JakeL,
so, what did you decide on ?

BTW, one thing that I just thought of ... if your company does large scale renders (animations / movies etc.) then take into account the costs of adding render nodes. I've been using LightWave (primarily, ZBrush / 3D Coat / trueSpace on occasion) and one thing that I've found very positive is that it allows you to install a huge number of rendernodes without additional cost.

I only use it as a hobby, but even I have set up my multiple PCs at home to work as a renderfarm (my quad-core PC even has multiple render tasks running). All in all, I have 7 active rendernodes (which cuts down on rendering time quite a bit ;)).

Just my 2cents worth ...

Cheers,
Andreas

Yes, Andreas is right. You can add as much computers as you want in a LAN to one single Lightwave license to render images for a video. This saves a lot of money if you often render animations.

Besides that I found a website with benchmarks of 3d app rendering times. And Lightwave renders indeed a bit faster than Max, Maya or other tools mentioned and is much faster than Mental Ray.
Also interesting is: Lightwave gets faster with every core / cpu, and if you have 2 cores instead of 1 then it indeed doubles the speed (half of the render time). A quad core cpu or several cpus bring a lot for rendering images in LW.

Why spend a dime when you can use wings3d(free) to build the models quickly and export to fbx and then animate in your favourite animation tool some say fragmotion(cheap) some say blender(free) then export to mdl through blender.

Depending on your animation needs the cost could rise beyond your wallet!

Having said that why not try Carrara 7 with all the bells and whistles and support for exporting to collada .dae maybe hexagon for modeling is your style also similar to Modo! Or Maybe houdini is more to your liking?

The best for UV Mapping why not try these bad boys out:

Ultimate Unwrap I think you already have this link
Unfold3d http://www.polygonal-design.fr/e_unfold/index.php
UvLayout http://www.uvlayout.com/

i just love UvLayout Unfold3d looks pretty good too Wings3d's uv mapper is good too

or maybe you might like cyslice http://www.headus.com/au/cyslice/

enjoy !!!!!!

I can tell you why. Yesterday a new minor update appeared for Lightwave 3D. Just have a look here:
http://www.newtek.com/lightwave/benefits.php

The update manual showing only the new features is more than 100 pages thick. And please look at the amount of work they have done in the link above. This is only a minor update. It is LW9.6. This means they already made 6 FREE updates for their customers. They are listening to bug reports, to complains and they are getting crash reports and remove bugs.

This is the way you get a stable robust software with the tools you just need to work. And it shows a very good alternative to the yearly and expensive upgrades from Autodesk. A Lightwave user only has to pay for the next major upgrade (LW 10). And this takes a few years.

Look what they have done, they have soft IK to prevent IK popping. This is the first animation software in the world providing this feature. They have great in- and output now. FBX, OBJ and Collada are tested with ZBrush, Maya and other tools. I also did some tests with 3d-engines and it runs perfectly.

I compared the lighting system of LW lately with Blender and there is a huge difference. Sometimes it is worth to spend money for a good software, support and future development.

Thats fine and dandy if you have the money to buy these products in the first place if not the benefits are useless!

If someone dont have the money for such a commercial tool then indeed Blender is the best all-in-one solution. And Wings3d is a good modeler and unwrapper. It is more than enough to create game models.

Not sure why you would see the price tag for LW as a problem, if you then turn around and suggest tools (e.g. cyslice $4000 / Unfold3D $299 / UV Layout $300) that are quite pricey, considering their limited functionality.

But I agree with Frank ... Blender is a very good, low-cost option ... as is trueSpace.

Cheers,
Andreas

well any software over 500 US gives me many reasons to raise my eyebrow. It would have to be exactly what i want otherwise no point and besides even if it was what i wanted the cheaper the better. If only software companies understood its easier to sell cheaply rather expensively. That way more buyers would come your way!!!

Look at blender being free a huge following!!!!! And Truespace being free should also help them a little too.

The reason why i sugguested those products to Frank is because he may have money to burn. Why do you feel their limited?

Moggy

Thanks Moggy, but I dont need this extra software. I own excellent tools. One of them, Modo, has fantastic uv-mapping tools, great modeling, sculpting and 3d-painting. So not extra tool is needed. And I have Lightwave as a good all-in-one solution including professional animation, physics, hair/fur, particles, the fastest renderer and robust modeling tools. Both tools together are much cheaper than 3ds Max, Maya or XSI but deliver more power.

Welcome Frank, no problem i just thought i would throw them in there. Yes Modo seems quite modern and has a bright future. I just hope the development of Wings3d moved a bit faster. As this Modeler has the fastest modeling i have ever seen. The learning curving is very short. Better than Lightwave or the bigger plays of the modeling world like 3ds Max. If its community and programmers were more energetic maybe things would be different. But i cant complain at least there is still development.

As for 3d sculpting i think 3d-coat is very good much like zbrush but cheaper

As for a cheap or free development stream i would use TRUESPACE, GAMESPACE, CHARACTERFX, DAZ 3D STUDIO, BLENDER, WINGS3D, WINDOWS PAINT.NET(for making textures) and fragmotion if exporting animation was a problem and finally 3d Coat for painting on textures to models. If you really wanted UV MAPPING then i would use Ultimate Unwrap cheap and plenty of import and export ability. This is just a rant for the beginners to let them know that you dont need to spend a lot of money to create games.

Considering that Truespace and Blender do animation, fragmotion and characterfx are virtually not needed unless for export reasons.

But if i did have the money then buying Modo and Lightwave would be a good option. But make sure you pay attention to input and export ability as this is the key to having a good development pipeline to make games.

I just wish the interfaces to blender and lightwave didnt have such high learning curves. If only they had the simplicity as Wings3d life would be so much easier.

I wonder if there will ever be a new Mirai?

Cheers Moggy