8.5 is out.

[serge1971]

Yep, it's downloadable. :bounce:

[electropulse]

sure,.......

[paulo3d]

where?

Not in the Newtek website ... Just went there and they only got 8.3!

[gristle]

http://www.newtek-europe.com/uk/support/download.html

[Deam]

Yes, from the Newtek-europe site it's available...

Downloading. :applause:

[zuzzabuzz]

Cool. Should be announced here soon too. The big downside of this for me is that now I really need to start to put up the money for my 9.0 upgrade. I'd been putting it off figuring they definitely wouldn't release 9 before 8.5.

[paulo3d]

Great! Downloading now!

[Wegg]

The main Newtek site has it available in the updates. . . but when you click on it it starts to download the 8.0.1 patch. . . :sad:

_________________________________

Never mind. Now its working.

[Shade01]

Why is the feature list so ambiguous? What exactly is parts to surfaces tool?

[wwade]

Parts to surf video.

ftp://ftp.newtek.com/pub/LightWave/Tutorials/Vidz/PartSurf.mov

[Darksuit]

Got my update! hooody hoo!

[lots]

Anyone on a 64bit machine? Are you able to install the 64bit version? or do you need to order that CD.....

[Zarathustra]

I'll DL it later.

Question: What happens if you run 'parts to surface' but one or more parts claim some of the same polys?

[c-g]

Why is the feature list so ambiguous? What exactly is parts to surfaces tool?

Another plugin. It would have been nice to see the object/scene pulldown offer parts as a surfacing definition rather than have another plugin tacked on.

[Chuck Baker]

The Parts-to-Surfaces plugin was created in response to a feature request by users importing FormZ modeled objects saved as obj files. On import into Modeler, the FormZ layers are saved as parts; users have typically used a third party convertor such as Polytrans to convert the FormZ obj to a LightWave lwo, when they want the layers to be surfaces; this plugin allows direct import to Modeler of such objects and handles making the conversion to surfaces. Polys wouldn't have multiple part assignments in such a situation.

[Zarathustra]

Well I'm all for adding features that eliminate the need for 3rd party software and I understand the impetus for creating 'parts to surface' but my question hasn't been answered.

Anyone who's installed it, could you test and see what happens if you run the plug on a model whose parts share polys? I'm sure someone tried that when betatesting. I'm curious what happens. Hopefully just an error.

[Shade01]

The Parts-to-Surfaces plugin was created in response to a feature request by users importing FormZ modeled objects saved as obj files. On import into Modeler, the FormZ layers are saved as parts; users have typically used a third party convertor such as Polytrans to convert the FormZ obj to a LightWave lwo, when they want the layers to be surfaces; this plugin allows direct import to Modeler of such objects and handles making the conversion to surfaces. Polys wouldn't be have multiple part assignments in such a situation.

Thanks Chuck!

[vonbon]

I think 3rdParty plugins are good to have as part of the software. For one it allows you to have more options as to how you do certain task. I think its good for people who make plugins.

Will newtek buy the plugin if they want to integrate it into the program or do they give the plugin creator a certain amount of time to sell it before they integrate it?

[_-_twiggy_-_]

Awesome!!!

Thanks to all tha guys at newtek!

This has made my life much easier when testing out procedurals, incidence etc!, since i dont own fprime so now i can relax a little on my wore down F9 key!

Also i feel it has pushed me more to be more creative with my texturing

Cheers :D

[plotz]

I don't think you can make the same poly belong to two parts. From the manual:

"Parts are the polygon version of point selection sets. (One distinction, however, is that a polygon can be assigned to only one part name, while a point can be a member of multiple selection sets.)"

[Zarathustra]

True that. They get eliminated from a pre-existing part when a new one is created.
Never noticed with polys. I always used parts for points.

Nevermind. Carry on.

[toonafish]

I'll DL it later.

Question: What happens if you run 'parts to surface' but one or more parts claim some of the same polys?


a poly can only be a member of one part.

[Zarathustra]

Right. Thanks. I said I realized that 24 minutes before you posted, but thanks again. Got it. Ok. Gotcha. Understood. Thanks. :)

[threedeesketch]

Quick question(s) regarding the OpenGL features.

