this to attract from your own community whatever and whenever possible for the one product he moderates a forum for that’s not really ever really been as big as people claim it to be. Not by a long shot. He’s predictable as ever and when he comes circling around smelling blood in the water… always the dead give away as to what is really going on.
Understand clearly, he has one purpose and that is to ruin and run. That’s it. Every time its perfectly clear that steve pops up and comments regarding LightWave3D and its future quoting from its past using misinformation or blatant lies about it, make no mistake its a ploy for certain. He’s be a problem for many many years and is associated with other hostile actors out there or those suckered by certain forces also hostile to NewTek for whatever reason. He comes to pick pieces off anything be it LightWave3D user base or elsewhere (which is why he is here, hedging bets and playing politics) who may consider another application complimentary or primary to their current one, because his own preferred product is on unstable ground (never was really - all that pain and drain came up short) or fearful of what may happen next. Or do I have that part wrong Steve?
After all you were supposed to be gone during the days of core, user no more right because it got cancelled? But then you were okay with it being pulled back into features for a few buy no fixes for the future with the “avatar” boy in charge. You backed him like many of us including me initially but on discovery of their ineptitude and hostile potential turning out to be exactly that tot he product and user base with their minion giving the commmunity the middle finger and walking with more than just a pink slip the back door than they deserved it seems, cleary showing again that when you come around and say its over, you are being sent out to do max damage for someone somewhere. Always first and foremost at NewTek’s expense, users paying the price. The push pulll battle you always seem to get yourself into the losing side of. When are going to figure it out that you are are like a bad omen for the entire 3D community. Not just LightWave3D which you keep saying is going to die but for over a decade now totally wrong about.
You keep getting parts right, bust mostly wrong on the motives and methods. It’s sad to because you are being used each time to do the work of people who are not doing so well themselves and in doing so, take from many more their potential to do more but now with much less. Do you get it yet? That’s the tragedy you come with every time. But the silver lining is, you proved me right again!
Anytime steve appears, his alias megalodon or “sharkboy” as I call him, gravitates towards the people who in our community keep getting it wrong… He’s like a shark to blood in the water each time. Perfectly named if you think about it and predictable each time. Any time he pops up, we know what is up and who is being stupid again behind the scenes setting up themselves to be next in line to try and take lightwave3d, to a new level, so they say or intend but found to try and being taking it out or a wrong turn. Their real intentions come to the surface really fast and on discovery or being denied further influence, they get picked off and flip. They try and save face by snapping up any of the members they are in immediate influence or camps with in our own community and thus breaking us all up further… the best community in 3D… which is recognized all over and not just made up, weakening the product because they can’t seem to kill it through other means.
How predictable?
ALWAYS ON THE EVE OF A NEW RELEASE…they do so with bitterness and intent to do more damage. Discovering unfortunately too late, they became part of the problem and have to double down because no apology is policy it seems when it comes to fucking up these days. At least for certain folks in certain circles in proximity to hollywood which has been gutted by its own over the last two decades. Sharks turning on sharks.
Steve is a clue any time someone is going to blow it and then trapped into not being able to back out of a bad move.
You know who I am taking about.
They take a one off mistake or a long term plan that goes side ways as being one and done and they are always stuck with a bad decisions with steve being linked to them and likely blatantly obvious as a parting of ways for being dumb or letting some power go to their heads. Unable to admit this they go full tilt even after it goes entirely the other way against them and caught once again for being on the wrong side of the bet. AGAIN AND AGAIN. Sharkboy is there.
Figure it out.
Like clockwork, the moment the next assumed (project?) messiah of modernity or industry cred, but in over their heads, come in poised to save the day and there you are. Buddy buddy, old shark boy. Chum in the water!! NewTek is doomed! LightWave is done!
Waiting to take the bait once again, you perhaps yourself on the hook, apply for the role of second fiddle flunky and the motives of the main player you latch onto every time is so familiar I’m amazed… there it again… it’s in the back round somewhere… the theme of John Williams score…your fin comes up, uncanny really. You clearly are a signal of what to steer clear of no matter how it comes up, when it goes down.
Every time, sharkboy. Every time. You come around as they start to make a move, they get in, new user or old, they get cashed up, hen discovered or denied for pushing in ways certain people cannot be pushed and they cash out off the back of the community. Make sure you get your cut this time so you can pay for whatever product you are on now or pirated in the past. In fact, put your money were your mouth is and give us your lightwave3D seat so we can give it to deserving person like a youth in trouble or poverty? You do that and I will spot them the training.
otherwise, please be aware stick out really bad for a lot of reason that are equality so and that everyone should know to steer clear of you including your present product preference and associates.
