Lightwave 11

Tonight Newtek officially announced Lightwave 11 at their VFX Minds Event.

While the event was very nice and I enjoyed listening to some of the guys whose work I have admired for years, the night was really about the new version of Lightwave.

Lightwave 11 has a bunch of new feature built in that I've been wanting for years. Instancing, Bullet Hard Body Dynamics, Fracture tool in Modeler and much more. Check out the features list here.

While there is a vocal bunch on the Newtek forums complaining about this release and having to pay for stuff that was supposed to be in Core before it was dropped, I think that this release is pretty solid. At least as solid as any release from Newtek can be. Do the vocal one's have a point about having to pay for stuff that was promised to them in a prior release? Yes, they do. However, if you got in on the "ground level" of the Core incident, then you paid your upgrade fee almost 3 years ago for the v10.x release. I'm more than willing to pay out again for an upgrade. It could be worse, we could be paying every year for an upgrade/maintenance fee like some other companies. Of course we might end up paying for yearly upgrades now that Newtek seems to have steered the Lightwave ship back on course.

In the end, I will be upgrading to the new Lightwave 11, and look forward to using it. I can't wait to dig into some of the Bullet Physics stuff and make things explode. I just need to wait for my clients to pay me. Back to the grind.


FTC Disclosure - I was not paid by Newtek or any representative of Newtek for this post; I received no special consideration from Newtek; no material connection exists between Newtek and myself. I do however use Lightwave software in my day to day business operations, bought on the open market with my own money.