My card doesn't seem to support OpenGL 2.0 and I think there's a way to install the 8.5 update and turn this feature off, right? I just want to make sure before I go through the upgrade process ...

And on a related note, does this mean that those features will not work at all on my card (which supports 1.5 I believe??) or just that they'll run sluggish?

All in all I don't really "need" the OpenGL features and therefore I'm holding off upgrading until I get some input.

THANKS

[lots]

What card do you have? Many nvidia cards support OpenGL 2.0, if not through hardware then through the driver's software. Obviously though, this will be slower than if it were hardware. Which is why I believe some people seem to be suffering from slow UI speeds when OpenGL2.0 features are enabled...

I'm not at home yet, so I cant take a look at my 6800GT (which is OGL2.0) and compare to my Geforce 4 Ti 4600, but I'll take a look when I get home tonight and see if there's any impact..

[thx1138]

Got my update! hooody hoo!

What are the Build numbers you got for Modeler and Layout with the 8.5 update ?

[Mechis]

I heard that I need to replace the sentinel drivers. I just downloaded the newest one and was wondering-- do I need to uninstall my original drivers, or will the new ones I download install over?

I'm always paranoid about changing this kind of stuff... Thanks!
Mechis

[threedeesketch]

What card do you have? Many nvidia cards support OpenGL 2.0, if not through hardware then through the driver's software. ...

I have an Nvidia 5600 Go FX 64MB Ram ...yeah, it's on a laptop:eek:

I looked at the PDF info from NVidia and saw only mention of OpenGL 1.5 :sad:

[_-_twiggy_-_]

Quick question(s) regarding the OpenGL features.

My card doesn't seem to support OpenGL 2.0 and I think there's a way to install the 8.5 update and turn this feature off, right? I just want to make sure before I go through the upgrade process ...

And on a related note, does this mean that those features will not work at all on my card (which supports 1.5 I believe??) or just that they'll run sluggish?

All in all I don't really "need" the OpenGL features and therefore I'm holding off upgrading until I get some input.

THANKS

Don`t worry u can turn this feature off in your options .. just press 'd' while in layout and make sure its turned off, by default it should though

Danny

Ps. get a better card :P its awesome this new interactivity!

[R-6]

If we do a fresh install of Lightwave 8,is there a single patch to 8.5?

Or do we have to patch to 8.2,8.3 then the latest 8.5 patch?:shrug:

[serge1971]

I have an Nvidia 5600 Go FX 64MB Ram ...yeah, it's on a laptop:eek:

I looked at the PDF info from NVidia and saw only mention of OpenGL 1.5 :sad:
Download the latest drivers for your card, if you haven't. All Nvidia FX-series cards are OpenGL 2.0 compliant, so that includes your FX5600.

[_-_twiggy_-_]

If we do a fresh install of Lightwave 8,is there a single patch to 8.5?

Or do we have to patch to 8.2,8.3 then the latest 8.5 patch?:shrug:

hehe, i was thinking the very thing earlier, i ended up downloading em all :D!

i noticed though that in the update notes for 8.5 there was references to 8.3, but i doubt the 8.5 included all the updates, unless newtek have worked out some new compression technique lol ... as i recall the 8.3 weighed in at over 30 mb where as the 8.5 was in the low 20`s

to be sure i`d get em all :thumbsup:

Danny

[telamon]

I'll DL it later.

Question: What happens if you run 'parts to surface' but one or more parts claim some of the same polys?

If you had spent time looking at your manual you would know that Polys can only belong to one part :rolleyes: (........ I am kidding zara..........)


BTW, can someone who's currently bouncing, can tell me if the openGL in layout is quicker now -with all shiny poping colored options OFF).... I own a Quadro4 980XGL card.... Any info please.

[_-_twiggy_-_]

If you had spent time looking at your manual you would know that Polys can only belong to one part :rolleyes: (........ I am kidding zara..........)


BTW, can someone who's currently bouncing, can tell me if the openGL in layout is quicker now -with all shiny poping colored options OFF).... I own a Quadro4 980XGL card.... Any info please.

I dont have your card telamon, i own an ati x800xt pe. But as for performance on mine, its heaven!, havent noticed any slow down with lots procedurals on etc.

