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LightWave Complete Download and Install Guide

Official Overview

Physically Based Rendering System
LightWave 2018 features a completely re-written shading, lighting and rendering architecture. The new PBR engine allows you to create images with greater realism and accuracy, yet remains intuitive to use.

Render & Light Buffers
To complement the new shading engine, render buffers for shading have been overhauled to deliver more flexibility and power for working with compositing. LightWave 2018 features new light buffers for breaking out lights and custom buffers that allow you to create any type of render buffer using the power of the node editor, including real-time preview of new buffers in any viewport using VPR.

Other Features

OpenVDB Support
New support for the Academy Award-winning OpenVDB library for volumetric data interchange. OpenVDB allows volumetric simulations from other 3D software such as Houdini® or Maya® to be imported and rendered in LightWave using the new volumetric engine.

New Lighting Architecture
The new lighting architecture brings physical lights that can be optionally visible to the camera. Primitive lights turn any geometry or primitive object into a physical light. Portal lights aid interior rendering. Environment light gives the look of Global Illumination without the render time. In addition, there is improved loading of IES web files which allow closer matching to the intensity of real manufactured lights.

New Surface Editor, Material Nodes & Surface Preview
The Surface Editor has been overhauled for the new shading system with powerful node-based materials under the hood that are presented with a familiar interface including an enhanced Surface Preview feature.

New Volumetric Engine
Using the new volumetric engine and primitives, you can specify physically based properties for your clouds and fog. These include, Scattering, Absorption, and Emission parameters, along with the use of powerful node networks to control all parameters.