LightWave - Animating the Light Fantastic
Written: Sep 21 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Superlative rendering, excellent modeler, and user friendly.
Cons: Character animation and texturing is lacking.
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| dlamarrx's Full Review: NewTek LightWave 3D 5.6 Upgrade Version Academic L... |
On a pure dollar for value basis, there is no more powerful 3D animation package on the market today than LightWave 3D. From the simplest flying logo to photo-real Hollywood movies, LightWave can and does deal with almost every demand placed on it.
The list of TV commercials, video games and movies that have used LightWave to create their graphics is enormous and seems endless. Here is a very small sampling. Computer games include: Daikatana, Kiss Psycho Circus, Deus Ex, Resident Evil 4: Code Veronica, Roller Coaster Tycoon, and Roller Coaster Tycoon Corkscrew. Movies include: The X-Men, Scary Movie, and The Nutty Professor II. Also, LightWave [6] is used exclusively for all of Time Magazine’s 3D graphics.
In The Beginning…
The Video Toaster for the Commodore Amiga had just been released. I stopped by the local computer dealer to check it out. There, I was led into a backroom, where a small video editing suite was set up. In the center, bathed in a small pool of light sat the new computer. The salesman said, “Go ahead. Sit down and try it out.” I sat down in front of the computer, loaded up LightWave, and with a click-click here and a click-click there I was animating my first scene in no time at all. In less than two minutes I was a convert – NO, I was a 3D animator. Never had I found a program as intuitive, as straightforward, and as easy to use as LightWave 3D.
That was in 1992, when you had to own the Newtek Toaster “dongle” in order to use Lightwave 3D. That day started me down my current career path – that of 3D animator and digital artist. In the intervening years, LightWave has gone through five major revisions, The Toaster is no longer required, and it’s no longer limited to just the Amiga.
The Basics
LightWave has two modules, one for modeling, the other for animating. Model & surface creation take place in Modeler while animation, texturing, lighting and rendering happen in Layout. LightWave uses a non-standard user interface for both programs - though they do match each other. This can create some initial confusion with new users long use to the WinNT, SGI, SUN, Amiga or Macintosh interfaces, however the beauty of this system is threefold.
First, it creates a standard user interface across all platforms. Next, it releases the programmers from the strictures and weaknesses inherent in each system interface, allowing them to create an easier, more user-friendly interface. Finally, it makes LightWave much more stable and less effected by constant computer system interface changes on any platform. This also allows the programmers to easily make LightWave interface changes on demand.
LightWave has a long list of basic features that come standard – no plug-ins needed. There is no need to list all of these features here, as they are available on the LightWave web site. Suffice it to say, most meet or beat the competition across all levels.
The Good
As mentioned above, LightWave is platform agnostic. It works almost identically on a Macintosh or a PC, and on a Sun or an SGI. If you have multiple processors, it is multi-threaded and takes advantage of them.
LightWave boasts the best ray-tracing rendering engine in the market. It is so good, that LightWave is consistently used to create stunning TV commercials so realistic – so photoreal, that not even the experts can tell the difference between LightWave and reality. For proof, I encourage you the look at the photo gallery at www.lightwave6.com. I would also draw your attention to the Pontiac Grand Am "Metal City" commercial - every element of which was created and animated in LightWave.
Newly added with version 6, radiosity and caustics give LightWave a staggering rendering advantage over the competition. Radiosity, a function that computes how light interacts with and reflects from surfaces, allows the animator to light more naturally and creatively. Caustics are the refraction’s that light creates when it passes through a transparent object such as water or glass, and are just one more step forward towards natural, reality-based rendering.
Polygonal modeling within Lightwave is not only powerful it’s easy. Of course, it has the usual complement of primitives; Boxes, Spheres, Cylinders, and Cones - the standard collection of boolean functions; Union, Intersect, Subtract, and Add – and excellent NURBS (Non-Uniform Rational B-Splines) features, which Newtek calls "subdivision surfaces," but what makes the modeler truly stand out from the crowd, is just how easy it is to create anything. Others have compared modeling with Lightwave to how a sculptor uses clay. I find that the modeler enables my creativity – encouraging me to experiment and grow.
For me, as a former videographer, what I find easiest within LightWave is the animation. The layout module is arranged so that when you set up your scene, it closely mimics the process that you’d go through setting up a stage in the real world. Models are imported into layout and placed on the “stage.” The camera allows you to use real world settings. You have true RGB lights that include distant, point, spot, area, and linear (think florescent tubes) lighting, all available in a moments notice, and with infinite variation. Place your subject on the “stage” and point the camera towards it. Put up a light, point it towards your subject, and animate it. In about the time it takes me to write about it, I can set it up.
Free network rendering adds a huge amount of value to an already impressive package. The user buys just one license, but can render on as many computers as they have available. Most other 3D packages either don’t have network rendering, or charge you a large premium for the privilege. If you need to get a project out of the door in a hurry this one feature alone can save you time and money. It frees up your primary workstation to be used for what it’s best for – creation, while allowing your projects to render in the background on any and all computers in your network.
The Bad
Far and away, Lightwave’s biggest weakness is in Character Animation. Creating effective bone structures and expressions is painstaking and difficult. This weakness has been addressed in LightWave [6] by both giving greater control over the animation of bones as well as incorporating more intelligent use of bones within the modeling process – exactly where it belongs.
Texturing has always been a mixed bag with LightWave. On one side, some of the procedural textures are the best default textures around, and the standard set of projection maps are basic but effective. To be effective, character animators need UV maps. Until version [6], it lacked this feature. There were partially effective plug-ins available, but even those were problematic at best. The UV maps in version [6] are an improvement, but much work needs to be done to make them useful and effective.
The End
I’ve tried other 3D animation programs, but found them to be much less user friendly and not nearly as customized for doing broadcast TV graphics as LightWave is. Most of the other programs on the market are either too expensive, too difficult to use, lacking on quality, or just not capable of handling the type of day in and day out grind that I put LightWave through.
I have been using LightWave week after week now for over five years. I’ve made flying logos, bouncing cell phones, wriggling critters, fluttering tinkerbells and any number of other animations. While I’ve occasionally run into a few creative walls, these have almost always been caused by my own lack of knowledge. In the end I’ve always been able to satisfy my own and the clients needs. And after all, isn’t that what’s most important?
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
dlamarrx
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Location: Seattle, WA
Reviews written: 32
Trusted by: 65 members
About Me:
Video Production Manager for an Advertising firm, my favorite time is spent with my family.
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