The Future of Lightwave/Newtek

#21

I can’t think of a single person in production who wouldn’t want their animation package to be as powerful as possible. Whether they have mastered EVERY single feature is really moot. Improving the tools they use for their particular specialization is what they care about.

Specious arguments that are based on the premise that users should shut up and be happy with what they’ve got is what keeps LW where it is, and its users in the dark.

Sure AW doesn’t announce in advance updates. They don’t because they release updated frequently and sell the hell out of the package when they do. Same as Discreet. Plus, they get a lot of publicity and user support from the myriad plug-ins that are released on a monthly basis, and which also have a well-run marketing apparatus behind them.

So, ChandlerL, your concerns are shared. Let’s hope the SIGGRAPH announcements are worth the wait. I for one am over the way the future of LW is obscured by lack of information.

#22

.5(not .5b) for free was a great add on to a great package but…they have been saying "Oh there great things to come’ for a while now and frankly,they are really going to have to back all this talk up.
If ‘8’ is a let down Lightwave will go the way of Truespace and all those little programs that only really have a “cult” following.
Still a kick ass program yes but to keep it going they are really gonna have to show their cards on “8”…if not then Maya ill see a surge in sales maginified by a further “price war” Newtek will be sweating polygons the size of Texas.

#23

Forget LW 8 for now, where’s LW 7.5c, which fixes the bugs, instability, and slowness of LW 7.5b!?

#24

Originally posted by CIM
Forget LW 8 for now, where’s LW 7.5c, which fixes the bugs, instability, and slowness of LW 7.5b!?

:eek: WHAT!!!..a fix for the fix huh…:wip:

#25

Looking like there should be a Luxology board at CG Talk soon ??

#26

Theres a difference between marketing and selling. Marketing incorporates in research and hard facts to determine how and where to sell your product.
Studios are the best place to get your software thrashed and bugs indentified simply because individuals and smaller studios arent going to put the software thru its paces like a bigger place.
Again, the result is that you get good, solid software that is feature rich (good for everyone) and you also have another tool to persuade customers to buy your product because it was used on popular movies or TV shows.
I agree that schools should be targetted in a similar way. The vast majority of schools that have a 3D program usually set them up in ignorance with no real ciriculum or a good understanding of the field or really qualified instructors. Schools usually buy for the same reason anyone else does…its based on what appears to be popular or exciting.
One thing that one must be careful of when marketing is to have a way of accurately and quantitativly determining if something the company is doing is REALLY resulting in sales. Is there real data that educating a potential buyer by giving them a demo version actually results in significant sales or is simply an assumption that it does? There are people who would argue both sides but the bottom line is sales. Careful marketing ignores emotional bias or personal feelings and collects necessary data. Its the sales people who figure out how to get people charged emotionally to buy the product.
The contests, promotions and so forth all SOUND like good ideas but are they based on REAL marketing or several people deciding it sounds like a good idea? Have those activities resulted in sales?
Part of marketing is also determining if advertising and promotions are resulting in sales so that marketing and advertising/selling efforts can be tuned.
The last issue is that marketing and selling to existing customers is very different the bringing in new blood.

#27

Are sales that strong that they arent even worried about “8”?

#28

Originally posted by wgreenlee1
Are sales that strong that they arent even worried about “8”?

I think that theyre worried enough about 8 to be talking about releasing 8. :slight_smile:

#29

1.NewTek earns only 400-500 bucks per upgrade, so the focus probably must be on getting NEW users aboard, which pays more.
To get those, NT must advertise evrywhere the competition does not.
I see a lot of A/W advertising in uncommon places.
When I got the A/W demo CD, I was overwhelmed by the proffesional appeal it had, including those promo videos where a lot of people just talked about Maya without showing anything at all. It created some kind of lifestyle.Some kind of beeing inside a private club feeling.

2.Probably, we will not see any 7.5c, but rather either a major update OR 7.5c for Siggraph, not both.Let’s call 7.5b an accident.
I am pretty sure that 8 is another year away, will be called “complete rewrite” and still not feature multiple undos in Layout, as well as the old way of working with deformations and bones.
It will not have extensive game support (preview in modeler/layout for all the standard game features such as normal mapping, bump mapping etc).
It will not have rudimentary 3D painting.
It will not have edge manipulation and edge weighting.
It will not have rudimentary walk cycle generation or easy MocaP support.
It will not have better symmetry in modeler or point level animation in layout.
It will just be good old LW with a good modeler, a decent animation environment and just a few eyecatchers, probably improved radiosity, probably improved dynamics (no hard bodies, though).

How do I know that ? Well, I have seen 4.0, 5.0, 5.6, 6.0, 6.5, 6.5b (the best update so far!), 7.0, 7.5 and 7.5b.
So I can probably predict what kind of route the dev team takes.
Except for a few really interesting things like endomorphs, weight maps, ParticleFX, radiosity, spreadsheet there was not that much of an innovation, if You consider that these things probably are added in ONE go in other apps.
There is no new modeling paradigma, there is no consistent way of doing things (like FULLY interactive tools in modeler, or at least the same display modes in modeler and layout).

