Lightwave 9 Features
Rendering
Major Core Changes to the LightWave Rendering Engine
The following changes have been made to the LightWave Render Core:
- Implementation of BSP/KD Tree Algorithm
- Complete replacement of the original ray tracing core
- Any function that uses ray tracing calls will be significantly faster in most cases
- Typical speed improvements begin at 2.5x over LightWave version 8.3
- That's the same as buying three times as many machines for your render farm!
The actual core of the LightWave rendering engine has been replaced with a modern implementation that reflects some of the latest developments in the CG industry. This new foundation allows for expansion of new rendering technologies, and lays a very strong foundation for the future. Not to mention the fact that the rendering engine, in addition to being higher quality, is now significantly faster!
Adaptive subdivision of a mesh based on distance from camera and visibility
- Improvements to Sub-division surfaces
- Fixes to Catmull/Clark Implementation
- Added Adaptive Sub-division method
- Separate tessellation values for shading, shadow and reflection/refraction channels
- Highly optimized mesh, tied to render resolution
- Visibly similar to micro-poly displacement
Improvements have been made to sub-division surfaces (SDS), and a new mode called adaptive mode. Adaptive mode is a fixed resolution tessellation filter. The user can set separate level of detail settings for shading, shadows and reflection tessellation of the sub-division surface, which are sampled at the sub-pixel level. By separating the subdivision for the surface into separate attributes, memory is conserved, as there is only as much subdivision as required by the final output resolution, and the user receives more control over image quality.
This approach has certain other benefits, such as significantly improved displacement performance, as the mesh is highly optimized. As an example, if you are rendering a 640 by 480 image and you sent a sub-pixel value of 4 (aka 16 subs per pixel), then you simply get 16 polygons at max per pixel in the scene. This results in the ability to
displace and deform with higher accuracy. While not true micro-poly displacement, this method will yield similar results in many cases.
Camera Lens Shader
New rendering technology renders scenes using arbitrary camera lenses and warps. This allows for some fantastical effects, such as:
- Camera plane deformations
- Arbitrary projections
- UV map generation
- Multi camera out put to a single image
- True orthographic rendering
- Space warp simulations
- Lens distortion duplicating physically accurate real world lenses or non-existent "imaginary" lenses
- 360 degree panorama rendering (one camera)
- Full access from Lscript and C
- And more
The lens shader system is a whole new way of rendering in LightWave3D. Renders are no longer limited to the standard perspective camera. Instead, you can now create any type of camera lens you wish. Perspective, orthographic, fisheye, 360 degree panorama.
You can even render the scene as seen from the surface of a mesh. The lens shader gives you full control over what part of the scene is rendered for any part of the image. Multiple camera angles can be rendered to the same image in one pass. Want to have a front/side/top view in the same render? The lens shader can do it. No need to do three renders and composite them together.
Previously, effects such as these were achieved with post-process filtering, which caused artifacts, and degraded the overall quality of the image. Now, these effects are done mimicking actual light physics, resulting in a very high-quality result. However, no camera lens is perfect; the camera lens shader will let you reproduce that reality as well, by allowing you to create lens artifacts such as barrel distortions. Don't stop there, though. The lens shader will also allow you to create outlandish, impossibly warped and twisted views for that unique look when normal just won't do.
Timewarp - Time Re-mapping and Warping Shader
This shader remaps time for:
- Bullet-time
- Freeze-time
- Slow-motion effects
- Fast-motion effects
Timewarp manipulates time. Previously time has just been a steady clock ticking away at a certain number of frames per second. Now with Timewarp you can slow the clock down, speed it up, even wind it back, all during a single animation.
Timewarp can warp the time in a scene while keeping the camera unwarped. This will allow for unblurred camera motion, while retaining blurred motion of the action within the camera's field of view. Effects like bullet-time can be created in this way. Timewarp can also manipulate motion blur in new ways for special effects. You can now fly through a motion blur, without additional blurring from the camera's motion
CCTV Shader
CCTV is a shader that paints a view of the scene on a surface; render a view from a camera onto a surface, with controls for brightness, saturation and contrast:
- Create a closed-circuit TV display
- Simulate digital camera displays
- Render a view through binoculars and magnifying scopes
- Create holographic instances
Waterpool HyperVoxel Particle Displacement Shader
This shader stretches and squashes HyperVoxel particles based on particle properties and distance between particle and mesh. Waterpool gives you new levels of control over HyperVoxel particles. With Waterpool you can:
- Create more realistic looking pools of water
- Change the orientation of hyper-voxel particles arbitrarily
- Stretch and squash hyper-voxels based on the properties of individual particles
- Alter the size of hyper-voxels as a function of time, space, or distance to an object
- ...and much more.