Hope urs is tha same :)!...this one wicked update!

Danny

[Qexit]

BTW, can someone who's currently bouncing, can tell me if the openGL in layout is quicker now -with all shiny poping colored options OFF).... I own a Quadro4 980XGL card.... Any info please.I have/had a 980XGL installed in my LW PC but I've replaced it with a humble QuadroFX 500 card so that the new OpenGL features are available. With either the 77.56 or more recent, but not supported by nVidia on Quadro cards, 78.01 drivers and the 980XGL procedural textures and so on are not visible in Layout :sad: I didn't notice any general speed up in OpenGL while I had the 980XGL installed...but I wasn't looking too closely.

I did discover a slight improvement in render times though :applause: Nothing to do with the graphics card of course but the teapot.lws in the Benchmarks folder rendered in 2min 12sec in LW8.5 and 2min 20sec in LW8.3. Every little helps :)

[Qexit]

If we do a fresh install of Lightwave 8,is there a single patch to 8.5?

Or do we have to patch to 8.2,8.3 then the latest 8.5 patch?:shrug:You can go straight from 8.0 to 8.5 without needing the other patches. This is a cummulative patch that includes all the previous updates/fixes. This is explained on the Newtek Europe update page, though I could not find in on Newtek US.

[telamon]

Thanks twiggy and Qedit for your input.

My concern is to know if the basic openGL is working now quicker than before. To be frank, I don't care of these sparkling woowing moving procedurals in the main OpenGL because I don't need them on a daily basis.

Other question do we have true transparency in modeler and additional options such as edge transparency?

I ask those questions because I do not have LW installed on my machine here and cannot set it up anyway.

[R-6]

You can go straight from 8.0 to 8.5 without needing the other patches. This is a cummulative patch that includes all the previous updates/fixes. This is explained on the Newtek Europe update page, though I could not find in on Newtek US.
Thanks Qexit,wasn't sure because of the different file sizes.I thought maybe 8.3 patch then 8.5.

[T4D]

Thanks twiggy and Qedit for your input.

My concern is to know if the basic openGL is working now quicker than before. To be frank, I don't care of these sparkling woowing moving procedurals in the main OpenGL because I don't need them on a daily basis.

Other question do we have true transparency in modeler and additional options such as edge transparency?

I ask those questions because I do not have LW installed on my machine here and cannot set it up anyway.

NO the OpenGL is NOT quicker, the new OpenGL setting is just another setting you have to turn off if your looking for speed. For those who have Fprime this is a pretty lame feature.

I just done alittle test for you :)
and Edge transparency NO ( thinking Cause it's a shader plugin )
Procedural YES
Gradient YES
and if you play LW is very Slow in the updates And if you play too much you can get LW to crash pretty easy.

the install lets you install to a Completely different Directory
( But it uses the old Configs IF you have them in the standard Windows user Directory )

[Hansybear]

:applause: :applause: :applause: Fantastic :)

[threedeesketch]

I have an Nvidia 5600 Go FX 64MB Ram ...yeah, it's on a laptop:eek:

I looked at the PDF info from NVidia and saw only mention of OpenGL 1.5 :sad:

For those in my rare predicament, check out my other post in the Hardware forum...looks like my laptop card isn't supporting OpenGL 2.0

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?p=2727097#post2727097

[Exper]

For those in my rare predicament, check out my other post in the Hardware forum...looks like my laptop card isn't supporting OpenGL 2.0That's right cos it doesn't support both "GL_ARB_shader_object" and "GL_ARB_shading_language".

[Bytehawk]

You can go straight from 8.0 to 8.5 without needing the other patches. This is a cummulative patch that includes all the previous updates/fixes. This is explained on the Newtek Europe update page, though I could not find in on Newtek US.

if you go from 8 to 8.5 make sure you also install the latest dongle drivers, 8.3 had those included in the patch and you would be skipping those.

[telamon]

NO the OpenGL is NOT quicker, the new OpenGL setting is just another setting you have to turn off if your looking for speed. For those who have Fprime this is a pretty lame feature.

