“We’re using LightWave 10.1 for everything – from lighting and shading, to working on material from other pieces of software, as well as just producing everything in it – from start to finish,” explained John F. K. Parenteau, managing producer at Pixomondo Los Angeles. Pixomondo is currently using LightWave in the creation of Steven Spielberg’s new TV series Terra Nova, slated to premiere this fall. “LightWave provides a very fast turnaround for us. It has become a great tool, particularly with its new capabilities,” said Parenteau.
LightWave 10.1 enhances creativity with new stereoscopic features that provide access to all major stereo camera rigs, and the ability to dynamically correct for toe-in distortion in the animation pipeline. Additional stereo enhancements include interactive OpenGL off-axis adjustment of the right and left camera planes, click-and-drag convergence point adjustment in the viewport, and the ability to disable the anaglyph representation of the stereo camera in OpenGL. Also in LightWave 10.1, interocular and convergence points can be dynamically animated over time to track stereo changes within a shot.
The LightWave VPR allows artists to directly interact and easily adjust lights, textures and volumetrics within the viewport. Artists can also use the VPR to view updates, quickly deliver realistic, environmental walkthroughs and perform virtual location scouts. LightWave 10.1 extends the functionality of the VPR with the support of clip maps in the VPR render, the addition of object and distance dissolve and improved nodal shaders like the new Skin material node that works with the VPR. The Skin Shader node uses a proprietary model for subsurface scattering for an easier method of replicating realistic skin textures.
LightWave 10.1, with integrated Autodesk Geometry Cache Support gives artists the ability to include or exclude models, morphs, animations, cameras and lights, upon export. Other workflow features in LightWave 10.1 offer the ability to import joints as LightWave bones for greater compatibility with other programs; multi-threaded mesh evaluation optimization and sub-d mesh freezing acceleration; linear color space workflow improvements, including new support for .ICC/.ICM monitor profiles.
