Vizrt shutting down Lightwave( rumours)

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1

Well…we now know that a couple of developers recently left the Lightwave team and newtek.
Newtek themself hasn´t made any attempts to state something about it…which is worrysome.

some speculations on the Lightwave forums and then this showed up …

See link…or excerpt down below…

Some folks on the Lightwave support page claims they sit on inside information…

"“VizRT ARE shutting LightWave down. They’ve already started firing people.
I’ve spoken directly to a number of “insiders” and here’s what’s confirmed from multiple sources.
Despite a multi-million dollar bid for the software from a third party with a long track record of supporting LightWave, VizRT withdrew from the deal at the last minute.
It seems that they were looking to move some of the developers across to the Video division, and were afraid that those guys would leave to join new company.
I’m told this was down to Andrew Cross, and that he’s operating in a vacuum, largely without the knowledge of the upper management at VizRT.
The people looking to buy LightWave have a roadmap for the future, and I really feel like they’re getting robbed, as are we.
What can we do? Make a lot of noise to begin with. Let’s make VizRT aware that tens of thousands of us have our own investment in LightWave.
If you’re in the US call the NY office: (212) 560 0708
If you’re in Europe call their HQ : +47 5523 0025
Writing a letter wouldn’t hurt either, but I feel like swamping their switchboard might be a better way to get their attention!“"

2

MI65 starting a Lightwave is dead rumor thread, that doesn’t sound good for those still using the app?

It had a good run at least, a once pioneering app. that (unfortunately) got caught in the downward spiral of budget cuts, which led to smaller releases, which led to users leaving, which then led to more cuts. That spiral is often hard to get out of unless you can create some killer new feature, product, service, or workflow (either that or your competition winds up stagnating).

3

I don´t see why you would put such emphasis on me? guess it´s your notion of me as the biggest lw defender around perhaps? but any such notion if such… is plain ludicrous.

I was sceptic to how it may turn out 4-5 years ago and have been more sceptic for each year, that doesn´t mean I have lost my crush on some features and some workflows on it.

And had you followed me on Newtek forums, you would have seen that I sort of stopped upgrading since 2019.

So no…don´t put any trust in what I just repeated as a post here, you should put more trust in the guy who posted in on facebook and some other guys that has been betatesters, not me.

That said, if there still is biders on it, I reckon it might be best if they can sell it to another software company that develops similar software and not video tools, that way they can probably utilize resources from developers working with the various tools, and I will get my new forum as well since I haven´t been that happy about the usibility over at newtek forums.

Octane is rumoured.
Unreal? have no idea, but Cageman working at Ubisoft Massive…said Lightwave had the best bridge connection of all the DCC software, it there is an interest.

We will have to wait and see what news vizrt and newtek produces, if they manage to sell it, it may actually be a chance for it to be revived, but that´s a long way to go I think.

4

I’ve been hearing lightwave is dead since 1995.
Even if it did happen I probably wouldn’t believe it.
Just something else to round off 2020. :slight_smile:

5

Who didn’t see this coming? LW has been dead for a while, IMO, so it’s no surprise to me. If they shut it down, I’ll be somewhat sad, but it doesn’t bother me since Blender is my main 3D tool now and has been since before NewTek canned CORE. That, to me, was their biggest mistake and they are still regretting that.

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6

It´s just a rumour…as not reliable confirmation has been brought forward, and as someone here said, such rumours were floating the seas from 1995 as well.
Sbowie has commented on this, yet not confirming anything…just pointing out certain things around rumours going on.

So no clarification, I have urged him to try and reach Andrew Cross and get him to say something about what is going on now in terms of that bid rumour and some of the devs leaving.
But so for Nada, that is how they like to conduct the Customer communication game.

Personally I can only see it damage them more in the end, no matter what is the truth behind the rumours, how can new customers put faith in to such conduct?

So for me, I have no real clue on what´s going on, nor insight in it…I can however be sceptic to if Lightwave is vibrant in managing and developing, and since Andrew and none in the newtek staff is commenting on it…that´s the brainchild they are giving birth to, and they should know that by know.

For me though, yes I would be sad too if these rumours are true…or bad in terms of shutting LW down, then again I sort of have had a feelign that there is too many pieces that isn´t working all around everything lightwave related, from marketing, developers or other staff leaving, the lack of forum maintainance/development, galleries becoming lesser, users dropping off…not much of plugins update, and then what is finally released in the software that isn´t what I excpected either in feature, or improvements or amount of implementations.

Also a part of why I decided it was time to shut down any upgrade til I can get a better picture of what is going on in the development, company (vizrt/newtek) and with Lightwave itself.

But I think I have spent too much energy on the rumours now…as many others, better to focus on other stuff since I actually haven´t used lightwave much after I stopped upgrading anyway, so there is no need to putt to much emotions on it.