Whenever you appear you push the same lies and misinformation and those you get it from are clearly connected to the same small circle.
Either a victim of yours or their own doing. YOU ARE ALWAYS THERE and its time you are called out on it.
Because this time… we have a bigger boat. Smile for us! no need for your sequel or a reboot. We are not going away and nether is LightWave3D and the real enemy is market monopolies. Funny you hate NewTek so much. It’s products ended more than a few of them by other companies.
Maybe that’s why you hate them so much or connected to those who wish it harm. Modernity being what exactly? Yah. I don’t think that’s a real concern for which the monopoly product is something you understand or otherwise use as an example of saying one way or the other whats going to happen with LighWave3D, and that’s what scary for you. Fanboi or artist or hobbiest. You don’t use either of them! Wooops…
So here you are on a blender forum. Bashing away with a recycled plot line and false narrative that got boring the second time around, two rounds and over a decade ago. Have some respect for others and go do it on your own forum ok?
I will be expecting your license transfer notifications through the control panel on your account to be completed by mid morning tomorrow or whenever customer service gets your request. I will then contact a local outreach group to select a young person they identify as being in need. I will even put a machine together for them as much as I can on top of everything for training we have, just to go that extra distance and in doing so I want your commitement in public to forever remain off public formus with comments regarding LightWave and its community members and privately refrain from communications with any of them. That’s how much of a problem Steve is and desperate at the same time.
Sorry for the interruption blender community, but be on guard for him and those who suddenly find themselves in his proximity. Do what you must to keep them away from him if they are good people. The find out too often too late what he is.
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LOL Kelly, you need to seek professional help.
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Steve, Kat has nailed you 100% there.
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Shaun, you’re just as deluded as Kat is. Denial is not just a river in Egypt. I honestly fell asleep half way through Kat’s rambling so maybe he said something profound later on, I’ll never find out because I can’t read through a rambling that reads like the Uni-bombers diary.
But allow me to clarify a few things. First, I loved LW. Used it for the better part of two decades. But the way NT let it wither on the vine is just simply inexcusable. I mean, forget the way modeler is straight outta 1999, their failure to bring any type of architectural change to the workings between modeler and layout and still be relying on the shitty hub is just embarrassing. Their lack of direction is embrassing. Their failure to find a niche in 20 years is embarrassing.
Secondly, I’m not blind to Modo’s or Blenders shortcomings. Every application has them. On Modo, at least they know to focus on the one area that they do well in and that is design and asset creation. People mock that Modo is for ‘shoes’ but at least they have a market. What is LightWave’s market? It used to be TV, that’s largely gone. It used to be known for its modeler but since they haven’t developed the thing for so long, it can’t stand up against anything else out there. It used to be known for its renderer but now they’ve gone full CPU when the rest of the market is going to GPU. So what exactly is LW’s market these days and where are people using it? Nowhere is where. You still have David Ridlen who manages to work LW into a high end production like the Green Book and the whole community cheers and says “look see, LW is still relevant” And then David Ridlen complains how he never received any support from NT. How long will it before he moves to something else like Chris Jones or Oliver?
So my beef isn’t with LW, it’s fucking NT and its astounding that some people in the LW community don’t see it and aren’t pissed.
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Fact check
1.Tim Jenison is out of the picture. He sold his NT stock he’s no longer got any sway.
CORRECT
- They have thinned their team. They got rid of their head of rendering right after they spent 3 years rewriting a new renderer for LW. Mark Granger is now gone after NT eliminated his position.
CORRECT
3.They also got rid of David Ikeda, their only modeling engineer. They aren’t replacing either position. They had an ad for a modeling engineer on their site for something like 5 years, they finally removed that last year.
CORRECT
4.They’ve lost a lot of star talent and key user advocates like William Vaughan, Oliver Hotz, Chris Jones, Lino Grandi among others…
CORRECT
(however people do move on in this industry)
5.Many users have still not upgraded from 2015 after they created a brand new (CPU) renderer and threw out the old one. They left a lot of users flailing in the wind trying to figure out how best to use the new renderer or deciding they simply didn’t need to upgrade for it.
CORRECT
(i’ve seen this with other apps though to a degree - ie 3dsmax)
6.LightWave is simply no longer relevant, the software hasn’t moved forward in any meaningful way…
CORRECT
no one is buying lightwave for modelling, hasrdly anyone is using the “new” CPU built in renderer. it’s use in TV has evaporated mostly for 2020. there are some freelancers still using lightwave and hobbists.
