Review : Lightwave 9.3 - New Features

The new Lightwave 9.3 brings new features and important updates to the modeler and the layout. IT’S ART Mag invites you to take a look at these new features. We will point out the main important changes in the Layout and the new shaders and Materials. For an exhaustive list please refer to Newtek website.

Camera and Rendering options

Real Lens Camera

The Real Lens Camera Setting in the Camera Properties Panel will simulate a physical camera lens.

-->Zoom Factor Menu

The zoom factor drop down menu allows you to set a zoom factor equivalent to a real world camera lens. It has four different types of zoom factor for you to choose from, but LightWave defaults to a zoom factor of 3.2, equal to a 24 mm lens.

 ---> Irradiance falloff simulates the darkening towards the boundary of the image, much like a real camera.

Antialiasing & Adaptive Sampling

-->Antialiasing in the Advanced Cameras has been changed. You can now input any number of antialiasing levels or use the slider arrow with a left-click and drag. Using any of the Advanced Cameras, Antialiasing will also occur in one pass for all levels, instead of one pass for each level.

--> The Adaptive Sampling has been changed considerably. When you select the Adaptive Sampling option, the image will be rendered in multiple passes. The first pass will render with the number of antialiasing samples you have selected. Each pass after that doubles the number of samples.

- The Antialiasing value works with the Adaptive Sampling as follows:

In the first pass of the Adaptive Sampling, the number of samples rendered is equal to the Antialiasing level (level 0 = 1 sample). The second adaptive pass will render this number of samples again. The third adaptive pass will double the total number of samples again and so on. Although raising the Antialiasing will cause the first adaptive pass to render slower, the pixels will converge (become done) faster so the total rendering time may not increase all that much.