NewTek, Inc., announced the availability of LightWave® v9.3, during SIGGRAPH 2007. This is the second in a series of free updates to the Emmy®-award winning 3D application. LightWave v9.3 provides improvements in rendering technology, including: the ability to render lines with photorealistic motion blur; two new sub-surface scattering shaders that are significantly faster than earlier shaders, and higher quality as well; various performance enhancements throughout the product; as well as numerous maintenance improvements. Other improvements in LightWave v9.3 include advancements in the LightWave software developer’s kit and scripting language to provide greater access to third parties and artists for creation of custom plug-ins and effects. LightWave v9.3 is available free to all registered owners of LightWave v9.

"LightWave v9.3 represents the continuation of the course we established with the initial release of LightWave v9," said Jay Roth, President, NewTek 3D Division. "We envisioned a course for the development of LightWave v9, providing continual updates, improvements and enhancements to 3D artists throughout the process. We’re delivering free updates frequently and openly so that LightWave artists do not have to wait for the next major product release to enjoy the benefits of our development efforts."


NewTek’s 3D Division delivered LightWave v9.3 closely after the release of LightWave v9.2, which offered enhanced performance in a number of areas including improved global illumination with higher quality and faster rendering, expanded OpenGL capabilities with new depth of field preview, advancements in the new camera tools and the node and materials editing system. Visual effects artists made use of LightWave’s world-class rendering system and other capabilities in recent major film projects such as 300, The Guardian, The Da Vinci Code and Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Among television productions VFX Emmy-nominated Battlestar Galactica and other hit series’ such as CSI, CSI Miami, The 4400 and more depend on LightWave to produce state of the art visual effects on time and on budget.