Lightwave 9.5
For Immediate Release
NewTek Announces Fourth Major Update to LightWave 3D® v9
Update to award-winning 3D animation system includes addition of hair and fur along with new real-world lighting system and advancements in global illumination
San Antonio, TX – February 20, 2008 – NewTek, Inc., manufacturer of industry-leading video and 3D animation products, today announced LightWave® v9.5, a major update to its award-winning 3D application, LightWave 3D®. LightWave® v9.5 new capabilities include a complete hair and fur solution, new lighting system and many improvements to animation, global illumination, rendering and workflow. The update will be available to registered owners of the LightWave v9 series at no charge. The LightWave v9.5 Open Beta program is scheduled to begin early March; LightWave v9 owners who wish to participate may register now by visiting: http://register.newtek.com/.
As promised with the LightWave v9 series weve added major capabilities with each of the updates weve delivered so far and LightWave v9.5 is certainly no exception, said Jay Roth, president, NewTek 3D Division. With the addition of a complete hair and fur solution, all new real-world lighting system and GI that is significantly faster with even more beautiful results, LightWave v9.5 has something to offer the 3D community regardless of the specialty - from game developers to character animation to architectural visualization.
LightWave v9.5 Update Includes:
Character Animation Enhancements
[ul]
[li] New Hair and Fur System[/li]
[li] New Collada, FBX and OBJ I/O[/li]
[li] Enhanced IK and Animation Systems[/li]
[list]
[li] New IK Calculation Options for Faster Performance[/li]
[li] New Bone Type - Joints[/li]
[li] New Objective Options for IK[/li]
[li] IK/FK blending[/li]
[li] Multi-threaded Mesh Deformation Evaluation[/li]
[/ul]
[li] Modeler[/li]
[ul]
[li] UV Unwrap/UV Relax[/li]
[li] Symmetry Tolerance[/li]
[/ul]
[/list]
Lighting, Rendering and Surfacing Enhancements
[ul]
[li] All New Lighting System[/li]
[list]
[li] New Light API[/li]
[li] IES Lights[/li]
[li] New Spherical Light[/li]
[li] Area and Linear Lights Enhanced[/li]
[/ul]
[li] Renderer[/li]
[ul]
[li] Faster Sampling System for GI[/li]
[li] Improved GI Quality[/li]
[li] New GI Controls to Customize the Render[/li]
[li] Disk-Based GI Cache[/li]
[/ul]
[li] Node Editor Enhancements[/li]
[ul]
[li] Interpolated Soft Reflections/Refractions[/li]
[li] Support for New Light API Functions[/li]
[li] Oren-Nayar Shading Option for Many Materials[/li]
[li] Optimizations for Materials and Shaders[/li]
[/ul]
[/list]
SDK and LScript Improvements
[ul]
[li] New Light Plug-in Class for third Party Lights and Light Plug-ins[/li]
[li] SDK Support for New GI Functions and Disk Cache[/li]
[li] SDK Support for New IK and Animation Capabilities[/li]
[li] Set Surface Properties Through the Surface Global[/li]
[/ul]
UI and Workflow Enhancements
[ul]
[li] Enhanced Scene Limits[/li]
[li] Updated Scene File Format[/li]
[li] EXIF Metadata Support[/li]
[li] OpenGL GLSL Enhanced for New Lighting System[/li]
[li] Image Viewer Consolidation[/li]
[/ul]
In addition to the new capabilities in LightWave v9.5, the LightWave v9 series has delivered enhanced performance in a number of areas including improved global illumination with higher quality and faster rendering, expanded OpenGL capabilities with new depth of field preview, advancements in the new camera tools and the node and materials editing system. Further, there are now over 24 hours of free LightWave training available online at www.lightwave3d.com. Visual effects artists who used LightWave’s world-class rendering system and other capabilities in recent major projects such as Jumper, The Ruins, 300, The Guardian, VFX Emmy®-winning Battlestar Galactica and other hit series, such as The Sarah Connor Chronicles, CSI, CSI Miami, The History Channels Dogfights and the up and coming high definition game, WarDevil, depend on LightWave to produce state of the art visual effects on time and on budget.