More precisely, Waterpool allows you to change the size, thickness (or flatness), and orientation of particles as a function of distance to object surfaces, particle properties, or any arbitrary envelope.
Tension Map
Modulates bump amplitude based on degree of dynamic local mesh deformation.
- Create wrinkles on bending joints
- Alter the color of a surface based upon polygon distortion
Tension Map makes more realistic, dynamic wrinkles. It does this by altering the degree of bump mapping used based on the amount of local polygon distortion. So for example, when an arm is bent, wrinkles applied as a bump map become more pronounced around the joint, where the mesh is being squeezed. Or, if the mesh is stretched the wrinkles will disappear.
Tension Map can also be used to alter the color of a surface based on how much a polygon has expanded or shrunk due to some distortion. This could be used to simulate the whitening of the skin as it is stretched, or to indicate areas where the mesh is being stressed.
Sketch Image Filter
This new image filter enables a render to be post processed with a sketch-like treatment.
New Volumetric Shader
Allows for fast rendering of large numbers (order of 1 million) of simple volumetric particles.
Animation/Character Animation
- Improved Bone/Joint Drawing Speed
- Improved Bone/Joint Evaluation Speed
- Improved Bone Creation Process
- Improved Rotation Precision
- Inclusion of Relativity 2 Expression System
Relativity 2
LightWave 9 includes the Relativity Expression Engine developed by Prem Design.
- Point-and-click set-up using "professors"
- Multiple levels of expressions: one object can reference another object with an expression on it, and so on.
- Expressions to react to IK-based motions
- Ease of navigation between multiple instances of Relativity, so mass updates of expressions can be done with ease
- Relative referencing of motion data (SELF, PARENT, ROOT, PREV, NEXT and relative referencing of a matched object name within a hierarchy), so it is possible to copy expressions between objects and have each know what it's supposed to do
- A number of higher level functions are included that can measure path distance traveled, sum up an item's channel values over time, determine optimal following distances, watch for events, etc.
- Functions to measure speed, acceleration, velocity, interpolation, etc.
- Comments can be embedded within expressions, so you don't end up totally confused when revisiting an expression set up a month or two ago
- Language is simple and easy to understand
- Includes a large set of "scratch variables" that allow complex setups of expressions
- Receive detailed feedback when errors are encountered
- Expression-based morphing and displacement, including complex morphing forms like traveling morphs, effector morphs, etc.
- Objects can follow points on other objects and morph between points on multiple objects, allowing higher-level "crowd control" with a series of morph targets.
- Textures can be used for displacement, deformation, color envelopes, etc.
Sticky
This new Item Motion plug-in allows an object to move on or by an offset distance across the surface of a target mesh.
Path Align
Path Align offers a robust align to path, unaffected by very slow or no motion.
Proximity
A new Proximity channel modifier modifies a channel based on closest distance between an object and a mesh or other items.
Quaternion Rotations
A new rotation controller offers quaternion rotations to minimize gimbal lock.
User Interface/Workflow Improvement
Model and Edit Meshes and Weight Maps in Layout
- Many modeling operations now available in Layout
- Vertex maps and Weight maps can now be created and edited with Layout
- Major workflow improvements
- Character rigging is much simplified
The core workflow of modeling, rigging and animation has just undergone a radical new paradigm shift in LightWave. While users may wish to start the modeling process in Modeler, they can now move the process over to Layout very early, and continue refining the mesh, rigging the mesh, and adding and editing mesh weight and vertex maps directly from within Layout. Many modeling functions once limited to Modeler only are now available within Layout, saving many hours in the creation and animation process.
Complete Re-implementation of Open GL
- Much faster UI performance
- Preview Lighting scenarios within the UI
- Less need for preview renders
- Hardware shading of materials and textures
- Hardware shading of procedural textures
- New Drawing modes and options
LightWave 9.0 fully supports the Open GL 2.0 specification, leveraging the power of the latest graphics cards. New drawing modes provide new ways of interacting with scene objects and meshes, and provide for a faster turnaround of the creative process. Results from real time Open GL shading very closely mirror the results of the LightWave rendering engine, which reduces the amount of test renders that are required. Lighting and materials can be previewed directly within the user interface with a much higher degree of accuracy than ever before.
