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LightWave 3D
Screenshot of LightWave 3D 9.0 (Layout)
Developer	NewTek, Inc.
Latest release	9.3 / August 7, 2007
OS	Amiga, Mac OS X, Windows
Genre	3D computer graphics
License	Proprietary
Website	www.newtek.com

LightWave (or, more properly, LightWave 3D) is a computer graphics program for 3D modeling, animating and rendering. The original program was shipped with the Video Toaster, an expansion card for the Commodore Amiga 2000 computer. It was later sold as a standalone program for AmigaOS until the mid 1990s, when it was ported to the Windows, Mac OS 9, Mac OS X and SGI's IRIX operating systems. The rendering engine, ScreamerNet has also been ported to Linux platforms.

LightWave was one of the first high profile industry standard 3D packages featuring a built-in radiosity render engine, complete with a complex light calculation model for support of caustics.

Some functions within LightWave are multi-threaded, which means that those components can simultaneously use multiple processors in the same machine when performing complex calculations.

Programmers can expand LightWave's capabilities using an included SDK as well as a special scripting language called LScript, which is based on the C language.

Contents 1 History 2 Modeler and Layout 3 Licensing 4 See also 5 External links

In 1988, Allen Hastings created a rendering and animation program called Videoscape, and his friend Stuart Ferguson created a complementary 3D modeling program called Modeler, both sold by Aegis Software. It is these two programs that would evolve into what would eventually be known as LightWave 3D.

NewTek planned to incorporate Videoscape and Modeler into its video editing suite, Video Toaster. According to Hastings, NewTek originally intended to call the new 3D program 'NewTek 3D Animation System for the Amiga.' Later, in December 1989, Hastings came up with the name 'LightWave 3D,' inspired by two of the high-end 3D packages of that time: Intelligent Light and Wavefront. In 1990, the Video Toaster suite was released, incorporating LightWave 3D, and running on the Commodore Amiga computer. At the time of its release, the Video Toaster was priced at $1499. Some critics in the industry noted that the feature set of Lightwave made it worth the price of the Video Toaster alone.

LightWave 3D has been available as a standalone application since 1994, and version 9.0 runs on Mac OS X and Windows-based PC computers.

LightWave gained fame as the program used to create special effects for the Babylon 5, Star Trek Voyager and seaQuest DSV science fiction television series; the program was also utilized in the production of Titanic as well as the recent Battlestar Galactica TV-series, Sin City, 300 (film) and Star Wars movies. The acclaimed short film, 405 was also produced by two artist from their homes using Lightwave.

In 2001, a rift developed between NewTek management and a group headed by Vice President of 3D Development Brad Peebler, which included original developers Allen Hastings and Stuart Ferguson. For the second time in its history NewTek faced a major walkout, this time with most of its key LightWave engineers and programmers leaving the company. After months of public confusion, the breakaway group formed a new company, Luxology. They have since shipped their own 3D package, modo.

NewTek and LightWave have been awarded Emmy Awards since 1993 and won their 10th and 11th awards in 2004. In 2003 NewTek was awarded an Emmy for technology for its major impact on the television industry partly through the development of LightWave.

Now in its ninth version, its market ranges from hobbyists (because of its low price point) to high-end deployment in video games, television and cinema. The company recently shipped its 64-bit version of LightWave 3D (part of the fifth free update of LightWave 3D 8), and was featured heavily in a keynote speech by Bill Gates at WinHEC 2005.

LightWave 3D 9 was officially launched on 13 July 2006. It is in a period of public beta testing which began in February 2007, and continues throughout the development of the 9.x cycle with ongoing research and development. The latest released version is 9.3. New features include a node-based surface editor and Adaptive Pixel Subdivision (APS) that will allow the mesh to vary in complexity dependent on multiple user-defined criteria including distance from the camera, maximizing rendering efficiency. Many improvements made on the render engine to speed up the rendering process. Also there are many updates made on the Modeler, including true edge-weighting and implementation of the Catmull-Clark subdivision surface algorithm.

Unlike other 3D packages, LightWave is composed of two separate programs: Modeler and Layout. Each program is specifically designed to provide a dedicated workspace for specific tasks. Appropriately, Modeler provides tools for creating 3-dimensional objects, whereas Layout provides a workspace for lighting, animating, and rendering. When the two programs are running simultaneously, a feature called the Hub can be used to automatically synchronize data between the two applications via TCP/IP protocol.

Layout contains the LightWave renderer which provides the user with several options including Ray Tracing options, multithreading, and output parameters. This differs from most 3D computer graphics packages such as Maya and 3D Studio Max, whereas they contain the renderer and the modeler all in the main program.

A long-standing debate in the LightWave user community has consisted of whether or not to integrate Modeler and Layout into a single program. In response to this, NewTek has begun an integration process by including several basic modeling tools with Layout. The initial results of this integration process are evident in the latest version of LightWave, though functionality of Layout's modeling features are severely limited.

Current versions of LightWave require that a dongle be present in order to run without limitations. These dongles often come in the form of a small USB dongle, though parallel port dongles are still supported for backward compatibility.

• Computer generated imagery
• Blender

• NewTek
• LightWave3D
• LightWiki Lightwave's own Wiki site.

• Flay – The main database of LightWave 3D plugins.
• Lightwave Group – An interactive LightWave 3D community.
• SpinQuad LightWave 3D Community – Active User Community.
• NewTek Forums – Active User Community.

• Dean A. Scott's LW Interface History – A history of the look of the LightWave 3D interface.

• Shaxam - LightWave to XAML converter

• LightWave 9.2 demo video - A community-made video of some of LightWave 3D 9.2's new features

• NuTutorials LightWave - Categorized LightWave tutorials suitable for beginners

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