7

Rumor or not it doesn’t appear good. If LW development was coming up with some whiz-bang new version, don’t you think there would be some form of hype build-up from NewTek/VizRT? Wouldn’t you want folks to get excited and start saving their money for a new version? No company that’s about to release a super-duper product keeps it quiet until the day it’s released. The silence speaks loudly.

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8

sorry, but Newtek reacted waaaayyy better to such rumors than they did in the last 3 versions. Especially that - “not deny / not confirm” - modus operandi we seen in the later stages of 2015 and upward in the forum fuels more fud, than any rumor do for itself.

9

Some folks over a Newtek forums, responded on an official comment from newtek, they seem to think it was good news and sort of more projected a feeling that development is currently very vibrant and ongoing, while I see it as not the case at all, they refuse to say anything about future development, they make that very clear in to paragraphs.

About the staff leaving, they are simply stating there is a change in the sense that the LW dev team will be a part of the Global product line team, which could of course mean both dismantle and move of Lightwave tech to their other brands, but no real Lw development, and it could also mean better things.

That´s the sum of their lack of transparency and ambigous statements.

I wrote this on newtek forums as response…
"They do not talk about future plans or development, ergo…we will not find out unless betatesting perhaps or from any maybe future release.
And no…I do not see it in the cards that something will be released, the support and reference to previous sale in this summer, that is not about any development going on as I understand it, they support bug and plugins, but they can not allow themself to simply just say, yes…we are continuing right now to work on the next release, that is all they have to do…not when it will be or what part will be adressed, though the later would be of value for many.
Should we interprete 3D technology as important for them to equal Lightwave? that is not what they are saying though, while they really could.

Feels like there´s true slippery politician in the end of the communication, to not be clear on what to expect, you can then not be held accountable for any direction taken later.
The statements of intergrating the LW team to the global product team, could be great…but for us as customer to respond to it´s cryptic message, could also be a speculation that Lw will not get much attention while they
may extract part of it in to their other product line.

I am very sure that I am not a fraction of the LW user group that will have this feeling, thanks to the uncertainty of wether or not there will be future development or not, they do not answer at all on that.
O well , I am just a bit dissapointed with such cryptic messages and non transparency that just keeps customers in the dark over again, so I guess I am just too tired of it and have to back of from future comments on this and follow my
***other plans, it will show in time anyway and in Lightwave releases where the engagement is in, so it may very well be that they can prove something in the end. ***
I do not see it as any particular good news, just more cryptic calming, anything related to future development, or current except bug fix and support, it just put in an ambigous context.
As for the change in staff, it is a bit clarified that the LW team now will be included in the global product line development, which could affect Lightwave negatively as well as positively,
***it´s open for a customer speculation pick with such policy of communication transparency around their development. ***

To me I do not see they did a statement they consider Lightwave as part of their future, that is not what they really say, they just recognize their recent sales and it´s importance, for future development they say absolutely nothing, that is mention in two paragraphs, including a direct answer to…“will they continue to develop lightwave” where the answer is neither no or Yes.

Supporting it is a bit different from developing, they can at least reveal that, but makes sure they have an opening for something around development, add to that the fact they are bringing the LW team to be a part of their global product line, and what that possibly could mean for the LW development.

So No…I don´t have a good feeling about that communication, though it was good they said something, while not really being transparent about it.
I simply loath people being ambigous, as well as a company and it´s leader having such policy approach, it never instills any trust personally or for me as a customer. "

For me, all this just sums up that I should continue to focus more on blender, and possibly houdini and other vector, fractal art, and let Lightwave stay in the closet of unknown future event, until I get some abstinence for certain task in 3D I think Lightwave does nicely, then I may fire it up…but I will not even go through the hoops of checking out the latest releasel properly, nor upgrading, nor making Lightwave vids.

Basicly though, I think vizrt doesn´t know what to do with Lightwave yet, themself not really sure wether to deprecate it fully, or to sell it, or to transform it completely.

Right now it seems they need to re-organize their staff and see where they fit best in for the overall productline, then they would need to replace Lightwave coders that just left, and ergo…they can not be sure of what to do.
That´s what I guess.

10

Here is the official statement, for everyone to interprete…
https://blog.lightwave3d.com/2020/09/lightwave-statement/

Excerpt, initial comment is ambigous, suggesting something that could be interpreted as they may be working with the future development…
It would have been enough for them to say just that to avoid further speculations, but they also answer specificly that they do not answer if Development will continue or not…

Q: Will development continue on this product?
A: We have just released LightWave 3D 2020, which has been well received by the market and our immediate focus is on supporting the adoption of this latest version. As a company (and like most companies) we do not talk about our development and future plans for our products.

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11

LW was dead over 10 years ago, if anyone is truly shocked by the situation they haven’t been paying attention.

