Product Reviews

The latest incarnation of LightWave was originally slated as version 6.1 - a basic maintenance and bug-fix upgrade to the decidedly buggy version 6.0. However, due to the rewritten architecture which underpinned LightWave 6.0, NewTek's programmers found they could add a lot more features into the program than was originally planned, hence necessitating the point five appellation.

Before you install the program it's recommended that you remove the Betaforce version if it's on your hard disk. We found that launching version 6.5 would open Hubs that belonged to earlier versions of LightWave, and which weren't fully functional. Also, there's no need to edit the 'Cmdline' files for Layout and Modeler to get the Hub to run: it now works straight off the bat. Having the Hub running means that you can synchronise object files between Layout and Modeler so that changes made in one half of the program are immediately reflected in the other half. This makes an enormous difference to workflow - and peace of mind - when switching between the two applications.

Group therapy

Version 6.5 now installs with the new menu schemes in both Modeler and Layout, a change that has made working in both programs more logical and transparent. Functions provided by plug-ins are more logically grouped within the interface, but there's always the option to customise the setup for personal requirements through the easy-to-use Edit Menu

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Layout panel.

One of the biggest improve-ments to everyday work is the OpenGL speed in Modeler, which had been a sore point on some systems, even manipulation of wireframes could be exceedingly slow, but no more. Even with a bog-standard ATI RAGE Pro 128 graphics card in a 400MHz Power Mac G4, performance was perfectly acceptable, and much smoother than before. When paired with an ATI Radeon card with its accelerated transformation engine, LightWave should really start to fly.

Also, on the usability front, the cursors in Modeler have been redesigned to be more meaningful and, more importantly, easier to see. It's a small change, but one which makes all the difference to using the program.

The biggest changes in Layout have come with the addition of the Motion designer and Particle FX suites, which are integrated into the main Layout interface. Particle FX provides a set of tools for setting up particle systems - emitters, colliders, wind, gravity and the ability to define any LightWave object as an Emitter or Collision detector.

The nice aspect of Particle FX is its real-time interface: emitters and detectors can be dragged around and keyframed in Wireframe view and everything updates in real time (at least it does on a Power Mac G4.) Effects can be applied to the systems by adding a HyperVoxel filter to get effects such as smoke, fire, and so on, or you can assign Partigons (2D polygons) to individual particles for quick'n'dirty, fast-rendering effects. Motion Designer simulates Soft Body dynamics, so physics-based simulations like cloth and water can be produced. It's pretty fast to use in practice, but the interface hasn't shown any great improvement from the beta. It's still really bad.

There's been no improvement in RAM usage, either. LightWave still guzzles enormous amounts when rendering - around twice as much as previously - although the Mac OS X version alleviates this somewhat. But all in all, this is a superb upgrade with many improvements - and it's free.