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Thank you Juanjo for everything you did for LightWave, without you he would have died a long time ago !
VizRT does not deserve this software & its community ! I hope I'm wrong, the future will tell !
Beautiful continuation to you !
_

Thanks for the update Juan. It's not exactly surprising, but it's still incredibly sad to see the demise of Lightwave. Sure, LW was a creaky beast in some areas, but there's still so many unique features and workflows that exist in it that don't exist in other 3D apps (or not as well).

I wish there was some way to get the VIzRT overlords to pull their their heads out of their asses, and sell it off to another developer. But god knows what the hell those corporate drones think.

Anyway, best wishes for your future projects - and thank you for giving us a fantastically good implementation of Octane in Lightwave, that I've used on many, many jobs!

Don't get me wrong. I am thankfull for what we got with the development of the LW Octane Plugin. I love it. It is my tool of choice. But I am sure it could have been going on for a bit more time - I mean, it is 1,5 years after LW latest release. It is not like it is abandoned for 10 years (or 5).
I bought subscription (and a new GPU) just last year. Blender with Octane is free - So I bought the subscription for Lightwave alone. My license is still valid for 36 days - but updates are now canceled. I understand the reasons. I just would have liked to still get what I paid for (Updates), not only part of it ("a" working version).
Also, if it is technically doable, supporting LW as long as possible - I mean we are after all paying customers - would be good customer support.
This is not. I would have liked to hear about this a bit in advance (like before buying into the "latest" update of Octane). But instead we get confirmation only after the fact.
Just wish, you would reconsider.

Yo! This is my first time posting in ages! I actually saw a link to this thread on the blenderartist forum. (I have been a fully 100% Blender/E-Cycles guy for a couple years now.) My initial reaction for a minute or so was a tinge of sadness that LW and Octane LW is officially dead, per Juanjo, but this was quickly replaced with happiness for anyone who migrates to Blender, Houdini, Maya, Max, C4D, etc... You are all going to be far, far better off, and likely find your work/hobby much, much more enjoyable!

We had some good times Juanjo! You were such a kickass dev, who was always Johnny-on-the-effing-spot with support, and I thank you again for that. As a pro who works with deadlines, this was so very valued and appreciated! You do indeed rock, sir, and I wish you the very best of luck Juanjo!

I refuse to look backward and even spend a minute reminiscing about my LW & Octane past, because I have better things to do with my time, but I will just say further that it was not all bad, and there was a time, for a while at least, that I enjoyed Octane/LW and felt I was working on the cutting edge, even if in reality the LW part of it wasn't actually true. Octane gave LW the legs it needed to walk itself to a much-postponed death...

Take care guys! Nice knowing you! Maybe I will see some of you on the Blender forums.

I think Juanjo was referring to the point that the lack of support from Newtek means that sdk Lightwave is becoming an impenetrable forest and adding new features to Octane looks like an increasingly difficult quest.
If you recall, developer Kray also had problems with SDK, who never started working with Lightwave 2020.
From this point of view, I can understand Juanjo.
But I do not agree with his opinion that interest in Lightwave has greatly weakened, etc.

My week was already very rotten, but this is the highlight of the show ...
Lightwave is definitely dead, Octane was the last tool to still be able to give it a little life.

Thanks Juanjo for your job with LW.

Hope this isn't the last update for Lightwave...

I feel the floor crumble under my feet...
At 51 y.o. change the sw for me is very hard... I do with lw things that I'm sure I can't do with others sw... maybe I can do different, but I can forget the circus acts I used to make lightwave do (one above all the automatic transformation in the modeler, with customized scripts, of hundreds of objects into points centered on their single boundingboxes, to create, in layout, instances on the points obtained... but many other too, learned in 27 years of work). Lightwave was died, I know from months or years, but Octane (and lwcad) continued to keep it in life.
Now all is lost.
I will jump to blender, my fast productivity will be killed, but I haven't choise. For months I will continue to use lw, untill I will do something not so bad in blender, but now I see all black.
In any case I must say thank you Juanjo, for your work, for your willingness to answer all our questions and help us... but in the same time I'm very angry and sad.
I hope all will be wonderful for your works.
Goodbye.
Gianluca

For me, switching to another program (Maya or Blender, I don't know yet) is like emigration to another country, with a different language and a different culture. This does not cause me great joy.
As far as I remember and understand, this was from the very beginning Juanjo's initiative to create the Octane plugin for Lightwave, as before that he took the initiative to create the Arnold render plugin for Lightwave (unfortunately that project did not receive development, perhaps for the same reasons for which now stopped production of Octane for lw).
So it remains to thank Juanjo for giving us the opportunity to extend our work with Lightwave.
For me, as well as for many, nothing can completely replace Lightwave - I will not be able to feel at home anywhere - after all, the choice in favor of Lightwave was not made accidentally at one time. And attempts to study other, more advanced and cool programs have been made by me and others repeatedly.
I don’t know and probably will never know what secret hides the dislike of Newtek's management for their brainchild, Lightwave. But it was an amazing tool, which, unfortunately, did not receive proper development.

I’ve spent the last year or so getting all our LW content in Octane and streamlining it for the work our company does. There’s only two (LW Octane) of us but we’re the main 3D team for our successful work from home business. A large part of that success is having access to GPU rendering. I really hope the authentication process does not vanish for the LW side.

My concern is even if we get no more Octane updates. The authentication server could change at some point making the current LW one not able to log-in. This would be devastating. Otoy sells a dongle for Octane. I’m thinking this might be the only way to insure continued use far in to the future.

I have one fundamental question whether actane for lw will be still sold ... even without amendments