NewTek, please suprise me, prove me wrong :slight_smile: !

#30

there will be nothin groundbreakin from newtek on siggraph… they hardly compiled 7.5b and now u can see that we need fix for fix… they absolutly can’t do anythin till than… maybe they will sell lw for 10 bucks … that could be exciting… :buttrock:

but maybe some1 else will have somethin groundbreakin for us?:surprised

#31

Originally posted by CIM
Forget LW 8 for now, where’s LW 7.5c, which fixes the bugs, instability, and slowness of LW 7.5b!?

Hey CIM…here’s an idea…why don’t you stop using LightWave…i’m sure you could sell it. You could use the money to buy several hundred white mice which you could feed to your collection of vipers.

you are a nasty green smelly troll…get lost…:annoyed:

#32

lmao

#33

All lay off CIM, he can be a b*tch sometimes but his venom cuts sarcasm and gets to the point and for the sake of adding to “me tooism”, if a customers feel that he dpesn’t have to upgrade then thats a lost buck for newtek. I see reason to upgarde maya 5, i am still learning …so the hardware renderer is a moot point. I catch next year, but LW for me, should allow users to get tools to make theor jobs easier rather than make them better artist.

Do i need multipass render manager…
No
but it would make it easier

But I know I don’t need halfass spline deformer when the deformation engine in lw is still slow …
So no upgrades to sockmonkey, serpent or anything else that deforms till the deformation gets kick-up and
while the orthepediacs, acs4, or TSM plugin looks nice…its a moot point till LW gets the IK engine up to par.
Sure you can use it but u have to wrestle with it.
I would like easier tools rather than flash in the pan effects (motion blur in opengl…who cares) to distract you from the annoying effects.

I use Messiah but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t not like to have LW do everything for me … and after 3 yrs with messiah on the table I woner why newtek just doesn’t do something about it.
(it = being the best character tools). As always Endomorphs and subdivision level in lw rock!

#34

Originally posted by wgreenlee1
Lightwave will go the way of Truespace and all those little programs that only really have a “cult” following.
Still a kick ass program yes but to keep it going they are really gonna have to show their cards on “8”…if not then Maya ill see a surge in sales maginified by a further “price war” Newtek will be sweating polygons the size of Texas.

It’s funny to see these kinds of doom and gloom posts. Newtek and Luxology can’t be blind to the competition and what we want. Look at all the yelling for sub-surface scattering we were all doing and what did they do. They gave it to us in spades. The new gradiant allows us to do stuff that subsurface scattering alone doesn’t do. I bet you there are maya and max people clamering for such a tool. Bugs aside 7.5b had a few surprises that I enveyed in other software. SSS and spline controls for example.

I feel confident that we’ll get more than we expect and they will continue to anticipate new tools that we haven’t thought of yet.

Jay

#35

I have been with Newtek the Amiga days and they have always used the same policy.

All these gloom and doom post, seem more like tactica fro them to show their hand.

Personally I trust them, and I know they will come thru to their customers.

-R

#36

…and why do we keep beating this DEAD horse.

#37

I’m bored :shrug:

jay

#38

Policarpo,

Your work is top-notch, you’ve been immensely helpful in countless posts. But, on this subject, you’re starting to sound shrill as you attempt to shout-out the dissenting opinions. Rather than assume negative opinions can only come from buffoons, a few well-placed questions might help CIM and others become more articulate.

I’ve been known to be schiziod myself: I’m a great lover of rational, constructive debate, but the shoddy treatment Newtek has demonstrated to Mac users(especially in the last year) has me foaming at the mouth, speaking gutteral, indecipherable expletives. It’s been a month(!?) since they’ve posted any news on the fix to 7.5b, even after e-mail queries. Even if it’s unwelcome news, it conveys respect to your customer base if you give us a heads-up. I agree with Emmanuel: that the pronounced silence probably means they’re consolidating around a wider Mac + PC launch midsummer.

People also make the assumtion that anyone using Lightwave professionally are using it collaboratively. Either that, or they are hobbyists.
What about illustrators or photographers? Sculptors, Installation artists, video artists? I’m an illustrator, and I’ll vouch that there’s emerging market segments that don’t crave new gadgets, just a rock-solid tool that is productive, even for the lone-gun operators. My craving for 7.5b was to help with several known Mac bugs that effect my pipeline. For me, it’s back to waiting.

#39

Hi mbaldwin.

To continue a useful debate, I have some questions:

If you could, what would you tell Newtek to address your concerns about the program?

What could they do to help the MAC LW users? What are their most common complaints?

-Roberto

#40

The LW8/Luxology-Newtek threads have become something like “what app should i use?”, they soon turn into useless flames.

Do you like Lw? Stay with it and wait for updates, if Newtek had something new maybe you’d already have it. It means they need some more time to give you some new toys to play with. Be patient and let them develop new features and stop bashing them everyday.

Do you think Lw’s not for you anymore? Do you think you can’t wait for updates? Are you unhappy with it? There are a lot of apps out there, choose another one and don’t look back.

These kind of threads (make a search for Lw8 or Luxology-Newtek, you’ll find hundreds of them) don’t have any fx, they only turn into flames.