What Killed Lightwave?

General Forums Blender and CG Discussions
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But they are not worried about what other apps can and can not do. It is not the concern of some (very few) LightWave users. Sure they say they want new features and continued development, and everyone has a laundry list. They look at other apps and say cool. Nice! Love to have that! But these hard core users, if pressed on the issue, will admit they could keep using LightWave as it is indefinitely. I don’t see anything wrong with that. You can’t fault people for being satisfied. Some are still convinced a split app is better. And nothing will change their minds. Which is good for them, at least for now. Because it is never going to happen to LightWave.

The thing that would force hard core users of LightWave to move on would be lack of support. EOL would mean eventual depreciation and an app they can’t even open in maybe 5 years.

As far as I am concerned I can only imagine LightWave “support” is nothing more than VzTek PR.

425

I have to agree. Many of these hardcore LW users do just fine with what they have and won’t leave unless they are forced to. For me personally, I saw greater things coming with Blender, and it fit the way I like to work. I’m a graphic artist by trade, not an FX producer or animator, so I just couldn’t see sticking with LW when Blender fit my workflow much better. The split app never resonated with me, since one would usually crash and I’d lose work, or I found myself just trying to get everything out of modeler without having to spend time in Layout, which didn’t always work. In hindsight, I was on a sinking ship and a Blender lifeboat came along. :slight_smile:

The problem with sticking with LW is that the rest of the 3D world isn’t going to wait for LW to catch up… things are moving quickly and LW is going to be left behind as clients demand the same features found in X program, as in “look what such-and-such program can do… can I get that in LW?”. It may also get harder and harder to port work from LW to other apps as time goes by, since no one will need to support apps that are no longer relevant.

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426

Another thing threads like this (and you can include every thread about LightWave on the VzTek forums) illuminate is how well LightWave was loved as a product. I don’t mean blind,ignorant, fanboy-ism, but true respect it got because of what it delivered to an artist. For some reason, I think mainly because of the timing and the sort of maverick reputation it got by turning the industry on its ear at a time when getting into VFX was limited to a select few, LightWave loyalty has dug deep and resonated with a lot of people in a powerful way.

I mean look at us? Here we are, some of us long since moved on, and we are still wanting to talk about it. It is long since dead, and yet a part of us wants to still somehow keep it alive. So we rant against NewTek or share our original love, and the reasons we left.

It rivals XSI in this kind of user tenacity. And it was only a few years ago that people on the NewTek forums were praising NewTek because, thankfully they are not Autodesk, and this will never happen to LightWave.

The only problem is, it did. And infact as those people were speaking it was already in progress.

The main difference is that Autodesk was completely transparent in the process of shutting it down. They set the dates that certain things would happen long in advance and when those dates came they did what they said they were going to do.

NeTek on the other hand decided to completely snub what I think was probably the most loyal and true fan base any commercial software has ever had.

That is what makes this so tragic. It makes me wonder, who in their right mind would let this happen?

And if that was not enough, spend a considerable amount of time on their own forums intimating that the fan base has become toxic and negative, as if to point the finger at the community.

I don’t think it was any happenstance that did it. The fanbase did not just suddenly become negative and unmanageable. They were busy killing LightWave, and people were upset about it.

The only valuable thing left with LightWave is the trademark. They should sell that and move on.

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427

Yeah, I think you pretty much got that right. I personally got so tired of, “oh yeah, next release is bound to make a difference”. I find it odd, so much further down hte road and people are still clining to that belief. surely, after over a decade of screwing us, it must be better next time. I had that optimism for a long time, but eventually, I accepted that it was not gongi to happen, as far as I can determine, it still hasn’t for the things had been “promised” would occur. As you say though, I still hold a place for LW, but the company and their handling of it, not so much.

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All of that, I somewhat agree with, but to tell the truth, I don’t miss it and I can’t see myself going back to it even if it somehow gets off life support. It’s just too far behind other solutions and I don’t see it catching up any time soon.

