Some FPrime User Experiences

Timothy Albee, creator of Kaze Ghost Warrior, author of Essential LightWave and other books

"With feature-quality animation, you can't really know if your acting is working without seeing the action rendered-out with full lighting, shadows, motion-blur and the works. With FPrime, I can preview my scenes fully-rendered in a matter of minutes, while FPrime keeps improving the images in the background! If things look good, I can grab a "cuppa-tea" and check back on the render from time to time, stopping the render when the images, and how they transist from one to
another, is at the level of quality I need for my films."

Nick Boughen, author of LightWave 3D Eight Lighting

"As a feature film Lead Lighter, FPrime gives me the ability to provide more physically accurate light (that means better, more natural-looking light) with less hassle, hack and fake. I can concentrate more on the art of lighting and less on the technology of trickery. FPrime makes tools like multibounce radiosity every-day solutions instead of "once-in-a-while, if-we-can-afford-the-render-time" lighting gimmicks. I laughed out loud when I cranked up FPrime's radiosity bounces all the way up to 10 and it was still fairly interactive. LightWave's radiosity gives no feedback at all, and final rendering speed with five or even three bounces is usually way outside our production's time budget. Guess what? FPrime eats through those renders."

Leigh van der Byl, author of LightWave 3D Eight Texturing

"FPrime has added an essential element of efficiency and productivity to my workflow. As a texturing artist who spends a lot of time making minor adjustments, the fact that I now no longer have to wait for long renders just to see small changes in my work has increased the speed at which I can complete projects and deliver renders to clients. The render quality is just awesome, and it certainly adds a totally new dimension to working in LightWave. Being able to zoom into my different FPrime windows for small tweaks in textures is an absolute gift - it makes what is often a tedious process, that much more pleasant!"

Rich Helvey, lead animator for Access Hollywood

"At Access Hollywood, TV schedules mean we often have extremely tight deadlines (we're talking 4 hours from concept, through design and animation to final render). FPrime became an instant favorite not only for eliminating much of the time spent waiting for an F9 render to preview our work, but also for allowing us to get fast draft-quality animations for the editors to use as placeholders in the pieces they are cutting. Later, when the edit is almost complete and they need a cleaner version, FPrime has boosted the animation's render quality and has it ready for us. We never used LightWave features like depth of field, area lights or radiosity since they took too long to render. With FPrime, they're all now possible."

Shoujiro Hori

"I had a very exciting experience with FPrime! I am setting up character facial rigs for our latest game. The eye animations are controlled by turning texture texture layers on and off, and mouth animation is all from morphing. With LightWave only, the only way to see the net effect is to render the scene. This takes a lot of time and ruins feedback. But I can see the the effect immediately in FPrime's render window. It's so easy and accurate to synchronize the eyes' texture with the morphing mouth. With LightWave's VIPER, you can see the texture animation, but not the model's deformation, so FPrime was precious since it matched the motions."

Kitada Kiyanobu, freelance designer and animator, author of LightWave 3D Super Techniques

"FPrime drastically changes and speeds my workflow. It's as easy as using OpenGL, but FPrime gives the advantage of seeing the final lighting and render quality. I can also make animations without having to decide on the render quality ahead of time, which gives me a lot of flexibility especially when time is short. And I love FPrime's motion blur. That used to be a LightWave weakness, but now I expect that my clients will never complain about the quality!"

Yuji Umoto

"Speed is the key, must have 3DCG feature. Beginners, hobbyists, and professionals are all helped by fast feedback of renders. Radiosity is one feature which LightWave supports, but was difficult to use because of the long time it took to make a test render. Now with FPrime we can use it like any other feature! FPrime's user-friendliness is something even a super fast machine can't give you. Having FPrime is a chance to get next year's state of the art tools in your hands today.
FPrime's only downside is that I don't get breaks or naps while I wait for LightWave anymore!"

Joe Zeff, leading illustrator of magazine covers and print illustration for Time Magazine, Newsweek, and more.

"Print resolution projects have rendering bottlenecks that clash with deadlines. FPrime has been invaluable both for its surfacing and lighting feedback, and as a renderer. In my latest project, I launched the 5,000 pixel render and within minutes I had a workable image that I could modify in Photoshop using adjustment layers. FPrime's progressive refinement improved the render as time passed, and I was able to swap in the improved version while retaining the changes made on
other Photoshop layers. It was quite a change from sitting idle for hours while waiting for Lightwave to complete a print-quality render. I can't imagine using LightWave without F Prime."