Lightwave Gets a Major Re-Write

The long standing grand daddy of 3D packages, Lightwave is to get a major re-write and a new version. Launched through a somewhat delayed web cast last night NewTek announced that the next release of Lightwave, Lightwave Core will be a new application, re-written from the ground up. Existing users have the option to join the companies “Hard Core” (unfortunate choice of name) membership program to get access to early information and I presume beta builds for a fee of $395 (to rise to $495). During the launch they showed off some of the new interface briefly. It’s hard to get an impression from the few segments they showed, but I couldn’t help but notice the striking similarity to Luxology’s Modo (I’m sure this is just an initial impression).

The new software will be object oriented, fully 64 bit, fully cross platform, including Linux. Hopefully this will mean that the Mac version of Lightwave is finally given the attention it really needs (It’s a tad buggy – although they have done some work on it in the latest version). It’s good to see a developer take such a brave route. Lightwave was getting very long in the tooth and lacked many modern features. It’s a great piece of software, and responsible for much of the visual effects you see on television, such as Battlestar Galactica’s multiple Emmy award winning special effects, but its had so much stuff bolted onto it over the years that a complete re-build was the best way to go foreword.

Now if only Adobe would do the same with Photoshop…….

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