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Who is responsible for GoZ?

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

First off, I don’t know anything about writing plugins or software developer’s kits.

But I’m wondering who is responsible for getting GoZ into an application’s workflow - who makes the plugin?
Is it the developer of the 3D software, that is, did Autodesk and Luxology make the GoZ plugins to work with Maya and Modo respectively?
Or is it Pixologic, using their own development tools to choose a program and build GoZ for it?
Or does it have to be a combined effort between both Pixologic and the target application’s developers?

I’m just trying to find out why Lightwave won’t have GoZ, and wondering who to point my finger at. :wink:

#2

I’m guessing its work on both ends; Pixologic on the zbrush end, the 3d app developers for the scripts/configs/prefs of the 3d app its gonna connect with.

My guess as to why no mac Lightwave GoZ… probably just because Lightwave is being rebuilt from the ground up as Core. And little value is seen by the small Netwek dev team or Pixo to spend time on an app that is being phased out. Once Core 1.0 is out and the SDK is released for that i would hope to see something but at the moment I think its just bad timing.

#3

A difinitive answer (from Pixologic) would be good indeed.

#4

Yes, I agree.

RE Lightwave being phased out for Core:

It is, yes, but Core isn’t going to be able to stand on its own for at least a couple more years. Core isn’t going to be a complete application upon its release in Q4 and the developers have said so much. It will need the current form of Lightwave to work with it until Core can replace it. I don’t expect that to be any sooner than maybe 2 years from now at the soonest, so since Lightwave will be still used, it makes more sense for them to get GoZ into it now.
Also because a lot of people will still be using Lightwave 9.6 as they need a 3D solution and Core isn’t it yet. The Core users as opposed to the Lightwave users are a small minority and we want GoZ.

The fact that the competition, i.e., Maya and Modo have GoZ is even a better reason for them to get GoZ into Lightwave , now.

That is, assuming it’s up to Newtek to do it, or to work with Pixologic to make it happen. If it is in fact NewTek just thumbing their noses at us Zbrushers, telling us basically that we’re not worth their time, that’s a very bad thing indeed.

#5

I think that the reason they went for Modo before Lightwave, was because Modo Dev team is made up of Old LW Dev Team.

LWCore started out way too late and has lots of uncertainties at the moment
while Modo is currently more promising in the long run,

Also… I WANT THEM TO HURRY UP AND ADD XSI TO THE LIST!!!

#6

You’ll probably get it sooner than us poor wavers.
Face Robot is tempting. I’ve already been tempted more than once by Softimage and if it gets GoZ, I think that might be the deal breaker.

#7

Pixologic provides an API (advanced programming interface) for the developers of your favorite software to develop a GoZ plugin.

#8

Thank you.
So it is just Newtek thumbing their noses at us wavers. That’s nice.
I think I’ll send them a copy of my Modo invoice along with my explanation of why I won’t be upgrading to Core. :evil:

#9

well, you might just wait until the end of the month to see what 3.5 brings you, or zB 4. they’re not necessarily twiddling their thumbs…
good things take time. Pixo prolly has to adjust/add to the API for different apps, but i don’t know for sure.

i’m a Blender user, when do you think i’ll see it? see–i’m patient. Being open source and all, i can get answers from Blender developers. and i happen to know the two have been in touch :wink:

#10

Oh I’m not giving up hope just quite yet. I was just practicing. :wink:

#11

ah! hahaha

#12

The point is, I can’t get a definitive answer (from actual Newtek or Pixologic people) who is even responsible. Sure lots of people have an answer, but I want to know from pixologic or NT

#13

you’ll drive yourself insane wanting things like that.

this is proprietary stuff. if you want to talk to the big guns and get all the secrets, you’re going to have to stick with Open Source projects.

otherwise, keep your cool and be patient. it will be here when it’s here.

#14

In Luxology’s modcast, they said Pixologic’s GM called them about GoZ. When they gladly agreed, top developer’s from Pixologic and Luxology teamed up on the project. So it’s Pixologic’s idea, as you would logically expect, but a joint effort for each GoZ enabled software.

Also, I would suspect that many more 3d apps will be added to the list, so I wouldn’t worry too much about it. My guess is any relatively popular app that is capable of GoZ will have it soon enough.

