What's new in LightWave 3D 5.0

There have been many additions to LightWave 3D 5.0. In fact there have been nearly 200 new features added! Here is a quick glance at some of the highlights:

Modeler

Open GL support for real time shaded views. Acknowledges surface attributes such as Diffusion, Specularity, Luminosity, and Smoothing

METANURBS Modeling Tool. This new tool combines the ease and flexibility of polygonal modeling with the power and organic feel of NURBS modeling.

Metaballs Modeling Plug In. Powerful Organic modeling!

Metaform2 Plug In. Enhancment to the orginal metaform which allows you to metaform polygons with more than four points.

New Spline Modeling Tools

Surface editing in Modeler.

Tablet Support. Allows absolute versus relative input devices.

Randomization for Bevel and Array tools.

Data sharing between Layout and Modeler. Import and Export are Back!

Enhanced True Type Support

Massive Redraw Speed Enhancements.

Lasso Style Zoom

Layout

Open GL support for real time shaded views. Includes support for up to 8 interactive lights (Distant, Point, or Spot). Acknowledges surface attributes such as Diffusion, Specularity, Luminosity, Outline Only, and Smoothing

Infinite Surface Layering!

Alpha channels allowed on image mapping.

New Cel Animation Features for Cel edges and Cel rendering. Make 3D look hand drawn!

MetaMation: A new organic animation plug-in that automatically smoothes an object with Metaform before each frames' render.

Bone Enhancements including, Joint Compensation, and Muscle Flexing.

Inverse Kinematics improvements including active goals and goal strengths.

Multiple Target Object Morphing from one envelope.

New Lens Flare modes including, central ring color and size modifications, and star filter enhancements.

Many User Interface Enhancements

Color Swatches in RGB fields

Interactive Camera Zoom Level

Interactive Light Cone Angle

Front Face View of objects for faster redraw and cleaner interface

Color BKG images

Render Sample Cube.

Copy surfaces from rendered samples.

New Plug In classes including Pixel Filter and Special Buffers for new rendering and shader effects.

Project images through spot lights.

User definable Texture Map anti-aliasing.

AutoKey Create mode for ultra-fast keyframe set up.

Open GL Previews.

Tiling and Alpha Channel options for Texture Maps.

Dolly, Truck, and Pan capability allowing movement along any item's axis.

Effector: Allows a null object to interactively deform a mesh.

Plug In features included with LightWave 5.0



Equation
Lwpanels
Globsave
Effector: The Motion plug-in Effector InheritRotation
JitterMotion
MathMotion
ParentBone
ParentCamera
ParentLight
ObjList
ObjectSequence
Effector: Displacement Map Plug-in
LazyPoints
Metamation
Blotch
CelShader
Checker
ColorCube
HSLColorCube
NormalColor
SurfBlurShader
SurfFuzzShader
Weave
ZOR (Plug-in file: Zor.p)
BlurFilter
Convolve
Emboss
Gamma
Negative
NightVision
NTSC_Legalize
PAL_Legalize
PENNELLO
Sepia
SpecialBuffer
SurfBlurFilter
SurfFuzzFilter
VidNoise
Vignette
Watermark
AVI Savers
Storybrd.p
FilmExpand
6XStoryboard
ImageList
MotionDump
AllBGLayers
Arn_Calculate
BoundingBox
Cage
Calculate
Center
Center1D
CenterScale
CenterStretch
CutCurves
Envelopes
Gear
ImpSurf3D
Julienne
LightSwarm
LoadFonts
MathMotion
NextEmptyLayer
PathToMotion
Platonic
Plot1D
Plot2D
PointCenter
PolyEdgeShaper
New Primitives
Donut
Wedge
Spline Cage
Random Points
Gear
RandPricks
RotateAnyAxis
RotateHPB
SceneToVRML
Stipple
SuperQuadric
Symmetrize
TextCompose
TextCurve
Throw
Toroid
Translator3DOptions
VRMLAutoSave
VRMLSave
Wedge
Add-Metaball
AutoPatcher
AutoPatcherMK
BGConform
Converge_Points
Fast-Triple-Fan
Fast-Triple-Traverse
Make_DoubleSided
MakeSpikey
Metaballs
MetaFormPlus
Points2Polys
Power-Texture
PowerView
RandPoints
Reduce-Polygons
Rest-On-Ground
Rotate-About-Normal
Rotate-Arbitrary-Axis
Rotate-To-Ground
Rotate-To-Object
Spherize
Squarize
Translator3D-Export
TriangleFan
TriangleStrip
Image Loaders/Savers

----- The formats HIIPSave.p allows you to load and save in Layout are: ---- Alias(.als), BMP(.bmp), Cineon(.cin), IFF(.iff), JPEG(.jpg), PCX(.pcx), Pict(.pic), Pixar(.pxr), QRT(.qrt), Rendition(.6rn), SGI(.rgb), Sun(.sun), TIFF(.tif), Targa32(.tga), Toaster(.vti), Wavefront(.rla), XWIndows(.xwd), YUV(.yuv)

Special Thanks to NewTek for this extensive list.