By Gabriel (Straylight) (209.210.231.127) on Wednesday, September 25, 2002 - 12:30 pm:

Hello... I'm faced with a decision that I can't seem to really solve without some input from others... I am an animator who first entered 3D on the mac via Electric Image and form*z back in the day, but a little over a year ago I shelled out for Maya and bought a windows workstation (before the big Maya price drop). Maya is great, but I'm tring to think as long term as possible, and I'm wondering if Lightwave might be a more cost-effective solution for me as an independent freelancer. My experience with Electric Image made me extremely paranoid about investing time and learning a program that won't keep up with the curve, and while Maya is definitely here to stay, I wonder about their commitment to OS X, which I much prefer to any flavor of windows. Plus, I tend to grow tired of Maya elitism and debates over GPU driver patches, as well as the ambiguity about a future version of Maya Unlimited for OS X.

I wonder if anyone who has experience with both programs might be able to address some of my concerns (if you have any thoughts, don't feel obligated to address every one of these, though I'm interested in as much input as possible):

- Subdivisions: I can never go back to modeling any other way. Is there a Lightwave equivalent?

- Customization: I love being able to take a snippet of code in Maya and turn it into a button, and being able to see the source code of so many of the functions that run the program. What's Lscript like, and what is the syntax comparable to ?

- Speed: Are there any comparable benchmarks? Does the interaction feel pretty quick on OS X, and how's the render speed?

- Character animation: Does Lightwave meet Maya in this regard? I don't really care too much for "non-linear" animation as Maya refers to it, but I do like being able to run my animation and space out my key frames in realtime...

- Cloth / Fur / Fluids: By investing in Maya on OS X, there is no guarantee that these features will ever be available. How is the quality of the Lightwave equivalents? Especially cloth...

- Community: It seems that there is a pretty good level of participation on these boards, though what's the industry penetration of Lightwave? It seems like Maya pretty much has the gaming industry tied-up along with Max. There is a pretty impressive list of movies in the Lightwave portfolio, though, anyone know to what extent it is being used as a turnkey solution rather than just a complement to other apps? In the instances where I've worked in Hollywood, I didn't know any houses that were Lightwave based, but my experience is limited.

- Support: Are bug fixes prompt and feature additions implemented with stability, in general? How strong is the Mac community in pushing for parity and commitment from NewTek? Do NewTek reps participate in forums and respond to email?

- Cross platform: It seems to me that if one buys Lightwave 7.5, there is a dual-platform dongle and installer... does this mean you can run two copies at different times on different platforms, or does the dongle do a ROM flash or something depending upon your first install? I also see "unlimited render nodes" advertised, can you set up a windows render node to output from Mac files?


Thanks for any help with this, it is greatly appreciated. I would also be very interested in any general experiences that provide perspective and comparison.

Also, does anyone know where I might be able to find a save-disabled demo of 7.5 to play around with? I haven't seen one anywhere...

Thanks again!
-Gabriel

By Chuck Baker (Cbaker) (207.235.86.2) on Wednesday, September 25, 2002 - 04:34 pm:

Hi, Gabriel!

Most dealers can supply our Discovery Edition CD, which lets you model to any level of complexity you wish but does not save models with more than 400 points, and which lets you load and render any existing models and scenes - there is a faint checkerboard watermark on renderings. If you are not near a dealer, you can contact NewTek directly for a copy.

The current shipping version of LightWave includes both Mac and Windows software, so you can install on both platforms, and run at will on whichever you put the dongle on at a given time. Customer Services can issue each key at the time you do the install on a given platform and contact them with the dongle's internal code for that platform.

It is possible to render to a mixed-platform render farm from a LightWave installation on either platform.

LightWave pioneered subdivision surfaces and other off-the-shelf products followed later with their own implementations; I'm not familiar enough with Maya's to comment on the similarity or differences.
I'll leave the other questions to users to answer for you, except to say that NewTek representatives do respond in forums and to email.