#15

Well that’s very interesting and I thank you for the information. :slight_smile:

I’m a little concerned about that last part though. A huge part of why Newtek is developing Lightwave Core is due to major limitations in the old (and current) SDK, plus the code base is apparently pushed to its limits as it is.
So now I’m worried that LW may not be “capable”.
I have no idea what kind of magik it takes to get something like GoZ into an app, but LW can at least use the normal maps and displacements, when added manually. The real problem with that though is that the better way of doing both is through LW’s node structure, which only came about as of version 9.0, three years ago. So any plugin would have to be able to “talk” to LW’s nodes, which might be a real problem considering the weak SDK and the apparently piecemeal code.
Maybe not so much for displacement maps, since you can still do those the old way, without a node, but normal maps can’t be applied in any way other than the node editor. Unless of course somebody made a non-nodal plugin for that, which I guess is equally possible.

And then of course there’s that whole issue of LW being more or less two separate programs, Modeler and Layout, which I can see might complicate the issue further.

Suddenly I’m not feeling too confident about seeing GoZ in Lightwave until Core.

#16

And yet I have still not seen any answer to the original question on this thread (who is responsible for getting GoZ working), from an official representative of either Pixologic or Newtek

#17

My development source for another package (not Modo–James has already posted what is known about the Modo GoZ bridge) was that Pixologic did all the work, but they helped test it. However, I think the primary responsibility for a product is whoever advertises it as their feature. In this case, GoZ is clearly a Pixologic product and ergo should receive the lion’s share of credit (or blame) for the implementation of any GoZ bridge. I don’t see Newtek advertising, “Hey, buy me and you will have a good bridge to Zbrush”, so clearly the initiative in a ZB-LW GoZ bridge belongs with Pixologic. It would be unfair to dun Newtek for a feature they don’t advertise (there’s enough problems with the feature’s the do advertise :D).

-K

#18

Thanks for the information. :slight_smile:

Well then, Pixologic should look around and notice that there are quite a few Lightwave users out here, probably many more than there are Modo users. And if they think that Core is going to make the current version of LW obsolete with its release in Q4 this year, they are mistaken. It’s been stated by NewTek many times that Core will need the current Lightwave to go along with it until Core is a full application that can stand on its own. Most people believe that won’t be for a few more years.

And also equally worth mentioning is that 3D Coat has excellent Lightwave support and even goes so far as to import Lightwave objects natively, and supports multiple UV maps too. I would think Pixologic would want to stay ahead of that and be in on the Lightwave thing, as 3D Coat’s development is proceeding far faster than ZBrush’s.
That’s just a fact, not a slam at Pixologic or ZBrush. Personally I don’t really like 3DCoat and would just as soon prefer to see better ZB implementation for LW, specifically GoZ.

As for there being problems with features that NT do advertise… that’s just part of the charm of Lightwave. You get used to it. :wink:

#19

Been there, done that, moved on. Used Lightwave from versions 3 to 9. Our shop stopped upgrading our LW seats and moved to other systems more than two years ago after the disastrous problems with LW’s mac version nearly killed us in production. Most of our motion graphics is now done in C4D (with which we are reasonably happy) and our CA is predominately Maya (for which Lightwave was pretty limited.)

With 10+ years of Lightwave experience under my belt, I was sorry to see it go (I personally kept using LW for another year after we had frozen future projects in LW), but after using other packages, I can see why we couldn’t put our bets on Newtek. Seat price means very little if it takes hours to work around Lightwave’s technical limits.

I personally think these days Pixologic should be more concerned about Blender before Lightwave.

As for 3DCoat, it’s an interesting little product, but for production use, it really doesn’t stand up to ZBrush (I’ve done a few sculptures in 3DCoat), and I’m not sure that it will seem that great after ZB 3.5 and 4 hit the streets in the next development cycle. (I have my own 3DCoat license and find it good for a quick sculpture, but it has issues in the detail work. For ReTopo work, I prefer Topogun or Modo–depending on the underlying mesh I need to portray.)

Cheers,
-K

#20

Just quoting myself for effect :slight_smile: