Speculations to why lightwave 8 was seriously delayed

[zuzzabuzz]

#3 :)

[3DDave]

I just think they (Newtek) wanted to get 8.0 right the first time and not have to deliver an 8.5 for bug fixes.

Only Newtek really knows!

[TRick]

Surely wait until MAX, Maya and XSI are all at version 8.
Now let's hope C4D wont update too soon....



O.....M.....G.....:cry:

[Ken Mac]

They have finally realized that the rendering engine is no longer up to par.

[MarkCurtis]

Originally posted by Ken Mac
They have finally realized that the rendering engine is no longer up to par.

sure, that's why they figured they'd spend an extra 3 months to make it up to snuff.

:rolleyes:

[sebek27]

Now let's hope C4D wont update too soon....

Maxon will be beta testing version 9 in april - from Computer Arts Magazine :thumbsup:

[Mwai Kasamale]

sure, that's why they figured they'd spend an extra 3 months to make it up to snuff.

I hope your joking here. FPrime shows just how much NT will regret not addressing the render. LW's renderer is great and despite relying on 4 year old technology is still capable of matching 2days best, but all this renderer talk is an issue of money. Max and Maya just outsourced their rendering because the R&D, time and money needed to update native renders is expensive, inspite of this you ask yourself, "then how the hell can Blender support GI, IBL and Truespace impliment caustics among other advanced features.

Personally I think NT kinda went in the wrong direction in focusing on the character animation stuff. As great as these enhancements are it will take some time before professional animators even concider LW capable of high-end animation. Most top animators end up using Softimage or Maya and inspite of the cool new stuff, they still do not equal the customizable and robust workflow and tech of namely Maya.

I think they should have focused on the renderer, making it alot stronger, improving the speed and removal of errors of volumetrics alone would have made LW a must for big Film projects. Cinefex article on the Trailor crash sequence in RELOADED was slated to be a LW shot, until they realized what the shot entailed. Alot of 2days big Volumetric effects aredone with Houdini. Their Volumetric 3d texture renderer is topnotch and almost error free, this simple and pristine piece of software prides itself on the fact its on the top of the list when VolumetricFX rendering is needed, and man is it FAST!! no joke,a 1080I HD frame of a 1KM square valley of cloud renders in about 6.2 minutes with optimal settings. More lighting models, Lambert, Constant etc, A node based texturing system is not only more productive but makes building complex textrtures alot easier. I hate having to stack and stack and stack. Primitive volumes, A better Toon Shader, much needed DOF fixes, a more uptodate AA system.

Again FPRIME makes NEWTEK Look bad, if one guys and his little team can do this in a year Why the hell can't Newteks global Development team do thrice as much in a quarter of the time. Its embarassing. But in the end LW7.5 isn't broken so I can;t really complain all that much, very annoying though.

[Para]

Ummmmmmmmmm...LW8 was supposed to come out Q4/03. That spesific quarter ended 3 months ago and when noticed that we are talking about a software after all, how come you even dare to title this thread to imply that LW8 was seriously delayed?

(I do agree on the fact that it was delayed, though)

[richcz3]

My takes are these.

1.) Worely stunned them with F-Prime about three months before NT was to deliver. Negotiations/Talks/Testing took place. At some point F-Prime was well tested in the LW8 Environment and conclusions were made. In the end F-Prime was not incorporated for technical and "other" reasons. Not even an F Prime Lite. But...

a) Worely then worked as consultant to tweak/optimize the existing rendering engine within set parameters. The results are a slew of new render quality variables. Like your daddys Old School LW and LW on Speed Tweek. Worely leaves the table with a fully tested F Prime and sells it as a plugin.

b) Last minute incorporation of 3rd party plugins resulted in unforseen bugs.

richcz3

[Mwai Kasamale]

1) Newtek underestimated the demand for improved character animtion tools, realising that bulk LW customers don't buy LW to animate characters with but to light, texture and render with.

2) The normal delays of softwate development

3) Theres alot in the New LW and they overestimated their ability to deliver all the great new stuff on time

4) THey realised a point based rigid-body dynamics system is 90% of what an face based system can do.

5) this speculation is a load of crap and it will be avaliable whaen its avaliable. We just need to get back to work and stop whining.

