STEALING FEATURES: (What features should LW STEAL from the competition?)

#21

I love using lw, but lately have been learning xsi at school.

Somethings I really like about xsi:

  1. select loop <–lw8 has this now
  2. select range
  3. The uv tools in xsi are sweet. I love how you can tear your pieces apart and it color codes the edges of them so you know what they attach too. The heal tool will weld them back together and also scale it to fix the pieces together nicely. Also, island select is really nice. If you end up with pieces of your uvs stacked on top of each other you can turn island select on and by picking one point on the uv it will select the whole piece.
  4. I also enjoy being able to use the Left Middle and Right mouse buttons to move along the x,y, and z axis’. I think that you can do this in Maya and XSI.

That is all I can think of at the moment and these things I really like in xsi.

#22

Maya Dynamic Curves with wich you can make dynamic hair, attach bones to them to make dynamic character animation, make ropes etc, etc (beats XSI hair at all). Also the maya lock curve length so you can drag an curve vertex and the hole curve moves toward it ( damn cool).

XSI look + Maya functionality = New LW UI

#23

I get what everyone’s saying but surely if you add everything that’s been mentioned it would no longer be Lightwave…I like lightwave. I really struggle to use anything else, I especially think that the modeller is amazing…it actually feels like an artists tool rather than an engineering app with a renderer.

I think the first thing that needs addressing is the “bittyness” of it. It’s had so many bits added to it over the years that finding the right tool is like searching a cluttered garage for a screwdriver. We don’t need all the “plugin X, plugin X+, plugin X++” crap…if there’s a new version of a tool available then replace the old one, don’t just add it…I actually found surface editor + yesterday, what the hell is that???
I think the best app to follow is Modo. It’s got a bit of that LW feel but the tools are just a bit better. I had a quick play & didn’t like it much but I can see why people do. The pipe tool is a glaring omission from Lightwave…Rail Extruding can be a nightmare (checkout the rope maker plugin in Flay to see how it should be done).
SSS is another ommission as is Sub-pixel Displacement…I also feel a little let down by the renderer. It’s still good but I used to feel really proud of being a Lightwave user because of the stunning renders but it’s getting left behind a bit now.

I’m gonna stick with Lightwave, it’s still a great artistic tool but I’ve got to get Messiah:Studio to bring it up to date. If it can include everything that Messiah has then it will be as good as it was a few years ago.

#24

Learning Maya at school I’ve fallen in love with the hotbox, I’d love to see LW get something similar to speed of the workflow. Doesn’t have to be the same, just some good idea to get things moving faster.

#25

Ummm… how about an actually working Undo…? :shrug:

#26

I think they should get the extrude tool that modo uses,(ie…selecting a face and easily pulling it out for antenae stuff like that) unless they can already do that?..Im not sure, been workin with LW for almost 3 years and kinda stick with certain tools.

At the very least they should get the morph targeting system built into modo. (which interestingly enough was designed by the creator of LW himself.

#27

I have just downloaded the demo version of Modo and… obviously, I felt a bit lost when I first fired the program. But the decent video tutorials helped me to identify what is different between it and LW.

One question, is it so sensitive not to create a thread “stealing features from modo”? I think a lot of us should be very eloquent.

RobertoOrtiz, could you create this thread?

#28

I’d like to see the following:

  1. Maya style NURBS tools, for roughing out the form of an object, and that canbe converted to polys for detailing.

  2. A decent, built in, hair system, along with other similar things such as cloth and fluids.

  3. NGon support.

  4. The Messiah:Animate method of rigging, using the smart bones that don’t need weightmaps 99.9% of the time, also using a Setup room, so that the rig can be changed, but the animation stays as it is.

  5. Easy to set up render passes, such as those found in C4D.

#29

If no one has said it, I like modo’s macros. Coming from a big PS background I can respect the use of recordable actions.

#30

What about the Maya thing that u can choose between Animation/Render etc, in the same way Lightwave should have Modeller/Layout! Lightwave should b one Program fellas (dont know if this is feasible of course)… And of course shelves… Intuitive drag&drop interface that u can really use to change the workflow…

#31

LW should improve immediately!!!
should add subdivision and edge weights in LW! i’m so disappointed! when i’m open file from modo, my model’s edge weights was gone! i need to add more polys on modo again, waste time!!:shrug: i need help!

#32

skin shading pls!

Henrik Jensen and craig donner announced a paper about SSS

 [http://graphics.ucsd.edu/papers/layered/](http://graphics.ucsd.edu/papers/layered/)

Newtek, pls read this paper :deal:

  [img]http://graphics.ucsd.edu/papers/layered/face_nose.jpg[/img] 
 
  [img]http://graphics.ucsd.edu/papers/layered/face_ear.jpg[/img]
 
 [img]http://graphics.ucsd.edu/papers/layered/face.jpg[/img]
#33

Usually implementing something from a SIGGRAPH paper isn’t “stealing features”.

Why did you feel the need post this in here since you already started a thread for this same thing?

#34

LW seriously needs Parametric Tools and controls if it wants to get with the future. The whole, use a Tool, drop and lose it forever is a serious workflow killer in my opinion. Having the ability of changing spline lofts, vertex points on extrusions and animating these is a serious boon to production. Anyone who has spent any time in XSI, C4D, Max or Maya will know what I mean.

I guess this would involve integrating Layout and Modeler to make it a reality.

LW Modeler is a great modeler…but the omission of Parametric Controls is a serious flaw when it comes to doing certain types of work (Motion Graphics in particular).

Cheers.

#35

Well I am glad you posted this… This is seriously one of the best approaches I have seen. The skin here is really promising, it doesn’t have the waxy look even.
EDIT: I have quickly read portions of the PDF, and see they have implemented what truly is needed for skin… The skin rendering at the end of the paper in higher res than shown here is worth a look… The comparison with the old ‘dipole’ method makes it so obvious this is the best approach to date.

#36

That is amazing… I’ve seen so many renders here on CgTalk that I think are the best human-skin representations I’ve seen then I see this render and it is like “That is it!” It is amazing how little subtle differences when added-up make so much of a difference. It is not like I saw the aformentioned renders and said “That is great but it needs more SSS to make it real.” I cannot summerize what skin needs or does not need to make it more realistic but that is the most realistic I’ve seen to date… I’m reading now :slight_smile:

#37

I have only dabbled in Maya and the main things that I have seen that I love is paintable hair/grass etc, which would be really cool to have.
Also I like the way that bones are added in Maya.
And as one person said before, plugins are a bit of a pain.
I know I have to keep a tidy folder setup and that should be that, but there are so many things to keep track of.
:thumbsup:

#38

Shouldn’t this read STEAL from the competition instead of for the competition … I think the competition has the edge as it is, NT really doesn’t need to help them out any further… :wink:

Edit: I see it’s now been corrected … :D. It kinda reminded me of your “LW Free models” Roberto instead of “Free LW models” …

#39

i agree with all has been mentioned, especially UV tools have to be enhanced.
i dunno about ZB features, like Projection master, because i think its more a ZB technology so far , and that great app, works differently than others!

to all what was said i’d add things like instances and an history stack

sub pixel disp: i’d like to have it, but however, working with normal map for finer details and disp map used even in bump channel, the mesh has not to be subdivided SO much, and in any case you’ll setup this for the rendering subdivision level only, so no slow down on your machine.

i heard that real subpixel is not so fast even in render engines like Mray. is that true? someone made some test??

#40

What does sup pixel displacment do/