Pricing and Availability
LightWave® v9 is available now at suggested retail price of $895US. LightWave v9.5 will be available as a free update to registered LightWave v9 owners. Registered owners of LightWave 3D® [8] or earlier are eligible to purchase an upgrade to LightWave v9 for $395US. For more information or to purchase, please visit www.lightwave3d.com or call NewTek Sales at 1-800-368-5441, for international inquiries dial +1-210-370-8000.
About NewTek
With headquarters in San Antonio, Texas, NewTek is an Emmy® Award-winning and leading provider of full-featured video editing, live production, presentation, animation and special effects tools including TriCaster, TriCaster PRO, TriCaster STUDIO, VT[5], SpeedEDIT, 3D Arsenal, and LightWave 3D®.
–End–
* LightWave and LightWave 3D are registered trademarks of NewTek, Inc.
* The TriCaster family of products include: TriCaster, TriCaster VM, TriCaster PRO, TriCaster PRO FX and TriCaster STUDIO which are trademarks of NewTek, Inc.
* SpeedEDIT, iVGA, LiveSet, LiveMatte, VT[5], 3D Arsenal and LightWave Rendition are trademarks of NewTek, Inc.
* All other products or brand names mentioned are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.great new chuck
am looking forward to this ver much !
Open beta testing is early march so i will downloading it then
cheers
These are exactly the features I was hoping for. I was just looking for a REAL hair solution (Saslite fracking suck!) and was having trouble doing some more complex rigging last night so the new joint and IK tools are VERY much needed. I hope these new features turn out to be stable and easy to use.
So, with this update, we should be able to get .OBJ models out of Lightwave with the proper UV mapping? This would be great for ZBrush. Right now, I have to take the object from LW to Blender and then export an .OBJ object. Not a bad thing since it gives me a chance to play in Blender. 
Awesome…Newtek really have pulled their finger out. Not only has LW caught up with the other 3d apps but it’s looking like a pro application again for the first time in years.
I feel guilty for doubting all the hype and I’m glad that I didn’t jump ship…although my bank account played the biggest part in that 
I think the biggest hurtle was probably trying to get the core to do things it was never intended to do (lights as a plugin class, weren’t we told several years ago that was impossable? 
). Just goes to show how brilliant these guys are!
new has been posted to Digg.com. Please digg it and get LightWave some much needed exposure!
Not to mention MudBox and some of the 3D painting Apps. Although 3D Brush supports LWO natively, so it has been problem free in that respecrt for a while now.
This is an Awesome update for sure. I’m looking foward to the beta.
It’s weird but I really did not truly appreciate the price point until now. Unless you live in the States this may not mean much but right now our economy is pretty bad. Companies are tanking, offshoring jobs and or raising prices to stay afloat.
As much $hit that Newtek has taken oven the years. I have to applaud them for not flip flopping or changing the game as it were being that the 9.x cycle remains free for qualified owners. I honestly have to take my hat off to a company like this, especially during these difficult economic times.
I really wish you guys (Newtek) all the success in the world going foward as I’m sure it will pay dividends down the road. It’s actions like this that keeps me continuing on with this product in my aresenal.
Thank you again to all in involved and im really looking foward to more to come 
Really exciting news here - especially wanted the Hair and Fur system - didn’t expect it so soon - and in a free update to boot, too. Thanks, Newtek! Can’t wait to check out Lightwave 9.5.
Now, if only ZBrush3 for Mac would come out - then my joy will be complete.
Agreed. The updates have really been appreciated so far and now it just got all the more exciting. I’m really looking forward to the new hair and fur system, realistic lighting, new light api, and modeler’s UV handling ( much needed ).
It’s always been a pain that with most modelers, hair and fur has always been an extra plug-in that required lots of extra cash to upgrade to. Now that it will be native, that should push Lightwave up to a whole new level.
No offense to anyone, but I’m just really tired of Max, Maya, Max, Maya all the time.
LW can export to obj with it’s UV intact, although there must be a surface using the UV map.
Yes, LW is weird that way.
Is their anymore info on the new Hair and Fur tools in LW 9.5.
Also was this developed from the ground up or was it a LW plug-in before, as in Fiber Factory or Shave and a hair cut?
Anyone know for sure?
try this…