[uncon]

Hey! I want to throw in my random speculation too! I think it was delayed because they want to finish it and not ship out a broken version. Like LW v6, and v7 those wern't that great untill the .5 was released.

and the NT guys are actually super secret agents working for a covert spy group protecting the world against alien invasion. With the recent alien attacks (read a tabloid, Nostradamus and Bat Boy predicted it) Newtek has been kinda distracted.

yup, I might be wrong.

[wizlon]

Proton lost it.
They turned the office upside down and have only just found it.
It was behind the big grey filing cabinet, next to the coffee machine, gathering dust.

[Alan Daniels]

My own speculation: They were shooting for Dec 2003, and worked like hell to get it done in time, but there was a bug or two that kept it from being completey ready to ship. So, rather than releasing a product with known bugs, they decided to relax a bit after such a long death march (I remember reading about Proton getting sick from working so much), and gave themselves a new deadline with some breathing space, in order to get that last little bit hammered out.

Quite reasonable, actually, and three months delay is really not that big of a deal. I'm a programmer, so I know from first-hand experience that software is as much an art as it is an engineering discipline, and while most bugs are relatively simple to hunt down (assuming you're starting with a good design, that is!), there's the rare bug that proves to be such a tough little bastard that it takes weeks to find.

Of course, again, this is all idle speculation on my part, strictly bases off the bits and pieces of news about Netwek and LW8 that I've read around the web. And we all know how much speculation is worth. :p

[zuzzabuzz]

Originally posted by wizlon
Proton lost it.
They turned the office upside down and have only just found it.
It was behind the big grey filing cabinet, next to the coffee machine, gathering dust.

You've trumped all my speculations! haha

[HanDron]

I think...

that Newtek was about to release 8 but then saw the improvements in the 3D community, and decided to add a few more features to improve the attractiveness of its package. The new features caused more bugs and created the situation of having to delay shipment. It's why they are still adding demo videos to their site.

As for FPrime...

I think Worley was already in the process of developing a stand alone renderer to be added to other 3D modelers (think Luxology). I don't believe the release of LW 8 has anything to do with their timing for releasing their product. It is why there is a version for LW 7.5 and will be for 8.

[Dennik]

I'm wondering.... Isn't it quite a big privilege for a 3rd party developer to know the code of LW's renderer? Because Worley needs to know it in order to deliver identical results with his own preview system. So something smells fishy to me here. Maybe there is a close collaboration between Worley and NT?

[SMH]

I think Steve Worley may have also benefited from a closer relationship with Luxology. Does the name Allen Hastings mean anything to you? ;)

[Para]

Originally posted by SMH
Does the name Allen Hastings mean anything to you? ;)

(this is sooo off-topic) Yes, last time I mentioned his name I was threatened thru PM system :p

[js33]

I think Allan and Steve have definately been working together. Allan has nothing to loose by showing Steve the internals of the LW render engine and they both gain as Steve has something cool to sell and Lux can benefit as well.

Cheers,
JS

[Cman]

I think they took a reaally long lunch break.

[leuey]

The reason it's delayed is the most obvious one. The original programmers left, NT had to hire new guys and they had to not only implement new features but get up to speed and familiarize themselves w/ LW. The original release dates were overly optomistic. If you're 2 main guys leave then it's going to take awhile to update the program (even if the update mainly consists of existing plugins that other people wrote.)

I wouldn't expect to see signifigant changes to LW for another year or more. And that's if it's still around (which I think it will be due to the strong user base, but it will have been left behind - being a user of nearly 10 years it saddens me but I think it's the case...)


-Greg

[Celshader]

Originally posted by Mwai Kasamale
... A better Toon Shader...

I've been happy with the "ink-and-paint" tools available for 7.5, but then, I'm only trying to make my stuff look like animation cels (http://www.celshader.com/gallery/lore/)...

What would you ask of a toon shader?

[Mwai Kasamale]

What would you ask of a toon shader?

Well I think its great and does the job pretty dam well, but there are a few features like Depth or Distance Line fading and Profile Stroke rendering like those found in JOT, a super NPR. a few neat things found only in xsi's toon shader like edge texturing with bitmaps or procedurals. JOT is the probably the most advanced NPR for LW I never tried that Unreal plugin but the aformentioned features are among a few that I would love to see.