I just done alittle test for you :)
and Edge transparency NO ( thinking Cause it's a shader plugin )
Procedural YES
Gradient YES
and if you play LW is very Slow in the updates And if you play too much you can get LW to crash pretty easy.

the install lets you install to a Completely different Directory
( But it uses the old Configs IF you have them in the standard Windows user Directory )

Exactly what I was assuming when I asked the question when the release has been announced just before siggraph. If noone denies what Peter has been saying here, I will make a 1000x1000 gif where I'll write LW 8.5 SUXX... Moreover, if nothing is done for R9. I'll quit definitely.

[Zarathustra]

It would be nice if they just work out a deal with Worley for FPrime. Somehow they need a realtime preview. FPrime has spoiled me to the point that I don't know if I could work with another 3D app if they didn't have something similar. C4D has something (3rd party?) and Modo will have their iview. What about the other guys?
Having FPrime makes any ogl improvement seem pretty ho-hum :hmm:

So what else is going on with 8.5? What about these PS-ish layers or whatever?

[ColinCohen]

FPrime has spoiled me to the point that I don't know if I could work with another 3D app if they didn't have something similar. C4D has something (3rd party?) and Modo will have their iview. What about the other guys?

I believe most apps now have something like this, but maybe not as fast (but also not as limiting.) In addition to what you mentioned, XSI, Maya, A:M, and perhaps some others have interactive rendering. I think you can even do it in Blender w/ Yafray, but I'm not certain.

[Zarathustra]

FPrime is limited mainly by not having full access to scene info.

[lots]

I noticed last night while fiddling with the OpenGL textures on my 6800GT, that setting up the textures was painfully slow, BUT, once they had been setup and animated with an envelope of some kind, scrubbing through the frames of the scene was quick as anything else.

So perhaps turning the feature off for the most part is a good idea. And just turn it on when you need to take a look at how your textures are animating...

[paulo3d]

Ok I have a ATI 9000 Mac edition (yes it's crap), in the 8.5 requirements, they listed the ATI 9600 as the minimum for ATI cards, this means I can't install the update, or I just need to turn off the OpenGL 2.0 stuff?

Thanks in advance.

[zuzzabuzz]

I installed on my Powerbook 17" with ATI Radeon 9700 Mobile, and no luck with the (all) the spiffy new GL features. I think the "Mobile" part has to do with that though.

I didn't have to turn anything on/off to get Lightwave going. I just installed it and ran. Turning on the features (obviously) had no effect. Played with the particle stuff, that was fun. Played with the new shift, that was fun too. Felt speedier, though it's been a while since i've run lightwave on my powerbook, so it could just be me.

So far, really pleased with this update!
----
Just ran it on the Dell Latitude 610 at work. The gradients work, the textures work. It's pretty fast, and like HowardM said...neat to see stuff like Ripple move in real time.

[ArtisticVisions]

Just got a response from my graphics card manufacturer, in regards to whether or not my card (Wildcat VP990 Pro) supports OpenGl 2:

the card does support the OpenGL2 features, it is however not enabled in the drivers yet. once it has been incorporated into the drivers it will support OpenGL2.

Crap... :banghead:

[lots]

A note about you mac users: On Newtek's site, where they talk about 64bit and OpenGL2.0 of 8.5, they say that OSX does not support either 64bit, or OpenGL2.0. Thus all you mac guys dont get any of the benifits.

Here's the quote from the article:


For our Mac users, many of you have asked why some of the improvements in the Windows version are not also in the Mac version of LightWave, such as support of OpenGL 2.0 and 64-bit. Let's take each feature separately. In the case of the 64-bit port, LightWave needs to run in either a completely 64-bit or completely 32-bit environment, as most applications do. Apple has for the initial OS generations for Mac 64-bit processor systems implemented only core operations in 64-bit, leaving the graphic user interface in 32-bit space. Like most other applications, LightWave cannot work this way, for the reasons mentioned above. Once Apple implements a completely 64-bit version of the OS, then we can conclude our implementation.
OpenGL 2.0 support for the Mac requires updates to the graphics card drivers, and as Apple has yet to implement the OpenGL 2.0 specification, LightWave for the Mac will not be able to take advantage of those features. We sincerely regret this, but please rest assured that we communicate regularly with our contacts at Apple regarding these and all other issues that affect our development on the Mac platform. Our sense is that Apple is doing their best to properly prioritize and address such issues, and that they do take into account the feedback that they receive from customers as well as from developers.
You can find a link to the press release here:
http://www.newtek.com/lightwave/devupdate.php

[Dennik]

I can't hear the sound anymore when i scrub back and forth with the left - right keys.
Plus its trying to update (redraw) the views before going to the next frame even if dynamic update is turned off. And i'm using those keys ALL THE TIME.
Please put those features back!!!
Thats a major reason for me to downgrade.... :sad: i hope it gets fixed eventually.

