NewTek, Inc., manufacturer of industry-leading 3D animation and video products, today announced that the Universal version of LightWave 3D will be available in March 2007. LightWave 3D for the new generation of Intel-based Macs takes full advantage of the advancements in the operating system and development environment from Apple, providing noticeable speed and performance improvements for Mac users. The Universal version enables LightWave to run on both the PowerPC G4 and G5 CPUs and the new Intel-based Macs. Optimized performance will be provided for Mac users natively on both series of CPUs.

LightWave v9 marks a rebirth; core changes provide a tremendous increase in user interface performance, dynamics systems improvements and render speed enhancements. LightWave v9 adds a broad range of new features and improved workflows for faster and more efficient production at all levels. LightWave has been production proven time and time again in films, television, games, print, engineering, architecture and more.

LightWave v9 is the perfect combination of power, speed and value. Long considered one of the easiest 3D animation systems to learn and use, LightWave 3D is versatile enough for any application from award-winning visual effects to stunning hi-res print graphics, dynamic video games, powerful motion graphics and more. LightWave offers modeling, animation, dynamics, volumetric rendering, particle effects and a motion picture quality rendering engine with unlimited render nodes making LightWave the centerpiece of the most cost effective 3D production pipelines in the world.

General Controls:

• Support fractional frames at make key for IK Booster
• Update Bake-able Match Goal Orientation for IK Booster
• Tool for moving an object on or by an offset distance across the surface of a target mesh.
• A new rotation controller offers quaternion rotations to minimize gimbal lock.
• Tool which modifies a channel based on closest distance between an object and a mesh or other items.
• LightWave's Align to Path command now offers a robust new align-to-path algorithm, unaffected by very slow or no motion. The original Align to Path is still available, and is now renamed to more accurately describe its function, "Align to Velocity."
• Squash and stretch tool
• Motify: Replacement Delete key option. It includes more advanced features, including clearing motions, deleting ranges of keys and deleting keys within a threshold
• Hybrid Inverse/Forward Kinematics engine improving on the industry's most flexible IK system available today
• Free-form and locked IK goals
• Separate animated channels
• Animatable UV coordinates

True Value
LightWave 3D is a complete solution right out of the box that includes three different operating systems to meet your particular production requirements: Windows® 32-bit, Windows 64-bit and Macintosh®. LightWave for each operating system comes with unlimited render nodes. LightWave also supports the latest generation of dual-core and multi-core processor systems at no additional cost.

LightWave v9 introduces new interface paradigms, such as a Node Editor for materials and surfaces, volumetric lights, and displacements. Exciting new physically correct cameras have been added, allowing artists to recreate any real world camera lens, and have footage rendered in LightWave match real world photography (a must for compositing CGI and real footage together). These cameras can also be extended into the hyper-real, or even bizarre, as any mesh object can itself be made into a camera and record a scene. The possibilities are limitless.

New techniques for displacement mapping, and support for ZBrush® displacements have been added. New shading models, such as Blinn, Oren- Nayar, and Ambient Occlusion now allow for a tremendous versatility for artists no longer bound by the original shading model in previous versions of LightWave. Of particular note are the new shaders for sub-surface scattering, anisotropic specular and refl ection shaders (which allow for hromatic aberration), easy to use and offering a spectacular visual impact. Artists and technicians have more power to access, with the inclusion of the popular Relativity 2 expression system in LightWave v9. This system uses easy “expression wizards” to create associations between almost any scene component or animation channel, and has been used for some incredibly complex effects that were a snap to set up. All these changes and more make LightWave v9 the best solution for all 3D artwork needs. Whether you are modeling or animating, working in fi lm and broadcast or for print, dealing with organic or inorganic objects - LightWave 3D is the tool for the job.

Modeling:

• Added Catmull-Clark Subdivision Surfaces
• Subdivision level can be controlled via numerical values, envelopes, expressions, motion modifiers, textures, procedurals, gradients and more
• Edge Selection
• Edge Weights
• N-gons (polygons greater than 4 sides) for subdivision surface modeling

Node Editor:

• New Shading Models
• Normal Maps from ZBrush 2 Supported
• Branches can be imported and exported
• Math Animation Nodes
• Animated Gradient Node
• Work how you want to work: Layers in Nodes; Nodes in Layers; Layers Only; Nodes Only
• Full support of native controls and envelopes
• Available in Layout and Modeler, and maintains context when switching between the two
• Full SDK Support for third parties to create nodes (including shading models) and for third party renderers to interface with and query nodal shaders.

Advanced Camera Tools:
New rendering technology renders scenes using arbitrary camera lenses and warps. This allows for some fantastic effects, such as:

• Camera plane deformations
• Arbitrary projections
• UV map generation
• True orthographic rendering
• Space warp simulations
• Lens distortion duplicating physically accurate real world lenses or non-existent “imaginary” lenses
• 360 degree panorama rendering (one camera)

Open-GL:

• Preview lighting scenarios within the UI
• Less need for preview renders
• Hardware shading of procedural textures

Other:

• Timewarp – Time Re-mapping and Warping Shader
• CCTV Shader
• HV Deformer: HyperVoxel Particle Displacement Shader
• Stress Map
• Sketch Image Filter
• Pixie Dust Volumetric shader
• Relativity 2
• Quaternion Rotations
• Mesh Editing in Layout
• Native 64-bit support
• Multiplatform
• Dual and multi-core support» Added Catmull-Clark Subdivision Surfaces
• Subdivision level can be controlled via numerical values, envelopes, expressions, motion modifiers, textures, procedurals, gradients and more
• Edge Selection
• Edge Weights
• N-gons (polygons greater than 4 sides) for subdivision surface modeling

LightWave 3D 9 full DUO production license includes program CD for Mac and PC in the box with 1 USB dongle and a free upgrade to version 9.5. Upgrade versions do not include a USB dongle and require the dongle from your previous version software.

Windows:

• System Processor Pentium III or higher (Pentium IV recommended)
• AMD Athlon or higher (Opteron recommended)
• Operating System: 2000 (Sp3), XP (Sp1), XP (Sp2)
• TCP/IP Network Protocol Installed
• System RAM: 512 MB (1GB recommended)
• 230MB available harddrive space (not including content)
• Graphics Card:
            o AGP slot interface or PCI-Express
            o Full Open OpenGL and DirectX support
            o Latest drivers from chipset manufacturer
            o 1024x768 minimum screen resolution (1280x1024 recommended)
            o 64MB onboard dedicated RAM per display (128MB recommended)

Macintosh:

• System configuration: G4 or higher (G5 recommended)
• Operating System: Mac OS X 10.3.3 (Panther)
• System RAM: 512 MB for OS X (1GB recommended)
• 230MB available harddrive space (not including content)
• Graphics Card:
            o Full OpenGL support
            o Latest drivers from chipset manufacturer
            o 1024x768 minimum screen resolution (1280x1024 recommended)
            o 64MB onboard dedicated RAM per display (128MB recommended)