[Larrikin]

Originally posted by Leuey
The reason it's delayed is the most obvious one. The original programmers left,

I agree.
I'm sure the current programmers have been under a lot of pressure for quite some time. I wonder if Newtek can retain them after 8 ships.

[Celshader]

Originally posted by Mwai Kasamale
Well I think its great and does the job pretty dam well, but there are a few features like Depth or Distance Line fading and Profile Stroke rendering like those found in JOT, a super NPR. a few neat things found only in xsi's toon shader like edge texturing with bitmaps or procedurals. JOT is the probably the most advanced NPR for LW I never tried that Unreal plugin but the aformentioned features are among a few that I would love to see.

Yeah, those features could be neat for Triplets of Belleville (http://cgw.pennnet.com/Articles/Article_Display.cfm?Section=Articles&Subsection=Display&ARTICLE_ID=198458)-style renders...

What's the difference between Depth/Distance Line fading and LightWave's current "Shrink Edges With Distance" setting? I'm guessing that Depth/Distance Line fading actually affects the ink's opacity..?

[ArtisticVisions]

Originally posted by Celshader
What would you ask of a toon shader?
A more improved, "smarter" version of LW Edges/outlines.

[Celshader]

Originally posted by ArtisticVisions
A more improved, "smarter" version of LW Edges/outlines.

Fair enough. I'd hope they'd keep the existing rule-based Edges, though -- I like it when I know what the heck Edges are thinking (http://www.celshader.com/gallery/kara/about4.htm).

[rock]

The fact will be that no matter how much bug-free NT wants LW8 to be, it will still have bugs at released time. That's software. So the question is "are they in trouble with serious bugs with the features they had already promised and stamped?"

[archiea]

Originally posted by Mwai Kasamale


Personally I think NT kinda went in the wrong direction in focusing on the character animation stuff.



While Your points regarding the renderer are very true, I think NT had limited resources, and focused their efforts in one area... and I'm sure many animators would disafgree with you!! :D

Originally posted by Mwai Kasamale
.

Again FPRIME makes NEWTEK Look bad, if one guys and his little team can do this in a year Why the hell can't Newteks global Development team do thrice as much in a quarter of the time. Its embarassing. But in the end LW7.5 isn't broken so I can;t really complain all that much, very annoying though.

This is very true... I look at Fprime as well as the other worley endeavors, and I ask why Nt has lagged. At this point, i inculde worley's plugins as part of my LW cost. I do hope that with NT's restructuring, that their efforts in the CA portion will be repeated in the renderer....

Also, note, that LW mac IS broken, and while efforts are being made to fixt it, its been busted since october, FYI.

[Kruvi]

Many good points here, but I believe this was just their first step on bringing Lightwave completely up to date and they just started it with consentrating on one area. I am sure 8.5 will already dramatically improve some other field , give em support.

Fprime surely will be awesome and one can only hope Newtek will get its main renderer up to that bar aswell sometime in the future. But until then lets take that tool as a gift :thumbsup:

There are many things I'd like to see improved really(too long to list :D ) but Fprime will help me wait, give me something new to play with

[mcewan7]

Heres my 'educated' guess:

Development on Lightwave 8 was going well during August 03 with a projected completion date for October. :p

Sometime during September, Valve reported that their source code for Half-Life 2 had been stolen :rolleyes:

The newtek programming team installed Half-Life 2 in the office, and whenever the boss's eyes were turned, they fired it up to play network deathmatch every chance they got.

Suddenly all project milestones start to slip, with no explanation as to why a days programming now seems to take all week. :hmm:

Sound familiar?

[DigiLusionist]

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Mwai Kasamale


Personally I think NT kinda went in the wrong direction in focusing on the character animation stuff.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


They went in the right direction. Without serious CA tools, the professinal seat sales of LW would be in dire straits this year. NT already has taken a lot of heat from CA pros for not updating LW by now.

The rendering issue doesn't trump the need for the CA stuff.

[Crocodilian]

because software is hard.

it ain't any more complex than that. Its easy to make stuff that will demo OK, it is NOT easy to deliver stuff that works reliably in a production setting.

NT's statement at the time of the delay was that it was a QA issue, and there's no reason not to take them at their word. It makes sense, they had a new team on board, they were doing thing that are not-so-easy to an older codebase (integrated dynamics)

Lots and lots and lots of reasons why their QA people might have looked at product in early December and said "don't ship this".

