Anyone know where I can get a lightwave demo. I need to test it before I buy it. I am gona use it for a plug. That will add a few new ships. I was originally using strata. Saw a great deal on lightwave now I want to test it before I rush into it.
Centorian
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It's Cent o rian, not Centurion
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(url="http://"http://openevgalaxy.sourceforge.net")Dawn of Infinity(/url)
There are no Lightwave demos available for the Mac. Believe me, I've looked.
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Now as I rest my feet by this fire; those hands once warmed here, I have retired them
I can breath my own air, I can sleep more soundly
Upon these poor souls; I'll build heaven and call it home
well then who here would buy lightwave for 200 dolars
centorian
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It's Cent o rian, not Centurion
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(url="http://"http://openevgalaxy.sourceforge.net")Dawn of Infinity(/url)
Quote
Originally posted by Centorian:
**well then who here would buy lightwave for 200 dolars
centorian
**
That's really cheap for a top app like Lightwave. Where are you getting that price?
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Now as I rest my feet by this fire; those hands once warmed here, I have retired them
I can breath my own air, I can sleep more soundly
Upon these poor souls; I'll build heaven and call it home
Given that I bought a year-old version of LightWave for $400 (God, I love eBay!), and I've loved every moment of it, I would buy it instantly for $200 (well, if I didn't already own it). But then, you should make sure you like 3D. I mean, don't buy it on a lark because you think using "professional software" will allow to punch out the next Attack of the Clones in five minutes. But, you seem like a levelheaded guy, and you say you've been using Stata, and it's always good to have experence with free/cheap programs before buying something like that.
LightWave's got a pretty easy learning curve. It took me a little bit to get used to having to hit the return key after everything I did in a different frame to make a keyframe, and all my spaceships moved around funny-like until I figured out the graph editor. And the riged folder structure took a little getting used to, but I'm probably better off for it. But other than that, it was pretty easy to translate the stuff I'd learned from prior programs into making it work.
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This belongs in the Developer's Corner.
iMove.
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Quote
Originally posted by Centorian:
**well then who here would buy lightwave for 200 dolars
centorian
**
uh, try $1,500... that's how much lightwave costs.
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Ahh...ebay
Pfft. I bought mine at an educational discount at 900$.
Two weeks later the price dropped to 300$ or so.
That pissed me off.
But any case. The only 'demo' version of Lightwave is the full version, installed on your computer, and without yer hardware key.
If you're thinking about going into 3D design/modelling/art, then this may be an application you should look into. Otherwise, I wouldn't spend the money, unless of course, you're filthy stinking rich. In which case, buy me a G5 - I'm a starving artist.
As for easy learning curve, Dave, its taken me three or four years to get to (url="http://"http://zombat.roosteredge.com/fcfccanupdate.jpg")this level.(/url)
'Course, I taught myself, so if you take courses or something, it might be a little different.
Whatever. The point is, unless you're seriously considering a career in that field, or your filthy rich, Lightwave probably isn't right for you.
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"Life is a bunch of dissapointments ending in one big let-down."
Truth is...I am. I am considering a job in that feild whatever it may be. Media, games, small jobs for companies. Anything. I have been using strata for bout a year and a half and I am looking for something better. After my friend showed me modleing. I was hooked. Now I just want a job with my new skills. Soo...3 hours left till this auction is over. I am thinking about holding off though untill I take the lightwave course our school offers, to see if I like lightwave. Mabey this guy will lower the opening bid next time. Goes to 150$ and its sold.
Centorian
You can get Maya 5 demo for mac (osX only). They call it the "personal learning edition", the main restriction is a watermark on rendered images. I got the windows version a little while ago, but haven't had the time to really get into it. Very good deal, if you ask me, and it may be possible to render things like ship sprites without the watermark showing up. Probably not things like the planet & shipyard views. (url="http://"http://www.aliaswavefront.com/eng/products-services/maya/maya_ple/index.shtml")http://www.aliaswave...ple/index.shtml(/url)
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Quote
Originally posted by Admiral Zombat:
As for easy learning curve, Dave, its taken me three or four years to get to this level.
Quote
Originally posted by David of Mac:
I mean, don't buy it on a lark because you think using "professional software" will allow to punch out the next Attack of the Clones in five minutes.
I'm not quite sure we have the same definition of learning curve. You seem to be referring to 3D as a whole, unless there is some wonderful program that would allow you to make pretty, superdetailed models with little effort and know-how (if there is such a program, I am very interested in hearing more about it)which would make your criticism of my learning curve comment more unique to LightWave and not the trade itself.
While I know very well someone couldn't make something like what you posted without bucketloads of time and dedication, I would consider that something of an expert-level accomplishment. No, what I meant by "learning curve" is that if you had spent months or years in Strata, you wouldn't suddenly boot up LightWave and find yourself confronted with an arcane and indecipherable interface. Instead, you would be able to easily translate what you already knew into LightWave.
Now, if it had a hard learning curve (by my definition), you could be an expert in Strata, or Blender, or MAX, and still need to read through the manual five times before you could figure out how to make a spinning cube.
EDITED because I was in a funk when I first posted it, and was, I felt, short-tempered and rude, not to mention unclear as to my intent.
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Do you expect me to talk?
No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die.
Goldfinger
(This message has been edited by David of Mac (edited 07-28-2003).)
Ah. That makes sense. Difference of definition, I guess.
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I'm looking into getting the student version of Lightwave. However, between C4D and LW, which would you say has the easiest to use interface for previous Mechanisto* users. How similar is it to Mech's interface and layout in general?
*Please do not judge my seriousness of buying Lightwave of the cheapness and crappiness of Mech.
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If you really just want to make images for EV, etc, I find (url="http://"http://www.povray.org")POV-ray(/url) to be a great deal, at free. CSG makes alot more sense to me than typical polygonal modeling techniques. It allows for complex lighting, texturing, animation, same as any '3D modeling/rendering' package, but with a different way of looking at things.
And speed(ray tracing can be slow) is not really an issue here, you set it to render the various view of your modeled ship, and go away for awhile. It's not like you're making models for an actual 3D game, just images.
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Alkiera Kerithor
Well, for all you 3D people out there, here's my take on things:
Do you like working with code? Do you like visualizing your object and translating it with mathematical schtuff? Go with POV-Ray. It's a nice program, although intimidating at first. One of the main reasons why I stopped using it was because it took me a long time to do what I can do in Lightwave quite quickly. The main problem that I had, Alkiera, is that to see what you've done to your image in POV-Ray, you have to render the image. This takes time... Lots of time. Especially if your scene has several thousand objects with textures and about 20 lights. This can be a waste if you make lots of modifications to the model. Mainstream programs like Lightwave are nice because they use OpenGL to show you what you're doing quickly.
Do you like working with lots of pretty icons and NURBS (Non-Uniform Rational B-Splines), then go with Maya. Of course, Maya's interface is extremely clumsy, the tools are hard to find, polygonal modeling is pure crap, subdivision surfaces are Brita filtered pure crap, and keyboard commands are strange and the most useful tools aren't bound to them so you have to do them yourself, but all the good buttons are taken by useless tools, so it's tough to find useful shortcuts. Bah. I'm only taking the damn class to diversify myself, and because I like the teacher (who incidentally uses Lightwave - more on that later). BTW, Maya PLE is a good way to learn the interface of Maya without actually having to buy the full program, but otherwise, it pretty much sux0rz.
I don't know much about 3DS Max, so someone else will have to plug for it. All I know is that it is used quite extensively in realtime-rendered
Do you not want to spend much money on your 3D suite, but still produce quality images? Infini-D (now Carrara), Cinema 4D, Rhino, Strata, etc, are the way to go. Probably some of the better ways to get into the 3D world (I heard that Rhino is quite good) on a modest budget. Unfortunately, these programs tend to not be industry standard pieces of software
Do you like... I'm getting tired of this format. Let's get to my two recommendations if you were to use just one program: SoftImage (now XSI), and Lightwave (now Lightwave). SoftImage and Lightwave, I found are very nice programs to use with (relatively) easy to use, intuitive interfaces. Lightwave is best known for its polygonal modeling and its subdivision surfaces (pioneered by Ed Catmull of PIXAR), and this is indicated by the fact that one can switch quickly and cleanly between the modes by simply pressing "tab." Lightwave stands out as the only non-object-oriented polygonal modeler of the"Big Three" which also includes Maya and 3DSMax. One quickly realizes the power of Lightwave's polygonal modeling simply by looking at Zombat, Onyx, Weepul, and Sparky's work. Unfortunately, NURBS are completely non-existant in Lightwave.
SoftImage/XSI is not as well known, but its advantage is that it is a jack-of-all-trades with strong NURBS, Subdivision, and Polygonal modeling. It takes many of Lightwave's best Polygonal and Subdivision tools and features, and adds in Maya's NURBS stuff, making it a strong modeler in many respects (I was just starting out 3D when I learned it in school, so my opinion might not be as high as it could be now that I've immersed myself in the world for the last year and a half). Interesting side note: SoftImage is the only major software program that contains all five major curve types: Linear, Bezier, Cardinal, B-Spline, and NURBS. Maya only has Linear and NURBS, and Lightwave to my knowledge only has Linear and B-Spline. Bezier curves really only show up when animating. SoftImage, also is a very strong animating program, so that's why when you watch the Star Wars: Episode II, DVD, and you're wondering which program's interface you see when Yoda is being animated, you're watching the ILM animators using SoftImage.
See what you get when you take animation classes with teachers who have been in the business for years, and have keen minds for trivia?
To nwa728, having looked at Mechanisto, and used Lightwave, I can tell you that Lightwave being a non-object oriented will throw you off at first, but if you want to get into the industry, it'd probably be the better choice. I saw a Japanese anime last night where they used Lightwave exclusively to animate.
If I had the choice, however, I'd use Lightwave to model (as it's such a powerful polygon modeler, you can get a lot of work done quickly, precisely, and without bunches of headaches), export to Maya to texture (while it's Polygon modeling sucks, its UV mapping is pretty nice to use. I need to play around with Lightwave's and I might change my opinion, but for now...), and export to SoftImage to animate.
