LW8 Question.

#1

Wegg: I would be interested in your view on how messiah compares to what you’ve seen from LW8 - i.e. messiah studio still better ??

A LW8/Siggraph link posted in another forum:
http://www.tv3d.com/Sig03/LW8.htm

Rune

I watched those videos as well and I could see a lot of things that I would probably use as an animator. . . but look at how many times the demo artists flub up. Forget one little thing in a pannel hidden under a stack of other obscure windows and cryptic terms.

LW has become so bloated with “tools” it feels like its about to crumble in on itself. Compared to applications with a cleaner workflow. . . it almost looks rediculous.

Messiah feels much cleaner. It doesn’t yet have the same ease of use of AM but being able to use plugins such as Max, C4D, Maya, and LW more than make up for a few extra steps. :wink:

#2

I haven’t watched all the videos but the only person I saw demoing LW8 that flubbed a lot was Larry Shultz, but he doesn’t work at NewTek and probably hasn’t had access to the latest version. They’re also tweaking the interface a lot, so things are moving around but that won’t happen in the final release. I thought Proton did a good job, he’s obviously familiar with LW8. And he hardly ever opened a window, everything was done via context menus. The workflow in LW8 is looking pretty good, but of course we’ll have to wait for the final release to pass judgement. The one thing I don’t like about Messiah’s workflow is that you’re stuck on a single monitor. I would like to tear off many of the tabs and place them on my second monitor.

#3

I saw the videos too and I don’t think Larry flubbed “a lot.” I think that was the first session that he did out of several and that several of the plugins he needed had not been loaded on the demo system yet. Every other time after that the plugins were loaded and everything went super.

#4

I think the point I’m trying to make is that there is always something with LW. Plugins not loaded, CFG file moved or damaged, the Hub acting up or playing havic with your displaced objects. The workflow and interface in LW really can be a cumbersom beast that is hard to get into. Ahh but that renderer. . .

#5

I don’t really agree with your point. I don’t know of any plugin that will work properly until you install or load it. That includes Maya, Max, XSI, and Lightwave. As far as it “always being something with Lightwave” that is your point of view but I personally haven’t expierienced that myself. I’ve done work with both Maya and Lightwave and found quite a few things about Maya that I felt were poorly implemented or overly complex. IMO, Lightwave is a pretty full featured package. But, the bottom line is you should use whatever works for you.

#6

Its just. . .

Ok examples.

In order to set up your scene to render. . . half the settings are in the Render panel. . . and . . . a few of them are in the Camera panel. . . and don’t forget anything special you put in the “Scenes” “Image Processing” panel. And remember to bake all your particles or they won’t work. . . Thats on another panel.

There just isn’t one place to look. So of course. . . more things get put on the renderfarm without all the right settings.

Content directories have to be set up just right. So your “Images” folder is jammed full of a gabillion images, when in other applications I can organize any way I want. I used to like to keep a separate folder just below the folder the model is in so all my images stay with my mesh.

Modeler and Layout are two different applications. Instead of just switching into a different mode, you have to open up a whole new application with all different shourtcuts, interfaces and “rules of thumb”.

Not being able to select an edge. . . that alone blows my mind.

The whole application varies so much between one plugin to the next that it becomes very very confusing. Motion Designer, Sasquatch, Skytracer, Viper. . . Every one of them feel like they were jammed in where they would fit.

I’m not dissing the value LW. It is our main rendering application and probably will be for quite a while. Nothing else on the market provides so much power with unlimited render nodes.

I just know from experience that there are much better ways of working in 3D.

#7

How is Messiah Studio layed out? Is it easier to navigate in it?

#8

I don’t bake my particles and they work great.

#9

Originally posted by RobPowers
I don’t bake my particles and they work great.

Me too :slight_smile:

And you can render in any directory, as long as you tell LW… :wink:

#10

Originally posted by Andy741
How is Messiah Studio layed out? Is it easier to navigate in it?

Yes it is, and if u have doubts, just check the most amazing manuals ever written for a software package:buttrock:

Download the demo, it´s free :slight_smile:

#11

Originally posted by RobPowers
I don’t bake my particles and they work great.

You have to bake them if you wish to use Screamernet.

#12

No you don’t. I render over the farm all the time.

#13

Whenever I try and use Screanernet on my scenes with particles. . . All I get is a hypervoxel ball in the middle of the scene. The only way around that is to bake the particles.

<shrug>

#14

As a long time LW user I do agree a bit of what Wegg is saying. I do agree that stuff in LW is all over the place. And to me it is also is begining to look a bit bloated. I also believe that some of the menus contents should be combined with others to make things a bit simpler for newer users. I think things were a bit different in the older versions of LW where one had less settings to work with. Now when I look at the newer versions of LW I find myself getting lost a bit wading through where I know the old to be, and where I think the new stuff should be.

Also… Wegg, you can place sub folders in your main content directories for seperate projects. AM may have not done this (dont know offhand) however other apps like Maya, Soft and maybe even Max do something similar so it’s not just a LW thing. When I used to do a bunch of LW stuff I had a network directory shared with all my content stored there. Inside the main content directory I had seperate directories for each type of item (images, objects, scenes) with their own seperate directories matching my project names. Whenever I needed to network render I knew where everything was as well. Also there are several options for extracting your scenes into new cointent directories in case things get too complecated with your management. At least there used to be management utlilties back in version 6.5

And the comment about edges; there are plugins that can make up for working with edges, not quite like actually having them (one that comes to mind is the fi wrinkle plugin) however having actual edge weighting as well as edge manipulation is more of what I expect from a modeler these days. So I’m with you there, I dont know why they didn’t add it eons ago. It’s not like it’s a new concept. My only thought is that all of us LW people were and are so mired in LW that nobody bothered asking for it.

I also agree with your messiah conclusiuons.

#15

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