Got this from Creative Cow, obvliously in response to the Maxon plug in in the new After Effects they are talking about their integration with After Effects, which is a plug in to send your scene to After Effects.

You just hit the GoAE button in Lightwave and it will send info to After Effects. It supports:

Cameras: Combine 2D footage and 3D elements by tracking the cameras of live-action footage in After Effects to cameras in LightWave. Move the cameras between After Effects and LightWave to achieve identical real-life camera movements inside LightWave.

Nulls: Send nulls from After Effects to LightWave and place them in 3D space for compositing.

Lights: Achieve the desired look by moving lights, including spotlights and point lights, between LightWave and After Effects for multiple test scenes.

NewTek also has a video showing how it works at their web site.

Of course no the rendering that the Maxon plug in will do, but still a good way to integrate shots more easily between Lightwave and After Effects. I wonder if they will get to work on a plug in like Maxon now? Hopefully!

NewTek has released Lightwave 11.5 of it’s venerable 3D application.

New features include:

• Dongle-Free Licensing – Dongles are no longer required to access the many features of LightWave
• Bullet Soft Body Dynamics – Soft body effects are now possible with Bullet, including cloth
• Bullet Forces – Several force types are now available within Bullet
• Genoma – Fast, modular instant rigging system for Modeler that includes presets for rapid-rigging
• VPR Update – Depth-of-Field, Motion Blur and Anaglyph Stereo now visible in the renderer
• Rolling Shutter – Rolling Shutter camera effects are now possible to aid matching footage that has this effect present
• Edge Rendering Node Control – Control edge opacity, taper and color using nodes
• Flocking Update – Predator / Prey behavior, new Director types and Node control
• FiberFX Update- Multiple styles per object – stored with the object, new styling controls, updated UI
• GoZ™ Fiber Mesh™ Support – Building on the robust GoZ support in LightWave 11. LightWave 11.5 now supports ZBrush Fiber Meshes
• Adobe™ After Effects™ Support – ‘GoZ style’ After Effects interchange for Cameras, Lights, NULLs and animation
• Instancing Update- Per Object control, speed and memory improvements
• Modeler Tools Update – ABF UV Unwrap, Edit Edges, Place Mesh, Slice, Thicken, Heat Shrink, Tweak, Transform, Axis and alignment tools and more
• Workflow Enhancements – Many enhancements to streamline and improve workflow

I used to do some Lightwave, back when I wanted to really learn 3D. Now it seems most people lean towards Cinema 4D, though I have never had a chance to play with it, and I would love to try out Z-Brush as 3D sculpting sounds very cool. Still Lightwave is a powerful program, and I am glad they are adding to it’s feature set.