New to Lightwave, maybe

[kevin3d]

I'm getting ready to buy a 3D app for my personal use and for teaching. Where I teach they have maya (which they use the most), Cinema 4D, 3ds max and Lightwave. I currently use 3DS Max at work.

Right now I'm thinking of purchasing Lightwave. I've always been impressed by LW rendering. I used to work with a guy who made great models. I like the community and the way Newtek approaches licensing, etc....especially compared to the Discreet handles things.

The big issue with LW, as I see it is that its animation tools have historically lagged behind Max. Does 7.5 address this. How does Messiah compare to Character Studio? Is it a fair comparison. How is LWs shockwave & flash & viewpoint output? Why do mirrors reflect left-to-right but not up-to-down. .:confused:

thanks in advance. BTW, I have the LW discovery edition & am checking that out.

[John Fornasar]

Mirror will work on any axis... pull the tool along the axis you want to mirror.

[hrgiger]

Kevin,

Lightwave 7 was a big step with much needed character tools. Bones are faster and now we have non-linear animation much like XSI. New constraints in 7/7.5 also add some nice features such as dynamic parenting. Unlike Max, you don't need Messiah (or in Max's case character studio) to do character animation. I think one of Lightwave's strongpoints is it's workflow. I've only used one other package and it wasn't one of the more well known ones so I can't speak on this personally, but I've heard a lot of others say that it's much easier to complete an entire project much faster in Lightwave then in other packages.
I don't think that it will be too much longer before we see an update and I think the future for LW is very good. Newtek seems to do a good job of implementing requested features from its customers.

[kevin3d]

Thanks, Hrgiger...thats very helpful!!!! The workflow is very important to me since I work in so many mediums & can't devote all of my time/brain cells to 3D (even though its my first love).