LW IP will likely live on in VizRT’s god awful software suite that’s the best that can be hoped for. vizrt’s software is laughably bad, so bad that LW looks like a modern 3D DCC in comparison. LW started life as the in house 3d titling package sold with an expensive dongle and it looks like it’ll end its life that way. I expect vizrt visuals to feature lots and lots of clouds now.

Perhaps it’s positive news, maybe vizrt have more scruples and can’t bring themselves to milk the LW faithful for easy money like Newtek did?

12

That is of course the truth, no user have been able to get Lightwave to work after 2010, and no one have had the ability to use it in production, thus what I did for my company at that time and what everyone else has been doing and still are doing today for film and tv, that is just fiction.

Some people are just bad in clarifying the truth about the situation, like newtek and vizrt, some people just distorts the truth.

13

And yet here we are…

There’s no bigger distorters of the truth than the LW faithful who kept telling themselves LW was still relevant despite it not being the case for well over a decade.

What is Hollywood going to do without LW? Shut up shop and close down or no one actually give a f*ck and carry on not using LW?

I suppose the requirement for clouds wasn’t that great in the end?

The smallest :violin: in the world plays…

14

The statement “we do not talk about our development and future plans…” kinda says it all. Compare that to Blender, which has a clear roadmap and is very transparent with the user base. Like I said before; wouldn’t you want your paying customers to know what’s down the road?

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Many companies hide behind the Sarbanes-Oxley law that prevents publicly traded companies giving forward looking statements.

However, there is nothing to stop a company saying to their userbase that LW is still in active development and supported going forward. LW continues to be of interest to us as.

Vizrt could easily say this without falling foul of the FCC by making specific forward looking comments. The fact they haven’t, as you say, kinda says it all.

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…as you said, open for your own interpretation.

Well that will shut down the rumor mill, will it?

I strongly believe that there is a market for a commercial 3d package in the lower price end…without subscription…and downsizing might actually open doors for new projects. (like stacking up the modeler department)…(this doesn’t mean I’m not sorry about the loss of those people, wich I am)

BUT this response reads like its written by someone who wants to be honest, but only got a handfull of quickly drafted notes on a yellow postit from upper management …

17

That is not the truth, you are ignorant of the fact that it is still used and have been used for some movies up till today and tv shows, the fact that it isn´t as popular doesn´t change that.
Your statement is pure arrogance based on the background that you hate that company, and probably the software.

Lightwave still does handle that kind of volumetrics better than blender with reference to noise based only clouds, Lightwave has a much much larger set of specially designed fractals to choose from, and it is way easier to set up and get going with that stuff.
But what´s the interest of that from you, you never use that and have no need for it.

and I may return to work on that later, but it depends on development.

One of the largest game companies in the world uses Lightwave in their pipeline for cinematics.
Massive/Ubisoft

David ridlen uses it frequently and did some vfx in a movie that won an oscar in 2019, what you think of the kind of movie or kind of effects is up to you, but there are more examples.

Jet Cooper uses Lightwave constantly still up till this day for movie props, the producers…if necessary buys in licenses for what he needs in terms of software.

I would urge you to shut down your first steps towards personal mockery or you will just bring this thread up to a flame war again, and it´s quite unnecessary if you have the smartness to understand that I am not happy with how Newtk/vizr is communicating and I also find that I need to change direction.

So you could just relax and chime in with me where we agree, or continue to have your peculiar feelings and mock comments towards me here on the forums and go about that in some kind of war and see what that leads us here in the forums.

What ever I have said before as you somehow perceive me as a Newtek defender…that has not been any contradiction to any of that…not for what it pertained within that period.

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I have left my opinions now on Newtek forums, but it will be enough with that since there isn´t more to say there.

I have said that what comes through in their statement doesn´t sound honest and just opens up for speculations even more, not fair and trustworthy towards a customer…

Excerpt…
They don´t have to tell us their full goals, but rather be more reliable in their proposed intentions…and honest towards customers about the situation, they either doesn´t know, or know exactly if they are intending to continue development, and withholding that information from customers is an illservice to both the customer and in the end themself.

Sales office: Here you go, we have a 3d product for you, buy it, it is alive and is sold, we maintain it…but be aware, you can not be sure we will continue to develop this product for any future upgrades, that is our policy, that means we can not Confirm That is Our intention even.

Customer: Thanks but no thanks, no pig in the sack please, there are other products and companies that at least informs about the product development to at least being under development or continued to be developed for the current time being.

19

Didn’t you just upgrade to 2019?
Do those two heads know of what the other is speaking? Hilarious

20

We are 9 months in to 2020 now, so your reference to upgrading to 2019 as “just”, I have a hard time to see that as “just”.
My latest version is 2019.1.5, but I didn´t upgrade to 2020.

Yes I do, if you do not understand, please point more specific to what line in the discussions you do not understand, and I will try and explain it for you.