[Freak]

Originally posted by DigiLusionist
quote:

They went in the right direction. Without serious CA tools, the professinal seat sales of LW would be in dire straits this year. NT already has taken a lot of heat from CA pros for not updating LW by now.

The rendering issue doesn't trump the need for the CA stuff.


Which CA pro's would they be?

I'm with Mwai on this one.........

LW is seriously too late for CA tools, sure people will use em....
But LW already has TSM, ACS4, Motion Builder, Maya, T4D....

Professional CA is already done through a LW/Maya pipeline.

NT should of been doing more Core improvements, rather than
stuff like CA, or Dynamics..... (for which plugins already exist)

Improving the SDK should of been the first, most major improvement, with render enhancements placed somewhere after that.

[zaam]

Actually, I think everyone here is WAAY overthinking it. The delay is most likely for reasons much more mundane than anything mentioned so far.

[NanoGator]

Having worked at a software company for 7 years, I wasn't the least bit surprised it was delayed. It happens. I dont' think there's one reason why, it was probably a lot of little things. "Well this doesn't work yet, oh wait this plugin is showing an error, oh man this 'technically' works but think about the guy who's going to have to use it...etc"

Delaying software is not a sin. It's a constant in the industry. I wouldn't worry too much about speculation that Newtek added F-Prime Lite or something to the package. I don't think it's all that likely. Delays like this are rarely due to adding show-stopper features.

[private]

They just needed more time to finish it. It wasn't ready by the end of December. Simple.

[Rei Ayanami]

I'm glad that NT delade the release of LW8. It would have been much worse for them to release buggy software, instead they choose to delay it.

the delay isnt killing anyone, so there is no problem.

[Beamtracer]

Some people within Newtek think that Lightwave may have been sabotaged by someone in the former development team. I don't agree, but it seems there is a lot of animosity between Newtek and those who left to form the "unmentionable company".

The next version of Lightwave would have been here much earlier if Newtek's entire Lightwave programming staff didn't get right up and leave to form "the unmentionable company". This is the crux of it.

At the same time I can understand why those deserting staff walked out. Newtek's upper management doesn't seem to have a good grasp of what direction Lightwave should take. Now that "other" company is free to make their own 3D program in the way they feel would be best.

'Freak' is right when he posted above that Newtek should have worked on Lightwave's renderer as a priority over adding new character tools. No 3D software is perfect for everything, but some of the other less perfect 3D programs rely on plugin makers to fill the gaps.

Third party companies can fill the Lightwave's character animation gaps (MotionBuilder and Project Messiah for example). If people want it they can get great CA tools to use with Lightwave.

With the renderer, there are no work arounds. You're stuck with it. If you want something better there is nothing that can really integrate well with LW Layout, because of the poor SDK.

I wish those controlling Newtek would turn the Lightwave ship around and set it on the right course.

[Phyrea]

There are other companies (no point mentioning names) that are so dead set on a release date that they'll ship the software regardless of how buggy it is, or how unusable it is. They ship it buggy so they can make a quick buck. I have a lot of respect for NewTek for waiting to release LW 8 until it is good and ready for production use.

[roger3d]

Originally posted by sebek27
Maxon will be beta testing version 9 in april - from Computer Arts Magazine :thumbsup:

OMG!!! Those guys at Maxon are crazy or what?:eek:
How they can upgrade software so fast like that?

[Srek]

Originally posted by roger3d
OMG!!! Those guys at Maxon are crazy or what?:eek:
How they can upgrade software so fast like that?

It's not that hard if you have build a solid base beforehand. Most of the modules you can get for CINEMA are based on the SDK. This allows for very fast and stable development since the kernel does not need to be touched nearly as much as with another approach. An additional benefit is an open and good documented SDK which allows plugin developers much freedom.

I think it's a very good idea for Newtek to put the focus on making LW more accessible, after all it's not only features that count but flexibility and stability.
We have seen the same development with Modo which seems to try to be the most flexible app of them all :)
Cheers
Srek

[zuzzabuzz]

Originally posted by Wanker
Some people within Newtek think that Lightwave may have been sabotaged by someone in the former development team.

Really? I missed that story.

[Beamtracer]

Yeah, some people with very close ties to Newtek were spreading the sabotage story around last year.

[CGTalk Moderation]

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.