Subject: Lightwave's Future in the Games Realm
From: Scott McCabe <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 30 Apr 1996 09:26:12 -0400 (EDT)

I sat down the other night to play Rebel Assault II..all through the game
I thought the graphics where outstanding...even if they actaully modeled
the ships or scanned them in. This made me think a little bit. 3D Studio
is (or seems to be) heavily used for a lot of games out there (Rebel
Assault,Doom II,BioForge etc...).  I've worked in 3D Studio and know what
takes you 30 mins to do can take you 5 in Lightwave. I also know up until
the release of Lightwave for Intel, 3D Studio was pretty much the only
thing for PC 3D. Alias/Wavefront has played a big part in this too on the
SGI end of things so I have to ask, "Where does Lightwave fit in?".

On the Windows NT platform (which looks like the platform of the future
for 3D apps) we now have 3D MAX and Softimage to compete with. It seems
Lightwave is growing stronger everyday but are we going to be one of those
persons who will say "Remeber when we used to use lightwave?" or is
Lightwave just going to be used as a good prototyping tool.

As much as I love Lightwave, I think in order for me to be useable I will
have to keep using 3D Studio. I'm not saying that Lightwave'rs only use
lightwave but in most cases it is their main tool and the rest are treated
like extra "screwdrivers" if you will, to get the job done.

So with Alias/Wavefront being a strong player in the game creation process
on the SGI and 3D Studio as it's sidekick...where does Lightwave fit in?
I guess this reminds me of the IBM vs. the Apple back in the begining.
Allthough the Apple was by far a better computer, IBM which was could only
do a quarter of the things that the Apple could, IBM dominated the PC
market.

I see several people on this list who do a lot of graphics for games,what
do you think? I swear up and down that Lightwave was a great investment,
great learning tool,a great 3D package etc.. but when I play my PC games
all I can see is 3D Studio. I hope I don't come off as being a downer or
to be raining on Lightwave but as a Lightwave user I'm worried. I know
Lightwave in all likley-hood will not be the only tool used for things but
I would love to see it used just as much as 3D Studio. :)

--Scott
(I do not work for a game company, so the above is only my impression of
the Future of PC 3D)

--- From the LightWave mailing list <[email-masked]> --------
--- This message posted by:  Scott McCabe <[email-masked]>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--- For information, send e-mail to:  [email-masked] --------
--- Message should include the phrase INFO LIGHTWAVE on a line by itself ---