Just Where Is Lightwave Headed?

Lightwave 9's Intro

Before Lightwave 9's introduction in July of 2006, it was met with allot of positive praise and review from longtime users. The praise came largely from the "promise" of renewed vigor and focus imparted by Jay Roth.

Lightwave 9's Meandering Development
After the release of 9.3 there was a small but vocal group that wanted to know what the next point release would be. Would there be a .4 before .5? It just seemed that 9 was in need of some much needed retooling yet and a .5 might press development into close to 10's release.

With 9.5 coming up next with its disclosed feature set, one wonders how Newtek will squeeze anticipated changes in 9 into the home stretch. Modeler tools in Layout, a consolidation of tools in modeler and layout, faster open GL performance in Modeler, and perhaps some angle on how Character Animation will be integrated into Lightwave.

Newtek has peen an awful lot of work into Lightwave and much has come in the form of its rendering and camera. There is no doubt that in that capacity Lightwave has matured greatly, but possibly at the expense of ease. The UI still needs attention and all the added features have come at the cost of complexity. At times I begin to wonder if NT plans to port and sell Lightwave as a stand alone renderer. Because LW 9's been in development for some time now and if theres going to be one more point release, it's going to have to be a monster update.

Where's the Map
Lightwave 9.5 Beta can't be discussed, but whatever doesn't make it into the 9 cycle, gets pushed off into 10. Given that in three more months Lightwave 9 will have been in the works for two years, what are we to get in 10? More importantly, when will 10's features become production functional....10.5 or 10.7 in 2010?

There isn't one person that can deny that Lightwave in many ways has fallen behind the curve. Yes it can be argued the features and cost of ownership are still nice, but having to complete its gaps with the purchase of other apps is increasingly less appealing when integration with those apps isn't solid as it could be (ZBrush).

If Newtek wavers on a solid and decisive Character Animation solution in 10, I would have to say, that Lightwaves legacy and promise failed to make the turn of the century changes to stay competitive. Lightwave needs to beat other features point for point. Lightwave needs to wow users away from other apps. Lightwave 10 must be all that and more.