Japan is probably it’s largest studio use base now.
The VizRT acquisition
Lightwaves long term future is uncertain at this point in time.
me:
let’s see what lightwave 2020 brings and see if it’s new owners have a vision for the app moving forward.
People still use lightwave, some like how it works, even it’s dual application. a lot of users use OCTANE not the built in renderer now so the ‘new cpu renderer’ seems a waste of dev time really.
it’s good to have 3d app options. let’s see what transpires
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I started my 3D career with lightwave, I have some fond memories of waiting 24 hrs for renders on my Amiga 500. Seriously though I wouldn’t be in content creation if it weren’t for LW. I used it from 3.5 to 7 then again when CORE was announced to support its development.
Lightwave had a glimmer of hope with the Lightwave CORE development but the gobsh1tes on the user forum didn’t think it ‘felt like’ Lightwave enough and the rest is a very sad history. Rob Powers killed LW3D’s chance of ever becoming relevant again when he steered the ship away from the promised land straight towards an iceberg. At the time the LW Community was pretending that LW played a big part in Avatar and kidded itself that under Rob Powers he’d see them right. He talked a good game but look where it lead…
CORE was unveiled too early and needed at least another year before being announced but it was their only hope and Newtek blew it by listening to a small group of anti-change zealots on the forums and Powers.
I can’t image why anyone would use LW3D today. A complete waste of time and money.
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I agree with you about the anti-change zealots (Kelly is probably the biggest among them), but I wouldn’t put too much blame on Rob or anyone else who has tried to steer a sinking ship caused by Newtek’s lack of interest in developing LW.
CORE was a disaster from the beginning. It would have taken years to get something that was even usable if even then. Whatever Jay Roth’s motivations were for bringing CORE to NT, it was misguided and poorly planned. That said, my take on it was that CORE was absolutely the right decision, it was just planned and executed so poorly, they would have been better off if it had never happened. In my view, it probably was the best decision to cancel CORE so for that I give Rob credit and under his guidance, the LW 11 series probably brought some of the best additions to LW that it saw in several years. The reality was that CORE was nothing like LW, nor was it living up to ANY of its design principles which sounded great on paper but in reality, didn’t amount to much. But again, I’ve always been in favor of starting over when it came to LW. But now, its too late, that ship has sailed.
The thing is, CORE should have never happened. But NT screwed over the original creators of LW. This would of been around the time between LW 7 and LW 8. They were developing something new then meant to be the next iteration of LW. Instead, NT as usual were total dicks and so the developers left NT and went and formed Modo instead with the work they had been doing intended to be for LW.
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But I also feel that it goes deeper than that.
And the history goes back before even LightWave existed as LightWave.
LightWave was dead when the original developers left in 2000.
After that it was managed into the ground by NewTek. The original developers knew LightWave was already dead. That’s why they wanted to start over. NewTek refused to support this and the rest is nothing more that a futile attempt at life support.
Seems to me they finally decided to pull the plug a few years ago so they they could cut losses enough to sell the company.
And after that was silence. To say anything would be to devalue NewTek as it would reveal what a major fail LightWave was.
I really think this is all that silence and cryptic nonsense and even flat out lies were about.
They were just trying to prop up NewTeks value.
Now this might be speculation. But. It is a hard fact that company mergers/buys take a long time to develop usually years and there is a lot of examination of the books and pofit potential.
Think about it.
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I think he would have. What I was completely not talking into account was the fact that NewTek was not financially capable of having his back. Much less any other idealistic support of LightWave.
I have made the point, many times over, that the new development plan for LightWave was a 10 to 15 year project. They wanted to start in 2000. NewTek did not support this. The original devs left and in 2008 finally NewTek comes to the conclusion this was the right path. But still unable to accept that this was a project that would take them well into 2018 and beyond they released shoddy plans and I am sure tried to hold the developers to it. And I am fairly certain that this is the reason for the turn over.
The reason most people hate on Rob for ending Core is because they bought the NewTek complete unrealistic projections of time which was the outside of a few years.
Prometheus here (newtek forums)
I agree that there are some disturbing signs with people leaving, no modeler enhancement in layout…and hardly in modeler at all, and the fact we only got a cpu renderer that makes Lightwave not fast to render anymore compared to Cycles for instance in many cases, and you often would need to bridge that with Octane for instance.
AS for the longivity of Lightwave and it´s future, I would guess that neither Kelly nor Steve sits on a direct channel to Viztr, or lightwave managements plans on to what they have in store for lightwave, it could be going of for years, it could come to a halt and discontinued within the next years…who knows, unless these two guys have true inside information, it will be speculation, advanced ones…but not that anyone of them they sit on the truth, which one of them will have the best speculation…that we will see in hindsight a couple of years from now.
