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Originally Posted by jbshorty  Hi all. I am considering the $495 sidegrade offer to buy Lightwave. But right now, the trial version is n/a. I suppose they are working on updating to the 9.5 demo version. |
Hi Jonah !
Yeah, Newtek is aware of that and considering we are actually in OpenBeta you won't be able to download it before v9.5 ships.
But i'm not from Newtek and i could be wrong here, just guessing.
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Originally Posted by jbshorty Maybe some advantages/disadvantages of each? |
For LW : Fully featured/Widely used across the world/Lots of plugins/Lots of Tutorials/Greatly improved in the v9.x serie
For modo : Modern app/Great GUI/Good modelling tools/Great renderer/3D painting & sculpting/Good video tutorials
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Originally Posted by jbshorty Render speed/quality comparisons? |
Before LW v9.5 i would have said modo but now they are quite on par with one or the other being faster depending on scenes and setup...
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Originally Posted by jbshorty Workflow comparisons? |
LW and modo have been developed by the same guys in the begining so they compare in term of philosophy and workflow, modo being more "modern" in that it has started well after LW so the yhave learned from previous experience.
Now i believe (but again it's just me...) that next version of LightWave will bring a big step forward in that area.
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Originally Posted by jbshorty Ease to set up lighting and shaders? |
The lights are really simple to setup in LightWave and the shaders are applied in the texture editor, where you can use layers or nodes or even layers and nodes.
Probably one of the most powerful feature of LightWave.
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Originally Posted by jbshorty How well does LW handle mesh instancing? |
It's quite simple : it doesn't !
In fact you can do instancing but with a plug-in called HDinstance which is very powerful.
However it was said that LW would do instancing at one point in v9.x serie so we will see what will come.
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Originally Posted by jbshorty Can LW reference (and update) external files? |
In fact LightWave works like that, being two separate apps : a Modeler and a Layout.
And in Layout you bring up models done in Modeler or in other apps (OBJ or 3DS files in addition to LWO...)
But you're probably asking for something else ?
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Originally Posted by jbshorty Can LW do technical renders (cel, hidden line, pencil sketch, etc) |
You can do cel shading or also shaded hidden line rendering with a free plug-in.
Hope it helps.
Cheers,
Laurent aka Tartiflette