1. Lightwave Hair Plugin For Mac

NewTek's LightWave 3D 7b is a major development for Mac 3-D artists. By taking advantage of OS X's OpenGL support and multithreading performance, the $2,495 do-everything 3-D­animation and effects system has made a quantum leap in performance and productivity. Faster Performance Version 7b doesn't have a lot of new features, but there are gems in this release. The foremost change in this edition is fast, reliable performance in OS X. Earlier versions of LightWave were plagued by bugs and inexplicable crashes in OS 9, and unfortunately, LightWave is still generally unreliable in OS 9. Version 7b is one of the best examples we've seen of multiprocessor performance on a dual-processor Mac (our test system was a dual-800MHz G4 with 1GB of RAM). The result is the fastest high-quality ray tracing we've seen on the Mac platform.

This version also sets the bar for OpenGL performance in OS X; manipulating a scene in the program's preview mode is fast and fluid, as long is it's a scene with fewer than 10,000 polygons. However, if LightWave for the Mac is going to match LightWave's Windows performance levels, Apple needs to introduce true workstation OpenGL acceleration in its next professional desktop systems. Split Personality LightWave includes three applications.

Modeler is where you build geometry and add texture to models. Layout is where you create environmental and particle effects, set lighting, and do all of your animation and rendering. Hub runs in the background, monitoring and controlling the flow of data between the two main modules. This split personality (necessary when RAM costs were higher) is outdated. We've experienced a lot of problems with getting changes between modules to update properly.

Moreover, there is a compelling case for tight integration of the modeling and animation modules. Maya, for example, allows an artist to create diverse relationships between any part of a scene, such as animating points on the control curves that define an object's shape.

This type of relationship isn't possible in LightWave,though there are ways to work around Hub, such as frequently issuing a Save All Objects command. LightWave's modeler includes excellent polygonal tools and a subdivision modeler, called Subpatch Surfaces, which allows you to build complex organic forms by manipulating simple polygon cages. But it's missing surface-continuity tools like those found in Universe and Maya; these tools are essential for building accurate representations of seamless surfaces such as a car's or an airplane's. Feature-Rich Layout LightWave has several tools for creating animation, mechanical and skeletal motion with inverse and forward kinematics, a huge range of particle effects and dynamic simulations, and facial motions and expressions driven by target morphing. Its best new feature is a nonlinear motion mixer that lets you drag and drop animation segments on a familiar video-editor­style timeline, to combine various actions into new sequences. LightWave now offers a very good Shockwave 3D exporter.

A new spreadsheet editor lets you rapidly modify an animation by entering numeric values at any keyframe. And similar to Maya, LightWave has an expressions editor that allows you to drive the action of one object with the parameters of another.

Outstanding Renderer LightWave's greatest asset is its rendering, which rivals Universe in versatility and sheer speed. The software offers ray tracing with radiosity and caustics, which realistically represent interobject illumination. The Hypervoxels particle system creates amazing particle simulations, such as realistic ground fog, within geometric volumes. This version of LightWave also features a cloth simulator and Sasquatch Lite, a limited version of the very good $599 hair-, grass-, and fur-rendering plug-in from Worley Labs.

The SkyTracer component, optimized for better performance in version 7b, realistically renders background skies and clouds of any type. Macworld's Buying Advice LightWave 3D 7b is well suited to all kinds of 3-D work. Although its three-module design and Hub component are flawed, the software is overall a versatile and high-quality animation and rendering tool. Those who own an earlier version may want to upgrade for improved performance; but if you're looking only for new features, the upgrade isn't worthwhile.

Latest Sasquatch version is 1.85. Mac Universal Binary version.

Shading speedups with LightWave 9.5+ Sasquatch version 1.8 New Features. Windows 64 bit native version. Significant speed increases. Updated multithreading core, now supporting more than 2 cpus. Known LightWave Issues. LW reports incorrect fog color values to plugins when transparency is used, sometimes causing incorrect fog colors to mix with fiber colors when seen through multiple layers of transparency. Known Limitations.

Mac only: Sasquatch's renderer is still single threaded. Sasquatch version 1.71 Bug Fixes. Bias -Y Combing rotation values were incorrect. Tip Translucency value overwrites Translucency in save files. Shadow of Sasquatch panel has a (large) invisible 'About' region on top, makes it hard to press top two 'A' buttons. Sasquatch version 1.7 New Features. Effector Combing This lets you use one or more effectors to stroke the fur combing in a limited region without affecting the combing anywhere else.

This can help to fix up small areas, like angling tufts of fibers out of eyes or tuning the flow of fur around a mouth. It uses effectors much like Acid.

The effectors can be moved, rotated, and stretched to define the combed region. The combing is in the effector's -Y direction. You can use as many effectors as you like. There's two independent channels of effector combs so you can texture map the strength of groups independently.You can also change the strength of indivdual effectors by using that effector's Polygon Size. Effector combing is added to the previous 'smart' combing and bias controllers. Probably you'll set up most combing using the older methods, and add limited region effectors just to fix up the small areas that have remaining problems. A small speed boost, about 5%.

