Product Reviews

First off, the good news: those of you who have been putting off buying LightWave 6.0 for the Mac, due to its poor stability and buggy nature need put off the purchase no longer. NewTek have posted the beta of version 6.5 (currently on release 2) on its Web site for all registered Mac users to download for free.

Why would you want to use beta software? Simply because this beta is far more stable and significantly less buggy than the final release of 6.0, which caused much consternation, gnashing of teeth, and Web sites to spring up all over the world dedicated to troubleshooting it. In fact, it's so polished that you might consider using it for final production jobs, although a few caveats still apply. The fact that NewTek has made the beta available to all Mac users, and not just its Betaforce testing team is a way of saying 'thank you' to the Mac users who have remained faithful, and an admission that version 6.0 was, well, a bit of a dog.

The download is around 16Mb, and installs the Betaforce versions in a separate folder on your hard disk. It even automatically backs up your LightWave configuration files for you in case you want to revert to the previous set up. The programs can be used immediately, but NewTek has included new menu/interface configuration files for Modeler and Layout that it recommends installing.

This really is worth doing since, although they're quite different from the version 6.0 menu layouts, they're much more logical and accessible. For example, in Modeler, the huge, scrolling plug-ins list in the Additional menu has gone: now all plug-ins are integrated into the main interface, which makes them much easier to use. This also demonstrates the extreme customisability of the interface, which is simplicity itself to tailor to your own requirements, although most options accessed via panels can't become buttons - you can't set a button to turn Grid Snap on and off, for example. There's still the option to revert to either 6.0 or 5.6 layouts, but sadly no option to junk the brash, tacky, brushed-metal look introduced in 6.0.

The most fundamental change in 6.5 is that the Hub now works (although you'll need to remove the '-0' at the start of the LightWave and Modeler 'cmdline' files to get it to launch. The Hub is a background application that synchronises Modeler and Layout: changes made to an object in one application are immediately reflected in the other, and you can also schedule it to make automatic saves. Also common to both Layout and Modeler is the Surface Editor, and with the new menu layouts this are now available from anywhere within the two programs.

A particularly welcome feature is the ability to make mass surface changes: shift-clicking on the surface names in the scrolling list highlights the channels that have the same values for the surfaces selected. Changes to several surfaces can then be made in one fell swoop. While there's still no way to produce preview renders via VIPER in Modeler, the fact that the Hub now updates objects properly eases workflow in this area.

Modeler has had a few much-needed additions, probably the longest waited for is Bezier curves! At last, only about 10 years late, but very usable and intuitive. You can now kiss Illustrator imports goodbye. Another feature which will save a lot of time is the Rail Bevel, where a spline curve profile is placed in a background layer and defines a varying Shift distance for the Bevel tool. In 6.0 you had to use Weight Maps to get a similar effect, but it wasn't an ideal solution.

The

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biggest interface changes have been made in Layout. In 6.0, multiple viewports onto the Layout stage were introduced, but in 6.5 these become independently resizable, as in Modeler. A new view type has also been introduced in the Schematic view, which shows the hierarchy of all objects in the scene by representing them as linked rectangles bearing the object's name. The parenting order for the currently selected object can be changed by control-clicking on a new parent object, or in blank space to unparent. This is the type of approach used in Maya and Softimage and is a really welcome addition here. You can also command-click on an object's name (also in the Scene Editor) to bring up a pop-up menu with options for renaming, cloning, clearing and opening the object's Properties panel.

Layout is now shot through with tweaks and improvements at every level that increase its ease of use dramatically, but a few of the minor league changes are worth noting. In the Effects panel there is now an ImageWorld option that lets you easily set up HDR (High Dynamic Range) images as Spherical Environment wraps. HDR images can be used to light a scene using their extra dynamic range information (up to 320 bits per channel), producing incredibly naturalistic lighting effects.

There's also a Texture Environment option, which allows the use of any texture as a backdrop - without needing to associate it with an object. All procedurals, maps, gradients and blending modes can be used, and procedurals can, of course, be animated. The 'Jolt' plug-in is also new in version 6.5 and solves the problem of introducing discontinuous or random motion (camera shake, for example) into a scene at a given moment.

The two biggest improvements come in the shape of the Particle FX and Motion Designer plug-ins. Previously, particles had been supplied by ParticleStorm Lite, a cut-down version of the third-party plug-in. While Particle effects is, strictly speaking, a plug-in, it is fully integrated into the Layout interface, making it much easier to see how the particle system relates to the rest of the scene.

The four basic players are Emitters, Colliders, Gravity and Wind. All the usual parameters for lifetime, decay and spawning for particle emitters are here, and many more besides. Emitters and Collision objects can be specified as generic planes or spheres, but LightWave objects can also be used if the FX_Emitter or FX_Collision plug-in is added to the object's Geometry properties tab. Particle systems can then be acted upon by wind or gravity effectors, and these effectors can feed other system properties: the number of particles generated at a point in time can be linked, for example, to wind speed.

The really nice thing about all this is that it happens in real time in Layout's interface. Moving sliders for wind, gravity and spawning up and down changes effectors' positions; it all updates in real time, making the system a joy to work with. Of course, you'll need to assign a Hypervoxels filter to your particle system to get final rendered output, but the dynamic feedback in the workspace is a real joy.

Motion Designer is a soft-body dynamics plug-in, but again, is fully integrated into the interface (in fact, it would be a good idea to set up dedicated tab groups for each of them in the Layout interface). Motion Designer allows you to assign physical properties like weight, stiffness and elasticity to an object, then have wind and gravity act upon them. The obvious applications for this are fluids and cloth, and incredibly realistic effects can be obtained with little effort on the part of the user. Again, parameters for all attributes can be adjusted interactively, and the results update in the Layout window. However, you'll need a good OpenGL card for really smooth playback. At the moment, the best cards available for the Mac can't cut it with even mid-range cards on the PC.

All in all, this is shaping up to be a major event in Mac 3D. The beta is available for download now, and the final version (which will also be free) should be available this month. You now have no reason not to upgrade.