Personally, I am a hobby user foremost now, even though I did some company renders 2012 with Lightwave, so as a hobby user I shouldn´t really invest in Lightwave, but finally I did, I am both glad about some features, and sadly dissapointed about others…and thus I am more and more switching over to blender, mostly because of the speed in the rendering, and native fluid tools that work in sync bullet forces as opposed to TFD.
Kelly has a lot invested in Liberty3D…and Lightwave, and a lot of projects I guess as well, so Lightwave will work for him for years to come, and I can´t wait to see what he is up to with those projects.
But yeah…there are worrying signs in my book, when we see people leave for other software like blender, and when I myself recognize what blender can do…and what Lightwave doesn´t do for me, that said, I prefer Lightwave in many ways as well…depends on what I would like to do.
I am however not connected to the vfx industry, or archviz or gaming industry to have any insight on how these companies feel about Lightwave and where it fit´s in.
Cageman is also a hardcore promoter of Lightwave for his Massive cinematic company, and they keep on using it there for now.
As mentioned, as an hobby user…I will probably not be able to motivate yet another upgrade unless it starts to adress things long awaited for, that is parametrical modeling tools in layout, and get native gpu rendering support, and the whole dynamics engine needs to be adressed with better native fluid tools than the gas solver today, or enhance it extremly.
Unfortunately I do not see TFD making it to the level it needs to be in Lightwave, it is missing so much compared to the blender fluids, except for the ability to handle very large simulations perhaps, which could be a huge difference depending on the scale/scope of the vfx.
That is why I feel it important that the Lightwave group starts to adress the fluids lacking features, which we all can get for free in blender…
1.particle advection (available in Cinema4D and blender, not lightwave)
2.weight emission (available in Cinema4D and blender, not lightwave)
3.fire and smoke in openGL at the same time. (blender)
4.PBR rendering without the need to convert to VDB (blender)
5.Bullet forces such as wind should work on bullet bodies, particle and fluids in sync, they do in blender but not in TFD which has it´s own forces seperated.
The fiberfx is the most dissapointing things for me in Lightwave, can´t stand the rendertimes VS blenders hair, which also feels more easier to groom with particle edit, VS guide brushing in Lightwave, even blenders cpu is rendering the hair faster, and yet even faster with GPU.
What I do like in Lightwave 2019, is still the new volumetrics…for clouds etc, easier to set up than in even houdini or blender…and that said even though they screwed up a perfectly good UI workflow for hypervoxels, and removed functions as making the volumetrics work on points, They don´t work unless using particles, sprites exist no more unless switching to legacy hv´s, then you can only render out in pases since you can not overlap with the new volumetrics such as clouds.
We also have some workflow broken, when surfacing that makes no sense, with pbr materials you always have to double click to enter the materials nodes, add the image node and feed it in the color slot, while in blender it works more like Lightwave used to work, you can right click on the channel and add texture, and it automaticly connects the image to the material output node.
Also…the whole tweaking parameters of the node in a panel when clicking on it, is gone, it worked in 2015 but is now screwed up.
Adding displacements have not become more convoluted as well.
Vdb tools are promising and exciting, but boy so slow to simulate and very poor openGL presentation.
Every user needs to trust the software ahead, and one major part is believing in the development, and when the company doesn´t make it clear on the investment of personal, nor giving information about what most of the users and other software users complaining about, modeling in layout…what is to be expected, people will loose their faith, unless you are hardcore using it in many projects already, like Kelly and Cageman for instance.
The reasons for Lino …who seemingly have been a hardcore lover of Ligtwave to go elsewhere, I have no idea…if it was something with the way he departured, or his belief in octane and blender simply attracted more, Chris jones taking another direction, earlier william Vaughan, Oliver going houdini…perhaps it´s just that they found something else that appeals to them, and not per say that Lighwave is bad…but obviously Lightwave isn´t enough for them anymore.
So…info about what resources they put in the development in the form of aquiring staff to cope with it, and some info on the long standing, layout modeler situation is needed…if not, these speculations is what is bound to happen, and itself could be a real issue for the trust in newtek and lightwave…and perhaps further sales.
Today, 3dSlider, a french guy who tried to develop Cycles for Lightwave, ended that project.
Seems he was feeling uncertain of Lightwave´s future, and he felt he didn´t get any support from the Lightwave team either, could also be that he don´t have the knowledge all alone to deal with the SDK.
if things change, he might come back he said.