A new generic plugin, 'Sasquatch Panel', which is like the G2 and FPrime generics. It's a convenience tool to bring up the Sasquatch pixel panel without having to dig into the layers of LightWave panels to get to it. You'll need to use 'Add Plugin' in LightWave. Support for 64 bit dongle drivers. Wider image picker to show longer image names. Panels are all now nonmodal, a significant workflow boost. Bug Fixes.

Minisliders on the Mac won't crash anymore. (!) Sasquatch version 1.6 New Features. Multithreaded rendering is much faster for scenes which use Fur mode on complex objects. The 'Receive LightWave Shadows' option is still a huge bottleneck unfortunately, but with that option off, rendering flies on dual CPU machines. Item and light picker buttons now give more informative summary labels. The Mac version now uses a progress meter to display Sasquatch rendering status, and also allows aborting the render.

Load-from-scene support is now much more robust, and handles even cloned objects. LightWave's Z buffer is limited in depth resolution, a natural limitation.

This can make extremely tiny hairs (like velvet) disappear or flicker when the object is very far from the camera. A new control, 'Z Buffer Precision Bias', allows you to force fur intoview. This needed for very very very few Sasquatch scenes. But is now available for the (er, one, poor animator!) who had exactly this bad luck. Ignorable for just about everyone. The render status bar now prints the segments that are being rendered. Minisliders on Macintosh now work like the PC, keeping the cursor 'unmoved' after sliding, and giving no limits to sliding distance.

A very annoying limitation in older versions!. Objects that used bones with expressions and many many child bones were very slow to render in Sasquatch. This is from the surprisingly slow speed of LW expressions, multiplied by the number of times Sasquatch needs to query those bones to compute dynamics. This was particularly common on objects set up with the ACS4 tool.

We've eliminated the bone query for the common case where no dynamics are computed. To avoid the slowdown for scenes with fur dynamics, you may want to pre-bake the bone motion of those bones with expressions (or just remove the expressions) in order to speed up those scenes. Bug Fixes. When using Sasquatch transparency mode, sometimes a stray pixel appeared at the edges of silouettes.

This was a floating point precision problem. Using backdrop image fog would cause funny colors in Sasquatch fibers. Our bug, a remnant of LW 5.6 support. Combing nulls wouldn't comb right if they were parented in a nested heirarchy.

Our bug, from a Bad Assumption. Sasquatch image maps were mis-scaled by 0.02% as compared to LightWave's maps. This tiny mismatch was nonetheless noticed by a very alert Steve Hoefer. When the camera was very far away and zoomed in close, shadows could be offset from their 'true' position. The renderer now mostly compensates and the offset is much less severe.

Reported by Bob Landry. Onepass antialiasing could show a 'ghost' of colors behind an object if there was a very sparse layer of fur on a front surface. This was from the one-pass algorithm saving memory by storing less color information.

Lightwave Hair Plugin For Mac

The algorithm has now been changed to behave more accurately in most cases, eliminating the ghosting. Sasquatch may have made invisible (black) objects in scenes using ultra-negative lights visible. Isolated LightWave Bug. PC Sasquatch can now always reliably read scenes saved from Mac Sasquatch. This is from a LightWave bug that has been documented and reported to Newtek. We also applied a workaround to Sasquatch itself. A LightWave bug would (very rarely) corrupt Sasquatch's UV maps when applied to multiple objects.

We isolated and worked around the problem so maps are more reliable. Diagnosed a very slippery LightWave bug when using discontinous UV maps for texturing Sasquatch parameters. Sent an analysis and example to Newtek for fixing. Thanks to Chris Dardis for his test scene!. Diagnosed an occasional problem with flickering shadows when using shadow maps, especially with high fuzziness. We isolated and documented the LightWave bug and submitted it to Newtek.

Thanks to Wet Cement and also Dave Tracey for test scenes! Sasquatch version 1.5 GY New Features. This Mac OSX-only update adds support for G2 to receive shadows from Sasquatch hair and fur.

Sasquatch version 1.5 GI New Features. This PC-only update adds support for G2 to receive shadows from Sasquatch hair and fur. Sasquatch version 1.5 EO New Features. Now supports LightWave Translucency control for shadow surfaces. Automatically set 'Use 'Subdivide Last' mode in LW 7, so no need for manual button. Bug Fixes. Mac OSX had a license filename problem (LW 7 only).

Mac UV/Weight maps were broken in LW 7. Workaround for a LW bug dealing with disabled plugins. Second bug with disabled plugins could cause black surfaces!

(Our bug, fixed.). License screen now says '1.5' instead of incorrect '1.0' oops!. Length readout in displacement interface was ignoring 'auto object size.' . Fixed subtle but potentially severe bug in creep and combing, sometimes caused hangs!

Sasquatch version 1.5 EN New Features. New interface, faster and compact, using tabbed panels.

Full support for UV image maps, weight maps, and color vertex maps!. Updated rendering engine (including better shadows). Rendering on x86 and Mac OSX!. Works with Hypervoxels and Volumetric Lights LW 7+ only. 96 bit floating point color accuracy increased from 24 bits.

