[Munkufust]

Hey all! I just joined this forum and it looks like it'll be a great place to hang out. Now on to the question.

In aout a month I am going to go train and do some 3D work. This place wanted to hire someone without much experience and train them and have them work. But I still feel like I should prepare myself somehow so I can do my best. They use lightwave but sadly enough I don't have a copy. I obviously don't want to pirate it, and I know New Tek doesn't offer a demo. Is there anything you guys think I could do that would help me start off? Be it any type of animation prep. Hope that made sense. Thanks guys!!

- Jason

[Leovenous]

Hmm. Where do you live?

[Munkufust]

California

[Warheart]

Well if your planning on buying it then i say download it from a P2P application like Kazaa or Morpheus because aslong as you only use it for a small amount of time as a trial i dont think anyone will A: Find out and B: Care lol.
If your not planning on buying it then you probs shouldn't bother downloading it as that would be pure stealing.

You could maybe try 3Dstudio max because i THINK they do a trial and that should give you a bit of knowlege in 3D modeling. Then you just let the place your working at teach you the rest.

[Munkufust]

Hmm okay, yeah I think I'll messa round with 3dsmax. I do plan on buying lightwave but I don't really want to dl it. 3dsmax should give me some prior knowledge in 3d at least. Thanks!

[Warheart]

Happy to help.
I guess it's best you decided not to download it tho lol i rethought it after i posted.

Goodluck in ya new job.

[Munkufust]

Thanks! Any good tips for someone new to the industry? Maybe someone that is in the industry could help me not make some mistakes they did, haha. Thanks.

[Warheart]

heres a tip make sure you have a fast PC and not a Cryix 266 like i do at the mo

I would help more but i'm fairly new to LW myself.

[Munkufust]

lol okay. Good tip! I think my computer oughta be okay for now. I don't know how fast is fast enough for 3d work but mine is Pentium 2.4 ghz. It seems to work okay. But I hear rendering still is a pain.

[rich_is_bored]

Isn't Lightwave Discovery Edition a trial version? You can use that for free.

[greent]

for modeling start i would recomend wings3d. it's free, it's fast, it's small. i use it for some modeling and detail adding.

you can check it at www.wings3d.com

[leroy3rd]

I couldn't find "Lightwave 7.5 Discovery Edition" online anymore, however, if you buy the book "Essential Lightwave 3d 7.5" by Timothy Albee (pretty cheap at half.com) it has some pretty good tutorials and ideas to start you out, PLUS it has a copy of the discovery edition software to get you started!!!! There are some limitations to this free trial software, but it's a much better alternative to shelling out the big bucks to buy the software until you know if you'll be using it.

[kumar]

Actually, if you download the 7.5c update and install it. It will flip to the discovery edition. The 400 point object limit is the problem.