NewTek Announces Free Update To LightWave 3D®

[7.5b] Release Includes Enhanced LScriptTM Language, Linux Renderer

San Antonio, Texas -- March 6, 2003 -- NewTek, Inc., manufacturer of industry-leading 3D animation and video products, today announced the release of LightWave 3D® [7.5b], a free update to registered owners of LightWave 3D [7.5]. The update includes major enhancements to LightWave®'s already robust script language, powerful new surface blending tools, support for DV devices as a preview display, and a network renderer for Linux.

“We're very pleased to bring these new capabilities to our LightWave users,” said William Vaughan, NewTek's LightWave 3D Evangelist. “Our commitment to users is to open up the power of this application to them with easy and complete control of the toolset, and the updated LScriptTM exemplifies this commitment.”

LScript is enhanced with dozens of new commands, classes, and functions, and now allows C programmers access to LScript's Universal Requester tools. “LScript 2.6 is a massive update, with lots of goodies,” said Steve Hurley, of Worley Laboratories. “It wouldn't be unreasonable to have called it 3.0, considering the major increase in power it offers to users to customize LightWave to their production needs.”

The maintenance update includes Splinamate, a spline-control animation feature useful for animating objects such as hoses, tentacles, and more. The user can select how many control points the spline will have and whether the object will be “stretchy.” SurfMixer is a new surface blending shader available from the Surface Editor, which allows blending the surface characteristics of two or more existing objects to create the surface characteristics for another object in the scene.

“SurfMixer is fantastic, a very valuable surfacing tool,” said Jonny Gordon, of Zero Gravity Entertainment. “I used to have to morph objects to mix surfaces, and even then there was nowhere near the level of control as SurfMixer. And surface thickness gradients, how much do they rock? Saves SO much time stuffing around with weight maps, especially useful for translucency.”

Pricing and Availability
The LightWave 3D® [7.5b] update is available free to registered owners of LightWave 3D [7.5], and may be downloaded from NewTek's web site at http://www.newtek.com. LightWave 3D [7.5] is available at authorized NewTek resellers worldwide for a suggested retail price of $1595US. To locate your nearest authorized reseller or distributor, see our reseller locater at http://www.newtek.com. The LightWave® Bonus Pack offer, which contains LightWave 3D [7.5] at the suggested retail price of $1595US plus over $1400 in training materials at no additional cost, is available from authorized NewTek resellers in the USA through March 31, 2003. For more information on the items offered and to purchase direct from NewTek, visit: http://www.newtek.com or call NewTek Sales at 1-800-368-5441, overseas callers dial +1-210-370-8000.

About NewTek
With headquarters in San Antonio, Texas, NewTek is a leading provider of full-featured video editing, animation and special effects tools including VT®, LightWave 3D® and Aura Video Paint™. NewTek launched the desktop video revolution in 1990 with the release of the legendary VT®. The company’s products are used worldwide on projects ranging from home video to feature film. Recent television and film projects using NewTek software include Firefly, Taken, Smallville, Birds of Prey, Star Trek: Enterprise, We Were Soldiers, Panic Room, Hart’s War, Driven, A.I., Oscar®-nominated Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius, Final Fantasy, Blackhawk Down, The Time Machine, Behind Enemy Lines and Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Director’s Edition DVD. Recent game titles include Doom III, Unreal Tournament, Serious Sam for XBox, Age of Mythology, Civilization III, Dead to Rights, Baldur’s Gate II, EverQuest and Escape From Monkey Island. Website: http://www.newtek.com

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