Material Shader Node Graph
LightWave 9 includes an integrated node graph to create complex shading networks or shade trees. Using existing LightWave shaders, the node graph allows the user to "wire" parameters of various shaders and operators together to create powerful shaders without any user coding required.
Not just a face light, the Material Node Graph is a completely new method of working with materials, which offers an order of magnitude more capability than the older surface and material edit system.
- F Prime Support
- Normal Maps from Z Brush 2 Supported
- Create Textured Morph Maps
- Animated Weight Maps
- Microbump Operator
- Branches can be imported and exported
- Raytrace Nodes
- Distance Nodes
- Proximity Nodes
- Direction Slope Nodes
- Work how you want to work: Layers in Nodes; Nodes in Layers; Layers Only; Nodes Only
- Full support of native controls and envelopes
- Available in Layout and Modeler, and maintains context when switching between the two
UI Configuration
Now the user has more control over how the user interface appears and operates:
- the ability to change colors of almost any element; the ability to create special tabs with user defined commands
- the ability to change the colors of animation channels
- the ability to customize display and selection colors of points, edges and polygons
- the ability to control the display of polygon normals beyond what was previously available
View Renders and Image Files in UI Viewports
Shows F9 renders in a viewport
The user can now create a viewport viewer with full control in terms of context, placement and size.
You can:
- Create a Standalone Image viewer
- Create an Embedded Image viewer
- View texture images, renders, preview renders
- View as many images as you have memory for
Paint Splat
A New Texture and Custom Object allow you to paint a canvas with splats made by impacting particles.
Particle Cloud
Another new custom object creates a particle cloud from an image + depth map.
Modeling Improvements
- Redesigned Subdivision Surface Core Engine
- Faster Performance
- Better Results
- Edge Selection (throughout Modeler)
- Edge Weights
- N-gons (polygons greater than 4 sides)
Redesign of the Core Subdivision Surface Engine
These days, subdivision surfaces have become the standard by which most characters, props and environments are created. LightWave led the way with the first commercial implementation of subdivision surfaces. Now, LightWave sets the bar again, re-engineering the core algorithms for even faster speed, and better results. That means modeling in a shorter period of time.
Expansion of Subdivision Surfacing Tools with Edges and N-sided Polygons
In addition to making the subdivision surface engine faster and more efficient, the capabilities of the engine have been expanded to include the ability to use edges in the construction process, add weighting to edges which allows for sharp corners and creases with no additional geometry needed, and the ability to use polygons with greater than four sides in the process.
Edge Selection and Operation Added to Tools Throughout Modeler
Edge selection and operation are now allowed in almost all tools available within Modeler. This powerful addition to the Modeler toolset will allow the user new ways of creating and refining shapes, and improve productivity in the creation process.
Improved Modeler Workflows
Even though Modeler tools are now available within Layout, many people still prefer to model a great portion of their work in Modeler. Recognizing that, Modeler workflows have been improved and tool functions that were spread across several tools are now consolidated into just a few. This makes Modeler easier to learn, and faster to get creative.
More Dynamic Dynamics
- Faster Loading of Dynamics Scene Files
- Redesigned Dynamics User Interface
- Better Workflow
- Improved Solving Precision
Improvements in dynamics loading and solving, and cleaner workflows in the dynamics user interface makes dynamics more attractive and easier to use. Higher precision in solver engines allow for better results right out of the box, and the redesigned user interface makes things easier to find and implement. This allows for greater experimentation to get the results that you want.
Scripting Improvements
- LScripts can now be created, handled and run via C/C++ plug-ins.
- Improved wrapper for LWVParms, with easy evaluation, automatic loading, saving, copying and xpanel control setup
- The ability to fix rotations of selected items so as to minimize differences in angles between keyframes (used for fixing up mocap data containing angles modulo 360 degrees).
- Point of Impact routine finds 3D mesh coordinates closest to a set of points, including info on closest point, vertex, edge, and polygon.
- A new Virtual File System creates LWLoadState and LWSaveState for loading/saving to memory instead of a file; LWLoadState and LWSaveState wrapper for debug tracing of reads and writes.
- A new routine to map UV coordinates to 3D mesh coordinates and polygon and interpolation info
SDK Improvements
Node Graph SDK
Documentation Improvements
Reformatted documentation includes many improvements and additional material to help make LightWave easier to learn.
