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LightWave 3D Software provides Award-Winning, Production-Proven VFX and Animation Tools for Artists. Upgrade from any previous version of LightWave, including educational licenses and 5-Seat Lab Packs to the latest version. Pick your option.

LightWave 3D 2020 (Upgrade) ESD

Fresh. Fast. Easy. Proven.

NewTek LightWave 3D® is designed for the independent artist who desires control of their vision from start to finish. Affordable, complete, easy to learn and use, LightWave is well established as one of the leading 3D systems on the market. With the ability to model, animate, and render stunningly realistic imagery and animation, LightWave allows you to create new worlds, build your brand and shatter expectations. LightWave 2020 refined and retooled.

Two New Global Illumination Render Engines

LightWave, long known for the beauty of its render engine, gains new advancements in LightWave 2020 with the redesign of the Global Illumination rendering engine, bringing two versions for artists: Brute Force, an unbiased radiosity engine, and Irradiance Cache, an interpolated radiosity engine. Using the new render engines independently or in concert will assure you get the real - world render results you seek, with higher quality and more control.

Two New Shaders in FiberFX

The new hair shaders in LightWave 2020 deliver more realistic hair leveraging the physical-based renderer. Principled Hair Material is based on the Principled BSDF settings. The five inputs: Color, Cutical Tilt, Roughness, Radial Roughness and Index of Refraction provide a simple interface for spectacular results. With AFC Hair Shader (Artist Friendly Control — a simplified approach) the specular settings are divided into two sections: Primary, for reflection of the front side of the stroke and Secondary for the reflection bounced off the backside of the stroke. Now, you have the option to select a simple artist-friendly shading option or complete control for the look you desire.

OpenVDB Gets New Set of Production Tools

Leading the pack in the LightWave OpenVDB roster is support for Partio particle objects. What you gain is the power of Houdini particles with the simplicity of the LightWave interface. Also included in the new OpenVDB toolset is:

• Advect Point Node – Advect particles by velocity grid
• Analysis Node – Grid creation Gradient, Curvature, Laplacian, Closest Point, Divergence, Curl, Magnitude, Normalize
• Combine Math Node – Combines grids using math operators
• Level Set Morph – Morph between level set grids
• Partio Node – Load Houdini.HClassic particle files
• VectorGrid Split and Merge – Split and merge Vector grids for further experimentation
• Visualize Node – Grid viewer with options

Redesigned Motion System

LightWave 2020 provides the ability to change the Rotation Order per item and is saved with the scene file. This allows for an easier transition from other applications to LightWave. Additionally, instances of Gimbal lock can be avoided and items you are animating can be allowed to follow a more natural rotation order.

Local Action Center

LightWave Modeler allows you to impact a group of items all at once in the Local Action Center. Select disparate edges or polygons in your model and act on them as one, locally. The Local Action Center works on multiple layers at a time for fast and easy changes.

Tone Mappings

Gain greater control over the look of your render with the new Pixel Filter in LightWave 2020. Tone mapping is a technique used in image processing and computer graphics to map one set of colors to another to approximate the appearance of high - dynamic - range images in a medium that has a more limited dynamic range. Further, as a Pixel Filter, it can be used in VPR for quick results.

Shedding New Light

In LightWave 2020 the Environment Light has taken on new importance. Now, Environment Lights are connected directly to the environment, adding direct sampling of the backdrop. The updated Environment Light opens as part of the default scene in Layout, and the new light results in the streamlining of environmental systems.

Scene Editor

Improved workflow in Scene Editor allows you to manage large, complex, and layered scenes with ease.

FBX Interchange

LightWave 202 0 provides enhanced pipeline support, increasing access to motion capture for auto - rigging. More features are supported in the FBX format, which provides greater flexibility when working with other animation tools.

Instancing

Processing time for third party render engines is improved with the added ability to set Surface instances to static to stop evaluation at render time

OpenGL

Updated shaders deliver visualization in the viewport that is closer than ever to the final render.

Improved SSS

Better subsurface scattering algorithm delivers fast, better SSS for your renders.

Untethered

LightWave 2020 allows you to monitor render progress on your mobile device with new applications for iOS and Android.