Matrix
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3dsMAX, in my view, is a little harder to use than lightwave, while still retaining the same power. The problem that I find, though, is the lack of sufficient polygon editing. Sure, you can edit polygons, extrude stuff and the like, but you are forced to type everything in. Lightwave allows for a manual use, with numerical entries only needing to be used if you want something perfect and metrically correct. And even then its at the touch of a button. Everything in MAX has you typing in stuff, filtering through menus to get to the right blank. there seem to be very few hotkeys, and an array of misleading icons above at the top.
Even worse, you can't texture individual polygons. It seems that everything in MAX is all UV-maps ... Booleaning objects took a while... the whole interface to me seemed rather hostile and math-like.
I, would rather use lightwave.
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"Life is a bunch of dissapointments ending in one big let-down."
Wait, wait! Nobody's said anything about Bryce yet. Bryce is teh l33t!!1!
I didn't know that Maya was that far down on the scale of professional 3d modeling apps. But then again, I don't know anything about the art, I just saw the link and said "Cool! Free stuff!" Before using maya PLE, a friend had given me a cd with bryce, which I used to make a couple of "mountians and ocean" pics that looked functionally identical to every other bryce pic. Then I threw it out because I realized it sucked.
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It's not that Maya is all bad, it's that it's sadly lacking in several important areas (such as polygon and subdivision surface modeling). Maya is not a good program to start learning 3D on. It's extremely complicated in comparison to several programs, and it just isn't good at the basics. Let's just say that modeling a human head in Maya is taking several times longer than it would have taken me in Lightwave. I had to do 4 versions of the same head to understand the poorly written tutorial that my teacher gave us, and then four versions of a character using the same head technique (three revisions of the body, and four of the head) to get points where I think I want them. As it's due in a week and a half, if I have to start again, I may have to go to Alias (isn't that what they're calling themselves now? Ironic as Wavefront used to be the name of the company, and Alias the name of the product... I think... Something like that) and shoot every single person working there. The same character using the same tutorials would probably only take me one or two attempts, and would probably turn out better. Hmm... I guess Maya is just overrated.
Where Maya's strength lies is in NURBS. Unfortunately, NURBS are probably on their way out, so the people at Alias are scrambling to catch up with Lightwave, SoftImage/XSI, and Max.
Matrix
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Lightwave is a very good program. It seems that people have a tendency to stick by their 3D program of choice as hotly as their computer platform of choice, getting too caught up in what is flat-out better than what. Professionals in the industry recognize each program for their strengths, using them accordingly, which often differs person to person. In the same way, someone with a truly professional attiude would be able to use all major operating systems without whining (I'll stop myself before I go on a rant). My point is, the most important part of this equation is how closely the final product resembles your original vision. A 3D program, like any tool, is a means to an end, not and end in itself.
As for the debate on programs that has cropped up, my two cents follows:
I would say that 3DSMax's interface is what mainly turns me off from it. It's hard on the eyes, filled with what appears to be a poorly thought-out mingling of text and icon buttons. The icons are a little small and ambiguous, and indiscriminately pixelated, making it hard to initially figure out what everything is. The default hotkeys seem few and far-between, though I am aware that they are entirely editable through a hotkey menu. The color scheme is very unflattering, if I may nit-pick to that extent.
Unlike Zombat, I've found my courses in this program show MAX as an imprecise click-and-drag system first and foremost, with the numerical entries less obvious but still there. There seems to be several different ways of doing any one thing, especially when it comes to modeling. Modeling via the "modifier stack", in my opinion, is clumsy and slow. There is also a sometimes frustrating difference in units...something to do with "view space" and "world space" not agreeing with eachother, mostly due to changing XYZ directions...it seems unnecessary and rather pointless. I much prefer Lightwave' modeling workflow, but that may just be me. I've seen some very incredible things created using MAX, so I won't knock it. Personally, it just doesn't fit me well.
Lightwave allows me, for good or ill, to stare at the monitor for hours on end without signifigant eye strain. The interface is quite neutral, not distracting at all in my experience. All the buttons are text-based, so it is obvious what they are (if not so obvious what they do ). Modeling in layers rather than in objects reminds me in principle of Photoshop, which is a style I'm more accustomed to. All in all, things just seem to fall in to place for me with Lightwave, and for what doesn't come so easily, a large, helpful, friendly communtiy exists and a treasure trove of tutorials can be found. I've found MAX communities and tutorials to be of lower calibur; the forums more juvinile, the tutorials making many assumptions and coming off with a hint of arrogance...might just be a bad stroke of luck on my part.
I haven't used anything else out there save Ray Dream Studio 5, which was a fairly decent way to break in to the world of 3D. I don't know that I would reccommend it much, though. Oh, and lightwave educational price is $394 or something like that last I looked. Version 8 is due out before the year's end, I hear. $200 would be a good price, as long as it's version 6.5 or above, in my opinion. Good luck with it.
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(This message has been edited by Onyx (edited 07-30-2003).)
