Both programs have individual and almost limitless numbers of shaders or texture profiles (both predefined & customizable) which can be managed like a palette of materials to choose from, and support the usual suspects for image and bump maps such as tiff, pict, jpeg, and targa file formats, but that is where the similarities stop.

form•z has a very Mac like palette from which you can scroll through and acquire predefined textures, modify them, or just double clicking to create your own with the attributes of diffusion, specularity, transparency, etc. Once a texture is applied to an object, one can use the most wonderful "texture" tool which brings about a separate window that allows that texture to be mapped on the object cylindrically, spherically, projected, or cubical and finely tuned to the right scale & position with a real-time rendering update. Yet another feature in which this program towers over many others.

LightWave in contrast, requires that you "apply" all your surfaces & their names in Modeler and then bring them to Layout for fine tuning. This can work to your advantage in many case because you can select only a specific set of polygons and tell them to have a different color than the rest of the object, without having to "cut" the object into separate pieces to apply surfaces to each piece. LW does not have a visual pallet of textures in the practical sense. You must go to the "surfaces" pallet, select the surface you want to edit by name from a pull down menu, and then render that surface to preview what it looks like. Of course you can change all the same attributes & orientation of a texture as in form•z, but its not a quite as interactive process. However, the amount of "layers" a single surface can have are virtually limitless unlike that of form•z, and you can apply "filters" like that of Photoshops' to an individual surface. For instance, lets just say you wan only one object out of three in your scene to be rendered like it is a flat 2D cell animation and all the others as metallic 3D shapes; this is possible with a little help from "PLUG INs".

O.K., lets get down to the very reason for a 3D program to exist besides making accurate models for drafting & milling. As stated earlier, form•z can become a very straight forward way to create visually stunning illustrations that sell a product or structure, but that does not go without learning the Law of form¥z which clearly states that though shall not move the camera too much or change a the view without saving the current one. LW also has a few of those laws too which I'll discuss later.

form•z & LW use two key factors besides texture & resolution to make a successful rendering. They are Lighting & Camera Placement. It is important to remember that a working knowledge of how cameras & their lenses work is a requirement in order to fully grasp the type of changes that will be simulated in a virtual 3D environment.

In form•z, you can move your finished scene around in QuickDraw 3D until your view looks close to you or your clients' visions; then you can "Edit Cone of Vision" using another set of 4 windows as an interface which allows the camera's focal length, zoom, and precise rotation/position to be changed. After the desired view is accomplished, you can save that view in the "Views" pallet and continue on until you have all of your favorite views worked out. Then, it'll be time for a test render which will reveal how good/bad your lighting is. Remember that "Edit Cone of Vision"?, its time to go back to that interface and move the light(s) around as you did the camera. It is this process of trial & error that can make renderings frustrating, but interactive at the same time. When you do have all those views saved in you file, you will be able to send each one to render in the order of your choice with form¥z Imager.

In LW Layout, you must import each of the objects you created in Modeler and rearrange them if they were not already placed correctly, then save that "Scene" to be able to open it later. To move the camera in Layout, you only need to select the camera, and move it from the perspective, side, or other views (you can only view one at a time). And the same goes for the Light(s) which do attempt to show major changes in placement in the OpenGL state. Layout does not have a separate interface for adjusting the camera and light(s) position, but does have separate pop-up pallets for adjusting the camera & light attributes such as: lens type (35mm +/-) and light type (distant, spot, area.....) or color. form•z has a floating "lights" pallet, which is also used to access a separate window for light attributes. Sadly, there is no distinction between key frames and views in LW because it is originally made for animation. A key frame must be set for every view that you want to render. It is often a good Idea to save an "animation" version and a "still frame rendering" version of your Scene file after all your objects are in place.

Custard Rendering in form•z 2.95	Robot Rendering in LightWave 5.6
Click Image to Enlarge	Click Image to Enlarge

Resolution is always relative to rendering time. For those of us who are not making the next Science Fiction Thriller for the Big Screen Film Industry, computer generated art in general can often be less resolution than what we may think is appropriate for a small printed or video presentation. The thing to be aware of is the FINAL size a rendering will be produced at, and the process in which it will be displayed. Things in print are often output at 150 dots per inch or less depending on who or what is printing it. With that in mind, form•z & LightWave 3D have two of the fastest rendering engines I have ever experienced on the consumer level, especially in comparison to Strata Studio Pro, Electric Image (older version), and a few others I won't bother to mention. form•z renders at a standard 72 dots per inch, which can be increased as necessary if you have enough RAM to support it. In some cases Virtual Memory is used to allow form•z Imager & form•z to render at high resolutions of 300 dpi or greater (Print Industry Standard) which comes with a severe price to pay in double and even quadrupled rendering times and very noisy hard drive action. LW renders strictly based on pixel resolution and image size, such as: 1/4 video, 1/2 video, video (640x480 pixels), 2 times video, and greater. It is a little more challenging to set up because you must first figure out the correct proportion of you final image before increasing or decreasing the pixel resolution.

One awesome feature LW Layout has is the ability to set the "Segment Memory" for any scene to be rendered. Unlike in form•z, this allows you to give more or less RAM memory for each line or segment of an image that LW renders, so you can still produce high resolution images with less RAM & a little extra time. You can also acquire an enormous amount of RAM like 700 megabytes+ and render at 4x+ the speed of other machines. When objects are moving or animated, lower resolutions are often acceptable because the viewer does not have an unlimited amount of time to stare at each image being shown. This almost always works to one's advantage in lowering the waiting time to see finished results. LW does display the time it takes to render each frame, which makes it easier to calculate how long a full animation will take to render. If the animation is 30 frames long, and each frame takes 3 minutes to render; your animation will take approximately 90 minutes +/- to be completed.

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