[Endorphin]

What do you think of the latest LightWave?

[Fallenswordsman]

Still waiting unfortunately!

On a side note, what's the last "A" in your name title stand for I know the rest of it as "The Artist Formerly Known as Member Of The Month" but the A is throwing me.

[Endorphin]

LOL!....August.....funny that u figured it out....well done m8!

[Mark]

I only received my copy yesterday, and picked up my new bike today, so I've not really had much chance to play with it. Overall, I like the new look - its a lot more friendly on the eyes than that old 'brushed aluminum' look. Main thing is - I mostly work in Modeller, so I don't think I'll be making much use of many of the new features until one of the later service packs comes along...

[Fallenswordsman]

Lightwave comes with a new bike? Dang all I got was a copy of DFX+ Must have been one of their special offers for very early purchasers.

Glad I'm not the only one who hasn't received theirs yet though (according to the poll, there's another one person out there who hasn't received it)

[Mark]

Originally posted by Fallenswordsman Lightwave comes with a new bike? Dang all I got was a copy of DFX+ ...

God I wish. Would have saved me a fortune...

[jamesl]

I don't know what I think. I'm too busy to poke around without a proper manual or tutorials, so, I guess it's OK. It didn't cause my cpu to burst into flames, so I guess that's good. I'm worried that the release of LW8, coming as late as it did, really had no impact on the industry whatsoever. That's something for Newtek to be concerned about, IMHO.

j

[kumar]

,still waiting to get mine... Guess it will be some time,,, need to get mula to get it.

[Mark]

Originally posted by jamesl ... LW8, coming as late as it did, really had no impact on the industry whatsoever. That's something for Newtek to be concerned about, IMHO.

True, however, one also has to bear in mind that the development team is an entirely new bunch of developers coming in cold to work on someone else's codebase (I'm not going to go into all the history and politics surrounding the Newtek ownership and development of Lightwave over the last couple of years since there's plenty of stuff kicking around the net about it).

As a developer myself, I know exactly how daunting a task all that is. Whilst LW8 might not have exactly set the world on fire, the new development team have managed to prove to the world that they can take someone else's code, improve it somewhat (layout undo that actually works anyone ?), fix (some of) the bugs and leave it in a state where they can start to move forward with it now.

I think that Lightwave will be a sound product to watch over the coming couple of years and that we'll start to see some exciting noises coming out of Newtek HQ.

[Cchristensen]

Originally posted by Mark True, however, one also has to bear in mind that the development team is an entirely new bunch of developers

Most of the industry doesn't care about Newtek's problems. They aren't going to hinder their own pipeline waiting on Newtek when the products they need are available elsewhere. While Newtek is taking baby steps to improve Lightwave, the competition is running at full stride and even if Newtek started doing everything right, there may not be time to catch up. There has been a quiet exodus of users leaving over the past few years and the pace seems to have picked up after LW8 started shipping.

More of a danger to Lightwave is Newtek themselves. They seem to be following the same path that Commodore (Vic-20, C64, Amiga) took in the PC market. Like CBM, in the early days of the industry they had a product that couldn't be touched by the competition. Their marketing was terrible but the quality of the product overcame that. The market has matured and become more sophisticated but Newtek, like CBM, has not innovated and kept up. The product can no longer overcome the poor marketing and lack of corporate vision. New users don't consider Lightwave and old users more and more are looking elsewhere. This trend could be reversed but given the statements I have heard from people at Newtek they still believe the problem is with everyone else. So, maybe they will pull out of this course but I wouldn't stake my business on it. As with anything, hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

[kumar]

Wow cool, interesting comments... My thoughts on this would be from a new customer point of view, someone new to the product... would agree that Lightwave is a small all rounded package. But it needs some edge to make it unique. Hopefully as Mark has said,, give it a few years and see how it develops,,, but a few years are also time taken by other packages. And sometimes might make the customer think,,, hmm ok if i paid a little more and got that maybe in the long run can enable me to get .....! Well these are some of my thoughts.

[Cchristensen]

Exactly, in the business world rarely are there a few years to give. In this market you have XSI making a strong move at Maya's market. Both are practically giving away the software to students and have dropped their prices down to near LW. C4D is making huge strides. All these guys plus Max are releasing updates and adding new features at a blistering pace. The rest of the market is moving in months.

[Mark]

Definitely agree that Newtek can't sit on their laurels, and wasn't intending to imply that.

Whilst referring to the next couple of years, I was referring to some of the stuff that is allegedly in the pipeline. Of course, unless Newtek start to release/drip feed this stuff into the marketplace in a timely fashion, then they're on a large hiding to nothing.

[quaoar]

I have to say I love it!!! I've had it for a few weeks now and the new modelling tools are great!!! we lightwavers finally have edges!!!!! wooohooo! I don't spend much time in layout...but who cares? Modeller is awesome!!!!

[PolarBear53]

They should make lightwave more network friendly. You could optomize it all the way and maybe get some time off. But i have 3-4 good computers(depending if weekend) that I can use. So uhh, I wanna use them.