By Beam Tracer (Beamtracer) (210.50.30.4) on Wednesday, September 25, 2002 - 05:40 pm:

Chuck is one of the executives at Newtek, and there he was responding. Do you get that level of service from Alias/Wavefront?

By the way, how many big-name projects were actually rendered in Maya? I truly believe that Lightwave's 128-bit floating point renderer is vastly superior.

By Gabriel (Straylight) (209.210.231.127) on Wednesday, September 25, 2002 - 06:10 pm:

I must admit it is great to see a company rep respond so quickly... I have sent away for the discovery CD and look forward to trying it out.

One thing that does concern me is the game industry thing... it seems Lightwave is being used less and less whereas Maya, XSI and Max are being used more and more... but this is just my conclusion from looking at various project credits and job boards. As games become more numerous and more cinematic, the opportunity for doing exciting work seems to be interrelated with this industry's evolution. Any thoughts on this?

Beam Tracer, can you think of any instances where Maya does in fact outperform Lightwave? I'm just paranoid about shelling out and regretting it.

By Beam Tracer (Beamtracer) (210.50.30.4) on Wednesday, September 25, 2002 - 06:41 pm:

I'm into video/television work, so I don't know anything about the game industry.

Maya's claim to fame seems to be it's character animation tools. I think the other software packages are catching up in this regard.

It's the renderer where I think Lightwave really stands out ahead of the crowd. When making TV or film that's really important. I think it gives me an advantage over the throng of Max users out there.

I have a friend who's a Max user who envy's the LW renderer. He's always looking for a better render than the one that comes with Max. He tried Mental Ray and now he's onto Brazil.

There are also examples of companies that set up their character rigs in Maya, then turn to Lightwave to render. Check out this story about Digital Domain...
http://www.luxology.net/articles/092302_DigitalDomain/page1.aspx

Lightwave's modeler is also a pleasure to use. When you get your copy of the "Discovery Edition", try making a primative, then hit the TAB key and it'll change to subdivision surfaces.

With speed, the Windows lovers will always remind you that generic PC boxes will give you more megahertz for less money than a Mac will. My decision to use Mac involves more than just megahertz. Lightwave on OS X has always been multithreaded, so takes advantages of dual processors. When Maya was first released for the Mac, it would only utilize one of the two processors. If you go with Lightwave on the Mac, make sure you use the OS X version, as it works much better than the OS9 version.

Fur is handled by Sasquatch lite. You have to upgrade to get the full version of Sasquatch, which is made by Worley Laboratories. It's worth checking out the Worley Lab website regarding that and other plug-ins.

http://www.worley.com/

Support is free with Lightwave. Most other 3D apps require contracts and extra payments to get support.

By Larry Shultz "SplineGod" (Larrys) (209.179.229.246) on Wednesday, September 25, 2002 - 11:29 pm:

Gabriel,
My experience with using lightwave in the same environment as maya is that lightwave is definately easier and faster when you have to rely on yourself to be your own technical director. Maya seems to work well where theres a staff to support it. You can pretty much do everything in lightwave as is. Maya seems to require more setup time to get going which isnt a big boon when youre freelancing. The idea when freelancing is to get it done fast but at a high quality. Maya is capable of that as I said if you have several staff members.

By Christian Avalos (Cavalos) (64.213.56.192) on Thursday, September 26, 2002 - 06:54 pm:

Maya seems not change too much from version to version but Lightwave releases are totally another story and the community is really GREAT.
To be honest in this precise moment I´m trying the demo version of electric image universe 4.05 because I want to put it to test in some rendeders in terms of speed and Antialias quality VS Lightwave...I tell you what happen the next week ;)

Best
Christian

By Gabriel (Straylight) (209.210.231.127) on Thursday, September 26, 2002 - 11:01 pm:

Christian, as a former Electric Image user, I can tell you that that company was the worst I've ever dealt with... known bugs that remained three years and more, broken promises, release dates postponed for months and even years, misguided management. I put my eggs in that basket and got burned, though maybe they're different now. Does EI even have manipulator handles yet? Damn fast renderer though. It seems like polygons had no effect on it, only when you added big maps and transparencies would it slow down.

