NewTek Inc. revealed LightWave® CORE™ a few days ago, its next-generation 3D application to 3D artists around the world.

LightWave CORE is a completely new system offering a unified environment that allows anything to be animated in any number of ways. LightWave CORE is a node-based, multi-processing, unified application, designed to be as future-proof as possible, with a concentration on capacity and performance.

NewTek announced that the fifth free update to LightWave v9, for Windows 32-/64-bit and Mac OS X CFM and UB will be available. This new release offers a huge boost to stability with over 625 issues corrected and feature requests implemented, along with parity between the Windows and Mac OS X versions.

Among the new benefits LightWave v9.6 offers artists are:

• FiberFX Cloning - Provides the ability to place multiple instances of hair on the same object
• Layout Snapping - Allows the quick connection of one item to another, saving time and additional steps
• Ray Cutoff - Enables artists to decide at what point to stop further ray bounces when rendering a scene with a great deal of reflections, refractions and transparency, saving significant project time
• New and Improved Buffers for Export - Enables multi-pass pipeline users to output more buffers (layers) in high dynamic range, rather than be limited to 8 bpc (bits per channel), for greater flexibility
• Multi-Threaded Pixel Filters - Provides faster rendering for projects that integrate pixel filters
• Depth Buffer Normalizing - Allows 3D scene elements exported into film or video footage to automatically blend properly, even if moving relative to one another
• Open to Other Render Engines - Other rendering engines conforming to the LightWave v9.6 SDK can be used directly from within the LightWave interface
• Three New Nodes
  
  • Car Paint: Greatly eases the creation of a complex polished surface
  • Flake: A procedural texture based upon the flakes often seen in car paint
  • Curve: Allows the creation of complex gradients
• Drag and Drop - Allows an icon of an object or scene to be directly dropped into the Modeler or Layout window to load