March 07, 2007

Hello Mac-Wavers!

Well, it’s taken us quite a bit longer than we thought, but we are finally delivering our first rendition of the Universal Binary version of LightWave into our Open Beta program. We have worked long and hard on this release to make it stable and useable. It is essentially feature-complete, though there are some known issues, which we have identified in a separate document. And you are going to find some bugs. Killing those bugs and identifying performance bottlenecks is what the Open Beta program is all about.

Now, most of you will be in for a bit of a surprise when you launch the UB and have your first look around. You will notice that the UB works a bit more like a Macintosh application should, in comparison to older versions of LightWave for the Mac. Drag and drop works. LightWave is migrating from its tab-based interface to the more traditional menu-based interface. Viewport performance is even faster than a PC, thanks to our new Open GL implementation. Overall, rendering will be MUCH faster than running the older version under Rosetta. Fasten your seat belts! To make LightWave more laptop friendly, we have minimized our activity on CPU idle, which should help a bit with battery life, in addition to the MacBook touchpad, we have also added Mighty Mouse support. Just in time to save the day (OK, so I am showing my age here…). And, last but not least, we have some beautiful anti-aliased fonts and transparent windows for your viewing pleasure. And that’s just the highlights. Universal Access, Automator, AppleScript and AppleEvents are there, too, though they are being fleshed out a bit more, and will be more obvious in subsequent releases of the OB. And we are having some issues with Japanese language support, which will have a minor impact on some menus at the moment, as outlined in the known issues section of the release document.

And, for you third party developers out there, be sure to check out the Universal Binary SDK. It’s in the LWSDK folder.

Overall, we think you will be pleased with what you see, and with what you can do with the Universal Binary version of LightWave for Macintosh. Please test the living daylights out of it, and help us to ship this product. We need a vacation!

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February 22, 2007

Now is the perfect time to step up to LightWave v9. For a limited time, NewTek is offering the LightWave v9 Training Bundle, a special offer that provides hundreds of dollars in training materials free with the purchase of LightWave 3D. By special arrangement with 3D Garage, Desktop Images, KURV Studios, Wordware Publishing and Replica Technology, purchasers of a new full or upgrade license of LightWave will be eligible to receive a training and royalty-free content package valued at over $350, free with every order!

The LightWave v9 Training Bundle includes the following materials:

* Tune Up for LightWave v9 Courseware – 3D Garage
* LightWave v9 Defined DVD – Desktop Images
* Practical Lighting DVD by Nicholas Boughen – Kurv Studios
* Essential LightWave v9 Book by Steve Warner – Wordware Publishing
* The Interior Design Collection Royalty Free Content – Replica Technology

This offer is valid on new full and upgrade commercial licenses purchased in North America between February 22, 2007 and April 30, 2007.

Buy Now...

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January 03, 2007

NewTek is providing the ultimate editor for animatics with SpeedEDIT. Work faster and cut production expenses with real-time TGA sequence playback, linked storyboard/timeline interfaces and resolution independence. These are just a few of the SpeedEDIT features that are impressing animators. Whether you are creating for the web, for broadcast, or for Hi Def, SpeedEDIT can expand your available in-house services while helping you meet your customer’s needs.

This offer expires March 31, 2007, so add another cool NewTek tool to your kit at a price that may not be available again. Discover how SpeedEDIT can save you time and money by visiting the SpeedEDIT site.

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