My experience with EI is the primary reason I'm so paranoid about choosing the right platform to continue with, because the wrong decision has had serious repurcussions for me. I guess I would just rather spend all my energies mastering one program than dabbling in (and paying for) a bunch, but I don't know if that's possible any more. I may end up sticking with Maya and Mental Ray for now, and getting Lightwave when I can afford it for side experimentation.

My experience with talking to Lightwavers has been great, but the thing that concerns me is that on the job boards, it's 90% Maya. It's like Windows, not necessarily better but fast becoming a standard. If I was aware of Lightwave freelance opportunities out there, that would make a difference, because if I wasn't worried about the software's influence on my career I'd probably buy Lightwave tomorrow. I still may, I'm waiting for my demo CD and hoping to be blown away...

By Sergio Varela (Satchie) (148.233.71.74) on Thursday, September 26, 2002 - 11:42 pm:

Hi, my experience in 3D is this: I started using PowerAnimator 7 in a big fridge-like Onyx2, it was hard for me, cause the guy being the 3D expert in the lab just handed me the manuals, big fat manuals, but I did Ok on my own, then the lab started to move to Maya 1, it was fine, even when it needed the complete set of lights of PA, some more months more and version 2 of Maya was there, but the licences weren´t abundant, they were quite expensive, some more months more and then the 2.5 version was expected.... then I decided to leave the lab, in order to pursue a future in graphic design, so I stopped doing 3D, I´ve been always into the Mac platform (and not thinking in moving to other), now am back into 3D, but I did it trying a demo CD i got in the SIGGRAPH in New Orleans, a couple of years back, guess which booth I got it from?? that´s right!! from Newtek´s one, since then, am using Lightwave, and my experience in PA and Maya allowed me to do a smooth transition to LW, I find it superb, and if I have enough money to buy Maya, I will but I´ll keep Lightwave, cause it´s lovely!!! the Maya OS X was written from the ground using Cocoa, the people from A|W did a commitment to provide the Mac platform with a stable and usable tool, and they reached that point; both are excellent tools, so if you decide for LW, you did a great choice, but if you decide to go into Lightwave and keep Maya, you´ll make a greater choice.

Satchie

P.D. check the new features of Maya 4.5

By Beam Tracer (Beamtracer) (210.50.30.3) on Friday, September 27, 2002 - 12:51 am:

Unfortunately, Alias Wavefront did the bizarre move of developing Maya OS X in Carbon, not Cocoa.

Carbon is a programming environment created by Apple to allow software developers with legacy OS9 software to port it to OS X. Software written in this environment is basically OS9 software with around about 15% of the code rewritten for OS X.

It was considered that new software would be written in the new Cocoa programming environment. Why A/W didn't start in Cocoa will never be known!

By Gabriel (Straylight) (209.210.231.127) on Friday, September 27, 2002 - 02:03 am:

This is a strange thing about a lot of apps for Mac OS X, major apps like all the Adobe programs as far as I know are just carbon. It seems to me that most of the cocoa apps are shareware and small company products. Hell, the Mac OS X Finder isn't even written in Cocoa, I don't know about in Jaguar.

I wonder if we'll ever see much in the way of Cocoa apps, it seems like most of the Mac OS software is just ports of Windows code, and with the case of Macromedia, it makes you wonder if they even beta-tested their UI before publishing it...

Has NewTek stated any goals to port Lightwave to Cocoa? I'm assuming it's Carbon because of its OS 9 compatibility...

By Thomas Fitzgerald (Fxgeek) (62.221.5.244) on Friday, September 27, 2002 - 08:17 am:

Two points: Firstly, the developmental differences between Cocoa and Carbon are becomming more blurred as Apple adopts a "one road" approach to it's API's. (See the ADC videos from this years world wide developer conference - although you'll have to register as a developer to see them). The reason Photoshop etc was made as carbon, as carbon uses existing programming languages that Photoshop was built on and wouldn't require a complete re-write.