[zuzzabuzz]

Thanks Lots. So perhaps the future of my Powerbook is still promising. I was surprised that my mid-range Dell card could do it but my supposedly spiffy Mac card could not. Something to look forward to...some day.

[monovich]

hmm. just installed 8.5 on a mac and a PC here, and I've been playing on the mac.

1st bug: textured don't update properly when moved/positioned with a null. frustrating.

-s

[habañero]

I don't know if I am missing something but I find the new ogl stuff ace. An 5900XT, I have like fluent update on non heavy stuff as of yet, and putting in a 240 000 polys sds robot I have update at about a second with like 6 lights and other objects and so on, I reason this is fair enough. I mean moving stuff around, camera motion etc is instant, only it needs half a sec to render the big procedural and incidence gradient textured bot. Obviously I wouldn't give fprime away for a new liver but it is nice to have options of checking textures at like all the angles and in scenes where fprime have noise etc.

It probably is a good thing for LW to start "selling" graphic cards, nvidia is an important company in 3D.

Now what I really dig is the new blending modes, now speak about a feature that was peculiar to newbies! That 100-50-33 thing, that never made too much sense, good riddance.

[Zarathustra]

Well like cool. That's like interesting. I can't wait to like hear more. So like why bother with the ogl stuff if you like have FPrime? Just like curious.

[telamon]

reply from Chuck Baker over at spinquad.

(http://www.spinquad.com/forums/showpost.php?p=96333&postcount=82)And for everbanned Zarathustra, herebelow is a copy of Chuck's word:

-------------
As far as moving the camera around and such it seems actually faster to me. The only thing that bugs me is the fact that not all procedurals work in OGL, it's not so much that they don't work that bugs me, it's that NewTek was saying since Siggraph "procedurals will display", not "some procedurals will display".

Sometimes in the heat of doing presentations the staff may not use all the qualifiers that would be wise. We did however document that for 8.5 we were providing initial support for GLSL and there would be further work in v9. The document has been updated today to account for the shift of the Layout OpenGL pipeline speedup from 8.5 to v9.0, as the work turned out to be beyond the scope that could be completed for 8.5, but the comments on GLSL are unchanged:

Lightwave's future development (http://www.newtek.com/lightwave/lwfuturedev.php)

From the LightWave [8] section:
For the 8.5 release, initial support for OpenGL 2.0 hardware shaders has been implemented, to provide an accurate real-time preview of many elements of texture and lighting. Many of these functions will depend on having newer, appropriate video cards.


From the LightWave v9.0 section:
The older internal drawing routines were replaced with a new OpenGL system that supports the OpenGL 2 standard and uses the functions now available in hardware to provide much faster performance. Adding more OpenGL 2 hardware shader functions and support is also part of the version 9.0 upgrade.



EDIT - The wysiwyg editor sometimes sucks...

[Zarathustra]

Sometimes in the heat of doing presentations the staff may not use all the qualifiers that would be wise.
Masterful response.

Chuck-san walk
upon tiny eggshells
Hear only silence

[habañero]

Zarathustra I just would like to say that I like your inquisitive attitude, to elaborate on my post I find it fickly to set up like 5 cameras, parented to the different lights or moving them around all parts of the scene etc with fprime, and so I reason I am getting information for free in the different viewports that would take more of an effort to hunt down with fprime. Fprime also have noise in some cases which isn't present in OGL, it seems it can be speedier to check say placement of texture seams meeting procedural textures, panning around the object etc. I guess I just disagree it is crap best turned off, as a freebie I find this avesome, though I don't think it'll really change my ways with respect to Fprime addiction.

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