Would therebe any benefit in purchasing Lightwave 8 for use with Poser & animations/rendering. And if so what would they be? As I have had an offer of lightwave for a cheap price - I also use Vue/Bryce & Animation master. Bushy

If you're happy with the Poser-Vue-Bryce Pipeline then, no. If you sometimes feel like you're straining at certain creative limitations then Lightwave can offer you: A proffessional level modeler and animation layout. Before anybody gets mad about the "proffessional" remark, what I mean is that it really lets you get into super detail when it comes to editing camras, materials, motion curves, all aspects. Yes, proffessional work is being done with the aforementioned apps too. Particles, motion dynamics, scripting, etc. It's serious but fun too. I've had Poser 6 for several hours now and it's quite a good improvement. So far, getting Poser characters into LW has been a bit of work. I still wish CL would have helped the pipeline in this direction more than it currently has. Lightwave is great for animation and asset creation.

I would buy lightwave 8 it is one of the best 3d programs you can buy and fairly easy to use. You can buy mimic for lightwave also, which is another good thing.

If you have propack you can get Poser animations into LW no problem. You can do it with LW6.0, 6.5, 7.0, 7.5, 8.0, and 8.3. I honstly do not get this "Poser won't work with Lightwave" thing. It's rubbish. Now Poser5 and 6 won't (well, I've never tried it) and dynamics (cloth, hair) won't import, but LW has it's own provisions for dynamics. I guess that's why I'm still a P4Propack loyalist. I really wish CL had stayed the course with their plugin program for outside apps, but I'm limping along quite happily anyway.

The Vue 5 Infinite/Lightwave combo is a real good deal. If you have the money and you are really into 3D go for it. Since you already use Vue you are getting version 5 Infinite with all the bells and whistles with Lightwave thrown in. If you ever had any inkling of creating your own props and Poser content you are in for a treat, there is a learning curve but well worth it. One of the best modeling programs coupled with a very good rendering engine and lots of learning resources available. Going to Lightwave you will see the difference between Poser and a real professionnal application. I create all my Poser clothing in LW. I am thinking that since there is already a Poser to Vue pipeline, and now a Vue to Lightwave pipeline it may become possible to have Poser people in LW, but it's pure speculation on my part. Personnally I use Greenbriar's plug-in to load up Poser figures in Lightwave, there is also a plug-in that loads the animation data also but that one I have not tried.

Dom, what's your feeling on the the weight map/material tweaks when you import a character with Greenbriar? I've had great luck with some characters (few tweaks) and others just the opposite. Also, I gave up on Conformer as it seemed to crash too much. Now I just combine everything as one figure. "professional" , yes I knew that didn't look right.

krimpr, "It's rubbish." lol I'm glad it's rubbish to you (really). Sadly, I must testify that with ProPack it barely worked in LW 6.5 and never worked (for me) beyond that. I've surfed around to many threads on this subject and no one has ever written any clues that help me debug this problem. True, I'm not a comp-sci grad but I've been around long enough to follow simple instructions and they haven't worked. That said, I am on a mac, I don't know if that makes a dif. Also from the bad luck department: I have been un-able to import from ProPack to Vue without crashing. I have a letter in to e-on, waiting for a reply. If the problem is me, I'm sure I can be debugged too. : )

Sorry 'bout that deci6el; I didn't mean to sound so crass. Someone in the LW forum did a thread called something along the lines of "At last, Poser to Lightwave" or "Eureka"... It was a step by step guide for the installation of the plug and it's use and it works very well. Some textures need their transparancy maps applied and the apply mode modified from "multiply" to "normal" which takes about 15 mins. for a Daz character. Try a search here in the Lightwave forum with Poser as the keyword. I'd do it now except I'm on my way out the door to work. IM me if it doesn't turn up and I'll check my collections of tutorials and post it somewhere for you... I save all that stuff. Sorry if I sounded stuffy; so many people here pass over LW because of the myth that it is somehow incompatible with Poser.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=1650027

krimpr, Thanks a lot. Not a problem, I know lots of people way back said it worked for them. Had to laugh because I was part of a follow-up thread with squid early this year and had bookmarked the above link. Thanks for reminding me about it. It's been one of those "i should try that" bookmarks and been too busy to check it out step by step. Luckily my character project at the time was native to LW. As I'm trying to start up this comic again I've been trying to get all the apps talking P6, Vue5 Inf, and LW 8.3. Thanks again.

You're welcome. The upcoming Vue "Fusion" is alleged to do just that: Tie Poser with VueI and LW, C4D, Maya or 3DSMax. The world in the palm of your hand, as it were...

Yeah, I think the first whisper I heard of Fusion was the day that Vue 5 Inf arrived. It sounds good but will have to wait for a sidegrade deal or amnesty or a bucket o' money as I just upgraded to LW 9 and Poser 6. 'spose I shouldn't complain, I just got Vue for free. : ) Bushy, Back on topic, by all means get LW because you won't be getting 8 at this point but LW 9 and a second seat of Vue. I've been working with LW for four years now and there is still so much that I have yet to really explore. Good luck with your choice.

I have poser and vue and I am mainly interested in animation. I have absolutely no interest in designing my own 3d items. Is there any reason to get LW? thanks

Lightwave is both a high end modeler and animation app. So if animation is a priority then, yeah. Best to check out the features and see if it compliments your needs. It is quite possible that you can do all the animating you wish between Poser and Vue; many do. Lightwave adds considerably to your animation possibilities, but depending on your general direction you may not require/desire it.

Just to ditto krimpr and add to his comment: If animation is your focus, the motion graphs and keyframe utilities are great for adjusting motion curves and moving and deleting keyframes to nudge your timings into place. I have found dealing with those essentials in the other packages to be a bit clumsy. Motion Mixer is also another interesting animation tool that I have yet to fully put to work. Essesntially, Motion Mixer would be your library of poses or animations that you can use in its own editor to mix and match poses, fade in and out of animations. It's a good alternative to doing a lot of cutting and pasting of keyframes.