As for Maya on OS-X, you don't have to worry about A|W's committment to the platform. Given that it accounted for 25% of their buisness last year, I guarantee that X development is high on their list of priorities. And they've also announced that Mental Ray is being brought over to OS-X as well.

By Chris W. (Chriswork) (24.123.31.144) on Friday, September 27, 2002 - 12:58 pm:

I use both programs quite a bit, and I can give you my take on some of these questions. I'm Mac for LW and PC for Maya.

"- Subdivisions: I can never go back to modeling any other way. Is there a Lightwave equivalent?"

Lightwave has MetaNurbs...although they utilize no NURBS technology. Lightwaves implementation is well developed and very easy to get used to, because you're working right on the geometry...not a proxy.

The only downside to LW's approach is that everything must be a quad in order to smooth in MetaNURBS.

In it's favor, other than ease of use, is the fact that it allows you to addaptively tesselate the metanurbed mesh at render time. You'd need NURBS to do this in other packages.

V. 4.5 of maya will have subD to NURBS conversion, which sounds very appealing in this regard, but I haven't gotten it yet.

"- Customization: I love being able to take a snippet of code in Maya and turn it into a button..."

Lscript can't really be compared to MEL in terms of user support. There isn't any functionality currently in LW that allows you to cut and paste work proceedures into reusable scripts.

There are some hacks...but it's not really a fair comparison.

"- Speed: Are there any comparable benchmarks? Does the interaction feel pretty quick on OS X, and how's the render speed?"

I've tried Maya on my OSX box I run LW on... and LW on my PC box I run Maya on.

Without a doubt Maya's OpenGL is tuned for the PC...it's just quicker. LW seems about as fast as Maya OpenGL wise, but it's more "glitchy" on the Mac.

For instance vertex maps tend to flake the display out as I adjust them on the mac, but not on the PC.

Where Maya really blows (on the Mac) is redrawing the attribute editor and hypershade. It takes about 1-3 seconds for those menus to fully redraw on a DP1000 with OSX 10.2 and an nVidia GeeForce 64MB card.

From the rendering standpoint I find Maya to be a little quicker at most of the work I do...not by a big enough margin to make it an issue though.

"- Character animation: Does Lightwave meet Maya in this regard?..."

I think LW is one of the only applications left that forces you to marry your bones to your mesh...in Maya it's the other way around.

I find Maya much friendlier for character setup for this reason. It's much easier to recover from mistakes and experiment with ideas.

Maya also offers a much more flexible system in terms of types of IK solvers, types of deformers, and the ability to script solutions.

I'd have to give maya the big nod on CA.

LW's no slouch. I especially like endomorphs, but the program doesn't really conform to some of the setup and tools that have become industry standard over the last 5 years.

I personally find the Maya graph editor more friendly than LW's. LW has a very strange implementation of beziers that put these subtle little kinks in the curve you have to deal with.

There's also no dope sheet functionality built into LW. You can buy it as a plugin...but it's not available off the shelf.

- Cloth / Fur / Fluids: ...

You can do soft-body dynamics in Maya complete. You're right on Fluid/Fur.

I wish LW had a built in hard body dynamics solution. I personally find Motion designer in LW much easier to use than soft bodies in Maya.

"- Community: It seems that there is a pretty good level of participation on these boards, though what's the industry penetration of Lightwave?"

I can't speak to the industry penetration stuff. I personally think those statistics are over-rated no matter what software you're considering.

The LW community is pretty big. So is the maya community. It's not uncommon to see programmers from LW on these boards. It's equally common to see Duncan Brimsmead(sp?) on the Maya list solving MEl problems for users.

Overall I find the maya community more technical, and the LW community a little more free-flowing/friendly...with the ever present mac vs. XXX flame wars

"- Support: Are bug fixes prompt and feature additions implemented with stability, in general?"

In my experience I'd rate both companies the same in terms of bug fixes. Both have had the user base identify bugs in new versions right out of the gate...and both seem to fix it in their next planned release. I've never had either company do a "service release" to fix a particular bug. They both seem pretty good about "fessing ups" when users discover a show stopper.