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Oh no, I can’t afford to go back to it anymore, but that said, even if I could, I wouldn’t, my workflow in Blender suits my needs and then some. I only stayed with it for so long because of LWCAD, I’d of been lost without that.

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Nah man. My workflow is not based on any one software. I don’t know how I would manage that.

The reason we don’t use LightWave has more to do with an outdated licensing model than anything else.

LightWave had a lot of good things coming that any studio could have made use of. A clear and transparent development commitment as well as an up to date licensing model would have been enough for me to stick around and support it.

I supported it to the point that it was clear LW was EOL.

After that upgrading was out of the question.

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But why was that EVER thought to be a viable approach???

Stinks of programmer arrogance to me. --Was Blender Guru’s presentation the Great Turning Point or was it just coincidental?

To respond to Richard’s excellent precis: I think one the first signs of NewTek’s cluelessness was when they couldn’t wrap their heads around IKBooster, and didn’t bother figuring it out.

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The comment I remember from Jay Roth, as I recall, around the time of Core, was he pointed to this as an example of a mistake never to be made again. To hire a programmer, let him run amok with code no one could understand and then leave.

My personal opinion about IK Booster after spending a considerable amount of time learning it,using it, rigging with it, all the available tutorials and documentation, was that it never really delivered. And that the programmer kind of cheated the math to make it sort of appear to work, but it just fell short and was far too clunky to be a viable rigging tool. I still love it for what it can do and it has features that LightWave rigging could have used.

And so I developed the opinion that the real reason it was never fixed or integrated or developed further was that it was based on crap code to begin with and it would have had to be completely re-written.

A few years later when I got a hold of MotionBuilder for the first time, I remember thinking, “This is what was trying to do with IK Booster!” And it worked. And more. IK Booster never did - really. Or I should say not viably for professional-level animation.

Spline God, bless his soul, (and with all of the respect I have for what he gave the community and I learned from him) was completely wrong about that, I am afraid to say. He put up a good argument, but the stuff he was showing as examples for clients would not hold up as examples of animation that would have been broadly accepted ever, outside of maybe cheap documentary illustrations.

So there was IK Booster. And then there was the first attempt at joints, which I also learned. And used and rigged with. And found a similar theme going. Proton made a video about a reverse foot rig using Joints. I did it, did it again. Did it maybe a half dozen times. You gotta respect Proton! So finally when I was absolutely sure it was a bug. It was not me, and it was not working, I posted the scene file and did not have any problem getting my finding verified on the forums. So I reported the bug and never heard anything.

That was about the time I added it all up.

It was not the fact that the IK booster guy was let go astray, it was not the small happenstance that joints were completely poorly implemented (even without the bug I found).

It was not that still all the modeling tools needed to be rewritten. That Modeler was already outdated. It was not that bringing modeling tools into layout “did not work as we planned” and all the other many things that never got any address.

It was all of these things combined that were happening ,or not happening when they should be, under - and because of - poor management.

It was at that point 2008, that I predicted NewTek just did not have the ability to develop 3D. They were completely clueless. I predicted they never would. And it turned out I was right. Because there was a ray of hope with Rob Powers. And then they completely killed that off and went silent.

Could it be that the original developers went on to make Modo because they could see it was a more viable option than trying to fix LightWave, and then left LightWave in the hands of a management team that did not even understand 3D - at all? And then were tasked with the impossible? But they did not even have the insight to see it was impossible until they had wasted millions of dollars and a decade of time (2008-2018) stringing along the community?

It could be that simple.

This is the real reason LightWave is dead.

So… sell the trademark and move on.

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434

I realised that’s not what I meant, I kinda meant the inverse, the way my brain works and how I think, Blender fits my noggin’ better, it just seems more logical to me than how LW did it.

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435

Cool. Got it. :slight_smile:

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436

Nice one. So modify my statement as “by default.”. Great write up and very helpful!

437

Its funny, not knowing what other ways existed to even do things at all, I just plodded along with LightWave. Then as I started finding the limitations myself, I began asking for these things in LightWave. Finding them in Blender, I then later realized pretty much every other app had some version of these things. With the exception of the Blender key strokes which are sorely missing in other apps to their detriment not the other way around!