Well I was certainly under no illusion about the task ahead. IMO, CORE deserved a chance and the fact it wasn’t at all like LW was a huge positive. I realise the management of LW was poor, it had always been pretty poor and amateurish, I was never a forum user and never kept up with the politics but as a user that was the impression I got.
The irony was that LW was the first 3D package aimed at Mograph, that was its job and to cede that ground to C4D was a huge blunder. When I was a LW user I used to look at C4D and think how expensive it was and what a horrendous renderer it had. Fast forward a few years and then everyone doing Mograph is learning C4D.
In the age of streaming and internet broadcasting I can definitely see what vizrt wants with Tricaster et al, LW less so because so many people in broadcast graphics are using C4D and you can export live straight into Viz Artist.
Yes that and I remember 16 colors and super long render times and a 512kb ram extension that was around 340 Deutschmark at that time
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OK, well, if you were under no illusion of the task at hand and do realize also what it would have taken, then this is how it would have played out, had NewTek supported the initiative to revive LightWave.
- in 2000/2001 they would have been in favor of reinventing LightWave.
- It would have taken until about 2011 to see anything that even resembled a “full featured” app that LightWave offered with rigging rendering and the whole lot.
- At around 2015-2016 or so, LightWave would have reimerged and been as full featured as it had been before, with a much more modern architecture and workflow.
Keeping in mind that during this time LightWave was getting an average of 1 to1.5 K per license. And they would not have likely been able to completely stop selling and supporting LightWave. Too much money to loose and userbase at steak.
There would have had to have been two streams of development - which is how it actually started and was proposed. And this would have had to continue this way for 15 years as the new baby app grew up alongside LightWave.
This is assuming a full on production without fits and starts.
Instead, this is what happened. Keep in mind it will still take 15 years:
-
In 2008 they start to anounce something they had been working on for a few years - so they say - on the side. A new baby app. LightWave CORE. Which by the way came on the heels of the community becoming extremely frustrated with the limitations of the product. Some of the heavy users already switching over to Softimage.
-
It is released in 2009. But they give it maybe 2 years to mature and start selling what were basically subscriptions to keep it going - along side LightWave - as a new project. I was around. I remember what was promised and what the expectations were. What they were promising was say, in 3 years tops - after they have to keep putting off the deadline - an app that will take 15 years to finish.
That leaves a deficit of 12 years of how long this will actually take.
- By 2011, (about 3 years) it is announced that they have to stop developing CORE as a product. And that instead, it will be included as a part of LightWave. Rob Powers introduces the idea to rebuild it part by part with CORE technology from the inside.
We are at the 12 year deficit point here. And Rob announces a 3 year plan to show some major improvements and to be able to showcase some of the core technology inside LightWave. He - smartly - does not promise it to be finished.
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in 2015 the first blog post showing some technology demos. Not bad. 1 year over due. But considering at this point we are now at the point that there are 9 years still to go.
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In 2016 Rob makes his last blog post promising an update and release soon.
Not bad, 8 years to go.
At this rate, a release showing (what showed up in 2018) would have been possible. Some form of the technology in a functioning LightWave. New Render Engine Some of the Hydra Technology in Layout.
What we did not know…
A year or more was lost possibly an entire 2 year development period was lost as they basically fired everyone and told them not to say anything.
Silence on all fronts.
- 2018 LightWave is released. But we have to deduce through various cryptic messages from Rob and Lino and the obvious - Burbank offices have been closed for 2 years - that no one is left developing LightWave but maybe 1 guy. And it took this long to release because, well. He was the only one left developing.
So now we have to tack another 1-2 years wasted time onto the deficit.
But now we have to account for the fact that it is only one guy.
- LightWave is updated. Not surprisingly it does not look much different than 2018. There is only one guy now.
And here we are 2020, another 5 years to go. (2 years taked on because development was more or less halted and left to one guy)
But to the point. we can say CORE; The thing everyone was waiting for to be done and would have been the thing to do would be finished in 3 years time from now, 2023 about 15 years from the start.
So lets say we lost 2 years switching over to developing it in LightWave, then realistically Maybe 2025 now.
So now if you don’t think it would have taken as long to develop CORE as it would have taken to develop it in LightWave, I can give you that. But it would have still taken another 3 years. 2023 just to get something that looked reasonably well as a product. With a lot of improvements to come.
Now we lost what 4 years since they shut it down? And now we have one guy developing it?
That means tack back on those 4 years minus one guy working this whole time. I don’t know. Tack on another 3 years? So that puts it out to 2026.
And there is only one guy now so…
LightWave is mathematically dead, no matter how you look at it.