Some LW complaints/problems in no particular order:
1. That GS put some of the usage documentation (and GDL documentation) in the developer libraries (free download – but not included in the distribution) rather than in the help files and GDL manual. Even that documentation doesn’t cover all user controls / parameters in all LW-related dialogs, but it helps the GDL developer. GDL coders will want to get the Basic Library files from
http://www.graphisoft.com/support/developer/documentation/index.html
2. That the LW material preview in the archive loading dialog is so small as to be meaningless; you have to select the material, then look at it in the main dialog (or apply to a surface and render). Then when you go back to the archive, you have to find your place once again, as it doesn’t remember where the shader came from.
3. Similar to the last one, I would like an option for a cube rather than the sphere in the Material Settings dialog, since I almost never apply materials/shaders to spheres, and the distortion makes it difficult to judge the appropriateness of settings, for example, for a shader-defined wood or stone. The effects of grain size aren’t seen until the material is applied and rendered … time consuming. Then consider reflectance, transparency, displacement etc … Really need a quick-render of just a cube or sphere (at a known scale) that is large enough to judge the result.
4. As Tom Dabney said, the material editor controls are quite cumbersome. I never want to hide controls, and am tired of clearing the checkbox for “Show Essential Only” each time I go into the material editor.
5. I want a way to easily make sure the size/aspect of my texture image matches that of my mask and/or bump images. (I rarely use different pixel-dimensioned images for the different functions. Give us a ‘lock’ button so we can use different sizes when needed, but otherwise keep things in synch.)
6. There is a ‘match to internal engine’ button, that is useful. But, once you start really working in LW, you want the reverse … an OpenGL/Internal “match as close as you can to LW”.
7. LW window light behavior is frustrating: as you vary the intensity, the number of lights changes, but there is another parameter that changes the number of lights too. I’ll probably just reprogram this object myself, as I’d rather pick my light resolution and then adjust the intensity without altering the light count.
8. No radiosity, as mentioned by Ben Odonnell
9. Can only use some archives … AC LW is not certified for archive use. We should be able to open, for example, the Benjamin Moore paint archives.
10. Light behavior sometimes gives artifacts: I have seen mysterious dots reflected in glass from a window light, and strange waving patterns on walls and ceilings, like the guy with the plaster was bouncing up and down with his trowel, drunk, or both.
11. There is no way to visually align LW textures in 3D since the 3D OpenGL window uses the internal textures. If you ‘match to internal’ this is not a problem. But, if you use a LW shader, you can only guess (AFAIK – perhaps a tip in Dwight’s book) to get the alignment where you want. Then render, and re-render. Very time consuming.
12. Light intensities combine in what seems to me to be an unpredictable way, resulting in extra renderings and time. For example, with the sky object and sun object present for an exterior rendering, it is easy to overexpose surfaces, such as the ground/lawn. So far, it has just been trial and error for me to find settings that are satisfactory and expose things adequately.
13. Soft shadows just don’t work AFAIK. If you adjust shadow softness for the sun in the LW Environment of the Photorendering Settings, there is no meaningful change. Nothing produces shadows similar to Art*lantis, much less C4D. I just modified the Sun object which calls for hard shadows in its 3D script, to instead call for soft shadows and there was no effect. My guess is there is some bug in the integration of LW in AC 9.
14. The material selection pop-ups don’t have any visual clue (icon) to let you know which materials have LW definitions that are other-than ‘match to internal engine’.
In spite of all of this ... I use LW as my engine of choice with AC.
1. That GS put some of the usage documentation (and GDL documentation) in the developer libraries (free download – but not included in the distribution) rather than in the help files and GDL manual. Even that documentation doesn’t cover all user controls / parameters in all LW-related dialogs, but it helps the GDL developer. GDL coders will want to get the Basic Library files from
2. That the LW material preview in the archive loading dialog is so small as to be meaningless; you have to select the material, then look at it in the main dialog (or apply to a surface and render). Then when you go back to the archive, you have to find your place once again, as it doesn’t remember where the shader came from.
3. Similar to the last one, I would like an option for a cube rather than the sphere in the Material Settings dialog, since I almost never apply materials/shaders to spheres, and the distortion makes it difficult to judge the appropriateness of settings, for example, for a shader-defined wood or stone. The effects of grain size aren’t seen until the material is applied and rendered … time consuming. Then consider reflectance, transparency, displacement etc … Really need a quick-render of just a cube or sphere (at a known scale) that is large enough to judge the result.
4. As Tom Dabney said, the material editor controls are quite cumbersome. I never want to hide controls, and am tired of clearing the checkbox for “Show Essential Only” each time I go into the material editor.
5. I want a way to easily make sure the size/aspect of my texture image matches that of my mask and/or bump images. (I rarely use different pixel-dimensioned images for the different functions. Give us a ‘lock’ button so we can use different sizes when needed, but otherwise keep things in synch.)
6. There is a ‘match to internal engine’ button, that is useful. But, once you start really working in LW, you want the reverse … an OpenGL/Internal “match as close as you can to LW”.
7. LW window light behavior is frustrating: as you vary the intensity, the number of lights changes, but there is another parameter that changes the number of lights too. I’ll probably just reprogram this object myself, as I’d rather pick my light resolution and then adjust the intensity without altering the light count.
8. No radiosity, as mentioned by Ben Odonnell
9. Can only use some archives … AC LW is not certified for archive use. We should be able to open, for example, the Benjamin Moore paint archives.
10. Light behavior sometimes gives artifacts: I have seen mysterious dots reflected in glass from a window light, and strange waving patterns on walls and ceilings, like the guy with the plaster was bouncing up and down with his trowel, drunk, or both.
11. There is no way to visually align LW textures in 3D since the 3D OpenGL window uses the internal textures. If you ‘match to internal’ this is not a problem. But, if you use a LW shader, you can only guess (AFAIK – perhaps a tip in Dwight’s book) to get the alignment where you want. Then render, and re-render. Very time consuming.
12. Light intensities combine in what seems to me to be an unpredictable way, resulting in extra renderings and time. For example, with the sky object and sun object present for an exterior rendering, it is easy to overexpose surfaces, such as the ground/lawn. So far, it has just been trial and error for me to find settings that are satisfactory and expose things adequately.
13. Soft shadows just don’t work AFAIK. If you adjust shadow softness for the sun in the LW Environment of the Photorendering Settings, there is no meaningful change. Nothing produces shadows similar to Art*lantis, much less C4D. I just modified the Sun object which calls for hard shadows in its 3D script, to instead call for soft shadows and there was no effect. My guess is there is some bug in the integration of LW in AC 9.
14. The material selection pop-ups don’t have any visual clue (icon) to let you know which materials have LW definitions that are other-than ‘match to internal engine’.
In spite of all of this ... I use LW as my engine of choice with AC.
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