Maya actually has an "bug book" that comes with the software to outline the know issues.

In terms of tech support I can only say you get what you pay for. If you pony up the $$ for a maintenance contract with A|W you get access to some pretty smart people who will call you back.

I've had to call Newteks tech support 5 times in 3 years. Each time I got an answering machine and left a message. Each time I had to initiate calls after I wasn't called back. And each time they were unable to solve my problem (usually a Mac specific issue).

The good news is that nobody really needs tech support these days. The users in both communities are very knowledgeable and give you help much faster than tech support ever can.

It's been my experience that the mac version of LW is a bit more buggy than the PC side. It used to be that these bugs were show stoppers. Any more they're mere annoyances. LW 7.5, overall, is rock solid on OSX.


- Cross platform:

I believe the dual dongle allows you to run your single license of LW on a PC or a Mac.

You didn't mention in your use for the software? I think a lot of your decision would need to be based on that.

If you want to work in a specific company that uses a specific software...then the choice is pretty much made for you.

If, on the other hand, you're a one man band and you need to sell your own 3D product, the sofware doesn't really matter...as long as you can work it.

For me LW is more fun to "play" with. It's more approachable and easier to experiment with free-form ideas without racking your brain.

Maya, on the other hand, is my problem solver. When I need to develop a custom solution to a problem Maya has all the tools and the openess that just doesn't exist yet in LW.

I'm also primarily a NURBS modler, so I love to do my modeling in Maya.

Since I'm being long winded as hell, I'll give you my last opinion.

The 3D market has undergone a fundemental change.

It used to be that you HAD to work for a studio to get access to a rhobust toolset and create cool images.

That meant you HAD to learn their pipeline and techniques for efficieny...which actually cut OUT a lot of a software packages potential features. Model in PA NURBS (without trims) Animate in Softimage (without dynamics)...etc.

A lot of the statiscal popularity of package X in the trades is based on this old way of thinking...they're counting entrenched software. This isn't an accurate portrayal of the "new" face of 3D.

These days all the tools are pretty F'N amazing. They're also relatively cheap. The individual artist, or small group of artists, is tremendously empowered to create outside of the traditional (and limiting) pipeline. This means they can use tools that fit their needs from start to finish.

Maybe Maya's renderer is a little weak. Who cares if you've got AE and you're going to composite your final shots? If Maya's CA is something you really like the best, then live with it's weak renderer.

Maybe LW's CA is a little weak. Who cares if you're willing to make that trade off to get an simplified user experience?

I guess what I'm saying is, if you've got the freedom to choose a tool that YOU like, then choose it...and don't look back.

There are no gaurantees that anyone is going to be around next year...or the year after that. It doesn't mean you can't still use the software you have

BTW. I also use EI, and suffered through their bad years. They're not the jerks they were before...and I still use it when I'm rendering heavy datasets. So even during the "bad" times my investment and "don't look back" attitude paid off.

By Larry Shultz "SplineGod" (Larrys) (216.244.14.39) on Saturday, September 28, 2002 - 01:14 pm:

I want to clarify something. Character Rigging and Character Animation are totally separate issues. Given a character that is properly rigged in ANY application, a good animator should be able to produce good animation.
For rigging lightwave does have some advantages. You can throw bones into something and it just works. With a little tuning it can work pretty well. You can also at anytime simply swap objects and the bones still work. IK is pretty easy to setup in lightwave and with per channel IK you have some flexible and easy ways to control things. As Chris pointed out, endomorphs are great. You can have 100 morph targets and STILL go back and modify your model and the change is automatically propogated down your model.
I think Lightwaves graph editor is very powerful and whether its better or worse is more a matter of preference I think. The bottom line is that I think its easier to hit the ground runnging with Lightwave and get things done fast.
People do character animation in Lightwave all the time and it works fine. People produce fantastic renders in Lightwave and places like Digital Domain run Maya scene files through lightwave for rendering. I think Lightwave is a better value AND you arent prohibited from migrating into other tools or apps. More and more tools are coming out that allow Lightwave, Maya, Max and others to coexist and work together.