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I remember Lightwave having a very decent soft body deformers for characters  way back when I was a LW user( Version 7.5)
I imagine its pretty good these days.

Cheers

It's funny, really - with all the improvements in the world of 3D, the competition, so to speak, a lot of what used to seem pretty strong in Lightwave now seems comparatively weak.
And the natives are restless, demanding more..more.. and better.

There really hasn't been much improvement on the CA or dynamics side of L-wave in several years. People like RebelHill have taken CA in Lightwave way beyond what seems possible, but out-of-the-box LW 9.6 is no contender to Maya for character animation.
Its strengths are in its VFX capabilities and, of course, its amazing render engine, but even its dynamics are starting to feel really dated and awkward.