Subject: NAB Report
From: [email-masked] (Dave Thomas)
To: Multiple recipients of list <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Apr 1996 16:52:06 -0700

OK, I'm back from NAB. It looks like most of the news has shown up here 
already, so I guess I don't have to go into too much detail. LW 5.0 is 
amazing, and is something you must upgrade to if you haven't already.  The 
upgrade price may be a little steep, but the number of new features are 
probably worth it. MetaNurbs and OpenGL previews are really cool, and all 
the interface improvements will make it a lot faster work environment. I 
also liked the new bones (muscle flexing is really cool), unlimited textures 
and the return of the much missed (for me anyway) import/export.  The fact 
that the program will ship in the near future was a suprise to most, and I 
have to commend NewTek on keeping all of the new features of LW pretty 
quiet. I did receive info a few weeks back that LW would ship at NAB, but I 
kind of dismissed it as a joke. I was happy to be wrong. I'd still like to 
see features added like interactive texture placement, separate channels, 
improved envelope work environment, and more procedural textures (the often 
talked about Essence-like package was still nowhere to be seen).

The announced Mac port wasn't a complete suprise, and I'm not sure it was 
the best idea they've ever had. Apple is not exactly the most stable company 
at the moment, and support of another platform means spreading the 
development resources around even more. Still, there is NO competition for 
3D on the Mac (I don't consider Electric Image to even come close to LW), so 
they'll probably sell a lot of copies, depending on how much Mac people will 
be concerned by the non-Mac interface of LW.

 The Map/Mathmotion plug-in is amazing, I just hope it ships sometime soon 
(and I know who's working on it as the name was quite visible on the work 
panel. Since there's some question as to whether or not the developer wants 
this information known, I'll keep quiet). Another must have plug-in is 
Particle Storm, an amazing particle system.  It's very powerful and supports 
stuff like collision detection, various shape particle emitters, and user 
control over things like wind, gravity, particle birth and decay and much more. 

The reel NT was showing contained a lot of shots from Hypernauts, the M&M 
commercials, and a lot of work by GRID and Fusion Films, all which was 
really cool. I'd love to have copies of the LW reels that they have at the 
shows. Too bad they don't give away copies. The LW stuff stacks up well 
against the reels shown by other companies, though the clips from 
DRAGONHEART at the Alias/Wavefront booth have me really interested in seeing 
the movie.

The NewTek party was loud and mainly provided time for Kim and I to drink 
free Diet Coke (I'm diabetic so no drinking for me) and make obnoxious 
commentary about the lame dance music they were playing. We decided it's 
probably a good thing that we're not running a major software company, since 
we'd play music that would drive everyone screaming from the room. We did 
have fun seeing different people that we haven't seen since leaving LA. It 
was also kind of amusing to watch the LW reel along with the disco tunes. 
And the Seaquest blooper reel was pretty funny (set to the tune of "Yellow 
Submarine").

That's about it for this message. Since some folks have suicidal fits if 
someone says something positive about a competing software package, I'll put 
the rest of my NAB stuff in a report on my web page. I'll post the complete 
URL when it's up and running sometime this weekend. Any questions, feel free 
to email me.
Dave Thomas - MPix
"But just think of all the money you'll make down the road..." - Actual 
ex-employer quote
[email-masked]