No more artifacts or slowdowns when using LW's internal multithreading. Object 'part' support (in addition to previous surface support) for application, creeping, and combing.

Image selection allows loading new image from picker. Missing or bad images are detected and allow you to select them manually on load. Color button now uses LW's color picker. Support for Digital Confusion. Length multiplier for long hair mode allows shortening of styles (which can be animated for 'snaking ropes'). User comment field to help organize multiple instances. Object/Light exclusion in Shadow of Sasquatch LW 7+.

Optional response to LW's shadow map angles LW 7+. Multiple layers of fur now use independent 'seeds' so their fibers are not identical. Frame range limits can optionally restrict Sasquatch to apply only during fixed periods. Multithreading defaults to 'on' for Windows dual-CPU machines. 'S' panels compensate for LW 5 scenes which use '.lwo' extensions when naming objects. No spurious warning messages when applied to a null object. Removed internal disable options (you can use LW's checkbox more easily).

Sasquatch's main panel no longer opens slowly when applied to very very large objects for Rowsby. 'Subdivision Last' support is now optional (because LW is very slow processing this). New cancel, load, and save buttons for the pixel panel.

LW Translucency no longer creates artifacts (though the effect is ignored). Larger cut/paste buttons. Ability to write fur Z effects into LW's depth maps LW 7+. No erroneous 'Holding Frozen Render' description line when rendering previews. Now checks for consistency of images that LW may have silently deleted.

New cut/paste for fur/fiber settings. New shading quality control speed tradeoff. Warning/diagnosis text for stored previews. Negative light intensity support.

Definable pose frame. Most object information is now discarded after rendering, saving significant RAM Bug Fixes. Autosizing images didn't work with 'apply to all but.' . Wind/Dynamics cut & paste wasn't remembering wind values.

Preview RAM display had disabled text when it shouldn't. Transparency layer gadget would flicker during updates.

Very bad fog artifacts, unnoticed since 1.0-DF, fixed!. Shadow map RAM display was showing only 1/4 correct value. Small memory leak when entering image picker. Sasquatch version 1.0 DX New Features.

Extra decimal points in Linear animation for Rowsby. Over 100% values allowed for Shadow Opacity in Shadow of Sasquatch for Panikos. Adaptive Sampling is no longer forced to be off, (a single warning will be printed instead.) Bug Fixes. Embarassing crash when cut-and-pasting image maps fixed. Crash when using an object with a disabled parent bone fixed. Sasquatch version 1.0 DW New Features.

Now works with LightWave's 'Subdivision Last' setting. (Much rejoicing from many.). Mac OSX version. Windows USB dongle support. Long hair smoothness increased for extremely long detailed strands (like coiled ropes). Now turns LW Adaptive Sampling off automatically (to prevent LW artifacts) Bug Fixes.

Rare freeze when entering image picker multiple times fixed. Surface name changes in Modeler weren't updating in Sasquatch. Maximum transparency layers increased to 40 (for mapped-polygon forests, etc). Rare bug, when selecting multiple objects, sometimes the displayed count of objects was wrong. Rare hang when using hair objects with all 0-length segments fixed. Bug which prevented mapping onto objects with one dimension scaled to 0 fixed. Illegal Shadow Opacity values now not accepted.

Shadow of Sasquatch crash when shown in the surface preview is now avoided. (Caused by a LW bug).

Disabled instances no longer 'flicker' the status panel up and down quickly. Sasquatch version 1.0 DG New Features. Supports all LightWave subpatches objects natively.

An important new feature!. Supports multilayer objects completely. Multiple camera support for LW 6. Distance clipping option to speed up landscape rendering. Dynamics now reacts to bone effects. Much improved rendering quality when LightWave antialiasing is used (no cheek artifacts!).

Macintosh support!. Dynamics now bases its strength on object scale size, so settings are easier to configure.

Shading now follows LightWave's No Diffuse and No Specular flags. Support for objects with over 64k vertices. Bug Fixes. Rare rendering bug with extremely out-of-view fibers mis-rendering is fixed. Status percentage bug which would go to 1700% with LightWave high AA fixed.

Fixed 'stuck cursor when disabled gadget' GUI bug. S-panel 'Image Sharpness' was sometimes not being saved. Sasquatch version 1.0 DP New Features. Changed final LW save call to avoid scene file corruption. Support for radiosity on both surfaces and fibers, only in LW 6.5. Warning when multiple layers are simultaneously used.

Shadow of Sasquatch is now multithreadable. Shadow of Sasquatch now allows colored highlights (including partial coloring). Size Scale can be overridden to manually change object size Bug Fixes. Fixed a memory leak when using cut-and-paste. Save requester now works properly when using VBFileRequester.

Fixed a crash bug when 0% Surface Subdivision was used with wind. Spherical and cylindrical mapping was not rotated properly for X and Z. Spherical mapping didn't match the poles properly.

Fixed a bug with 'Hue Vary' and the solid color blue. Bad object files will now not crash or hang. Very occasionally, deleting an object would remove a selected Sasquatch spotlight. Curl combing would change directions when no combing was added.