At the SIGGRAPH conference in Boston last week, NewTek demonstrated new features for its LightWave 3-D animation system. Among the new technologies: a 3-D photo-realistic motion blur, 3-D photo-realistic depth of field, improved OpenGL capability in Modeler, additional capabilities for the new Advanced Camera Tools, and improved sub-surface scattering.
The advancements in motion blur and depth of field are due to the core changes that NewTek has made in LightWave v9.
With the addition of Advanced Camera Tools (ACT) in LightWave v9, LightWave now enables the ability to recreate any real-world camera and provides a selection of cameras perfect for film and television use. The new capabilities showcased at SIGGRAPH included two sample cameras, a RealLens and a two-point perspective. The RealLens camera applies lens distortions in images based upon data files describing the characteristics of real camera lenses. The two-point perspective camera is useful for traditional architectural renderings.
The new Node Editing capabilities in LightWave v9 provide a versatile selection of sub-surface scattering (SSS) and anisotropic shaders. NewTek is preparing Kappa II, the third form of SSS for use by LightWave users. Kappa II is a two-layer SSS that has forward and backward sampling combined. It provides an ideal solution for skin shading at a 2X speed gain over the previous solution of stacking two Kappa nodes to achieve the effect.
For more information, visit www.newtek.com.
