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you might say that NewTek created desktop computer animation-on the Amiga, before Macs and PC had even discovered color. Some of your favorite TV series, like Star Trek and Babylon 5 (which won the FX Emmy for its pilot episode), came to life in Lightwave. Film credits include Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life, The Matrix Reloaded, Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, Black Hawk Down, Lost in Space, Titanic (Visual Effects Academy Award Winner), and The X-Files (Visual Effects Emmy Award Winner). And that's the short list.
As with most complex programs, we found parts of Lightwave marvelously intuitive and other parts frustratingly elusive. However, our major complaint is that Lightwave only runs with a hardware device called a dongle hogging one of your computer's USB ports. If you switch between your desktop and laptop, or take work home, you must bring the dongle with you. We didn't like dongles on the Amiga, and we like them less now. (At least most Amiga dongles had a pass-through, so that the device didn't tie up a port.) We understand the need to protect intellectual property against piracy, but prefer solutions that don't penalize the legitimate user.
Nevertheless, this is still a great program, with an abundant stock of Web tutorials, from the simple to the specific, to guide you up the learning curve. Lightwave just released version 8, with several new features-such as improved character animation and optimized speed-which make the program more exciting than ever.
For Openers
To get started with Lightwave, open your project in the Layout Window, but Quick Launch the Modeler window to build your animation's "assets." The default Modeler window shows four viewports-top, back, right, and perspective-but you can independently change the view or rendering style of any viewport.
Rendering choices include wireframe, shade, texture, flat shaded (shows all edges of all polygons), stretch (combines the wireframe and "flat shaded" views), wireframe stretch (overlays the wireframe lines with smooth shading), or smooth shade (does not show vertices, but allows you to set many surface settings). You also can set grids and assign backdrop images for each viewport. Layers are numbered and can be named.
You can load several objects into the Modeler at one time and...