Lightwave 9 Feature Highlights:
Layout:
- New Bone Editing Tools
- Enter Bone Edit Mode
- Exit Bone Edit Mode
- Joint Move
- Tip Move
- Bone Split
- Bone Fuse
- Bone Connect
- Bone Twist
- Align Pitch
- Delete Bone
- Unparent Bone
- Bones On
- Bones Off
- Record Piv Rot
- Remove RPR
- Remove Pivot Pos
- Delete Hierarchy
- Copy Hierarchy
- Mirror Hierarchy
- Rename Hierarchy
- Scale Hierarchy
- Export Hierarchy
- Import Hierarchy
- Faster IK, FK
- New Morph Mixer
- JointMorph Plus
Dynamics:
- Rigid Body Dynamics
- Improved Soft Body Dynamics
- Improved Cloth Dynamics
- Bone Dynamics
- Improved Particle System Tools
Workflow:
- New Scene Editor with integrated Spreadsheet and Dope Sheet
- Dope Track
- Node-based Expression Editor
- Envelope Contextual Menus
- Move TCB
- MultiMirror
- Multi-selection of Texture Editor Layers
The Ever-Popular "And More!":
- Animatable UV coordinates
- Rendering Enhancements
Modeler:
- Select Loop
- Select Poly
- Select Outline
- Select Ring
- Invert Connected
New Layer Tools:
- Clone2 Layer
- Insert Layer
- Delete Layer
- Object Collapser
New Modeling Tools:
- New Create Tab Tools
- Star Sphere
- New Modify Tab Tools
- Translate Plus
- Move Plus
- Segment Scale
- Point Normal Move
- New Multiply Tab Tools
- Cut
- Divide
- Make Pole
- Extender Plus
- SuperShift
- New Construct Tab Tools
- Bridge Tool
- New Detail Tab Tools
- Edge Tools
- Fix Poles
- Fix 3-5
- New Setup Tab Tools
- Rotate Skelegons
- New Utilities Tab Tools
- Create JointMorph
Other Enhancements:
- Inline Help System
- Enhanced OpenGL
- Speed and Workflow Optimizations
- Incremental Saving and Autosaving
- New File Formats
- Integration Tools
- Improvements to LScript scripting language and to the API
File Compatabilities:
- LightWave 3D includes a library of license-free objects, images, textures and scenes.
LightWave 3D File Import Formats:
LightWave 3D File Export Formats:
- obj
- 3ds
- lwo
- dxf
- w3d
- Any other files may be imported or exported by using a 3rd party translator
LightWave 3D Render File Formats:
Still Image:
- Alias (.als)
- BMP 24 & 32-bit (.bmp)
- Cineon FP (.cin)
- JPEG (.jpg)
- PCX (.pcx)
- PICT 24 & 32-bit (.pct)
- PNG 24 & 32-bit (.png)
- Photoshop 24 & 32-bit (.psd)
- RLA 24 & 32-bit, Deluxe RLA (.rla)
- Radiance (.hdr)
- SGI 24, 32, 48, & 64-bit (.rgb)
- Sun 24 & 32-bit (.ras)
- TGA 24 & 32-bit (.tga)
- TIFF 24 & 32-bit, LogLuv (.tif)
- VPB(.ypb)
- YUV (.yuv)
- Flexible Format (.flx)
- IFF ILBM & IFF ILBM 32-bit (.iff)
Animation:
- 4X Storyboard
- AVI & DirectShow (.avi)
- Film Expand
- QuickTime, QuickTime VR, & QuickTime Stereo (.mov)
- Storyboard
- Flexible Float & Flexible Integer (.flx)
Lightwave 9 System Requirements:
Windows:
- System Processor Pentium III or higher (Pentium IV recommended)
- AMD Athlon or higher (Opteron recommended)
- Operating System: 2000 (Sp3), XP (Sp1)
- TCP/IP Network Protocol Installed
- System RAM: 512 MB (1GB recommended)
- 230MB available harddrive space (not including content)
Graphics Card:
- AGP slot interface
- Full Open OpenGL and DirectX support
- Latest drivers from chipset manufacturer
- 1024x768 minimum screen resolution (1280x1024 recommended)
- 64MB onboard dedicated RAM per display (128MB recommended)
Macintosh:
- System configuration: G4 or higher (G5 recommended)
- Operating System: Mac OS X 10.3.3 (Panther)
- System RAM: 512 MB for OS X (1GB recommended)
- 230MB available harddrive space (not including content)
Graphics Card:
- Full OpenGL support
- Latest drivers from chipset manufacturer
- 1024x768 minimum screen resolution (1280x1024 recommended)
- 64MB onboard dedicated RAM per display (128MB recommended)