438

Yep, that’s pretty much how it panned out. I got so fed up of “why can’t I?”, that I just fell into acceptance mode. Once I started modelling in Blender, the snapping and edge sliding, extruding etc made life much easier. Don’t even get me started on Bevel vs LW-Rounder. :wink:
It’s funny how people got so comfortable with all the “work-arounds”, maybe because we kinda new Newtek was not likely to address thoe short-comings any time in the forseeable future. :roll_eyes:

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439

I wish that was the case for me, but if anything my mind works diametrically opposite from how Blender works. It’s akin to “reverse Polish notation” – obviously functional but completely alien.

For instance, I just struggled w/Proportional Editing to try (and fail) to get a Taper effect, and it seems completely backwards to how I would expect it to work, AND there doesn’t seem to be a simple way to exclude specific vertices from being affected: you can limit the range, but the ALL are affected whether they are Selected or not. IMO this is a fundamental inconsistency.

BTW, has anybody yet looked at the ‘spreadsheet’ features of 2.93? I haven’t yet, and have hopes, as I’ve found the layout of B. to be quite, uhh, the opposite of ‘compact’.

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I was just thinking the other day … I need a spreadsheet!

It is early development…

So we will see.

441

Are we still ruminating the inevitable death of an elderly DCC that is in the process of dying very slowly and painfully since like a decade?
Not sure If I am supposed to be impressed by its iron grip on hope (where there is none) and unwillingness to let go and accept death, or If I should pray to the gods for a Hero/Baddie that finally delivers the coup de grace.

I hope you are talking about an attribute spreadsheet editor, because that’s what I could need.
I actually don’t need it in 98% of the time, but when I need it, I REALLY need it.
Its not a trivial thing to implement, but it is still more on the easier side.
I hate to be that pessimistic, but I have a feeling that it will stay a spreadsheet, and not become an editor.

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442

One last point I’d like to make, then I’ll recede into the background… I occasionally still visit the NewTek forums and my observation of the majority of LW users there regarding Blender and LW itself is this:

  • They think that Blender is for hobbyists and is not capable of handling professional work.
  • They still think the Blender interface is a convoluted mess and hard to use.
  • A fair amount of LW users are holding on hoping VizRT is going to release a new and improved version at some point.
  • LW still works just fine for whatever work they are currently doing and they can use LW for many years to come without any updates.

I’m not criticizing anyone; I understand how difficult it can be to move on when you’ve relied on a tool to do your job for many years. We all have our opinions on LW and I think it’s dead in the water, but I empathize with those folks and I wish them well.

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443

This perception seems to be based on a correlation/causation problem.
The overwhelming majority of Blender users are hobbyists and amateurs that don’t do professional work.
While Blender has its limitations and might not be ideal for several pro use cases - I find that argument ironic, coming from Lightwave users. Blender is not the only player in town.
They can switch to Maya/Max/Houdini/C4d, but they don’t…which makes their argument reek like an convenient excuse.

They still think the Blender interface is a convoluted mess and hard to use.

Again pot and kettle but with a hint of truth. I agree that it is messy, but in comparison to that, what is Lightwave? Seems to me like a form of ambiguity aversion, but they have options and the majority of 3D artists proves them wrong (by using other tools than Lightwave successfully).

A fair amount of LW users are holding on hoping VizRT is going to release a new and improved version at some point.

LW still works just fine for whatever work they are currently doing and they can use LW for many years to come without any updates.

Still trapped on the first 3 stages of grief.

I honestly don’t understand that.
Its not THAT hard intellectually. It’s more of an psychological/emotional problem, which is also not really hard.
Compare that to kicking an addiction or learning Russian/Japanese/Chinese (as a Westerner).
Not only is it not hard - actually doing it makes their life easier and more fulfilling (not only in terms of working in 3D but generally).
Its passivity and resignation - which breeds mediocrity and stagnation.

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