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Generic wishlist (in no particular order of importance)

1.- Linux version, or at least, a ScreamerNET node capable to run under Linux.

2.- Lightwave should drop the philosophy to load certain tools, that should be fully integrated, as plugins. For years Lightwave has had some communication problems between tools, giving a somewhat messy usage. Simply, Lightwave should integrate all tools within its core, so nucleus and tools communicate without problems. An example could be Motion Designer, which is a good tool by itself, but is completely isolated from the program, and, being a plugin, severely limits its use in animation and its relations with other animation events, special effects etc.; equally, Motion Mixer, HyperVoxels, ParticleFX y many other tools.
Regarding other plugins, Lightwave´s architecture should be able to integrate them much more in its core, such as happens with plugins in Maya or 3dsmax, even becoming a part of Lightwave´s interface.

3.- Lightwave|3D should have an open or easily available code that woul allow 3rd party companies to develop their own toolset or to modify the existing ones in order to be able to reach top level production (Example, Maya API). I mean, a complete IDE that would allow to integrate L-Scripts, Shaders, animation nodes, graphic handlers, new displacements, new mocap servers, etc.

4.- Lightwave should allow to output to other render engines such as RenderWorld, Renderman (Ej.LightMan) etc. We think this would help to integrate the program in some big facilities pipeline, when all they use is, hmmm, Renderman.

5.- Optimize Lightwave for "AMD Athlon"

6.- Option to configure the Interface with a "favourites" set of tools.
Also interface should imprvove in regards to interactivity, many tasks should be doable by drag and drop, option available in other programs.
And as far as possible, without compromising (or changing) the aspect and philosophy of this program that we do like a lot, and it works pretty well.

7.- Modeler and Lightwave should become one in order to allow the animation of modelling processes. An ideal union would be that of keeping both programs as separate entities within the one application, keeping each its own toolset, but having aalways present animation modules, such as timeline (ala Softimage).
The ideal way is that of Softimage, because in that app you have separate windows for Animate and Modelling, actually changing the interface for any chosen mode avoiding this way to mix tools that should only be present when modelling or when animating.
This way all the tools in Modeler would be animatable because we would always have the timeline available, so we could animate any modelling task.
It would become possible to animate vertex values (Weight, EndoMorph, etc..), maybe the need to convert skelegons to bones would not be needed, so we can modify a skeleton without compromising its IK setup, a bone that becomes short, or longer than needed, could be adjusted easily using the ease that skelegons provide without having to convert it back to bones.
The possibility to create sets (poses) of facial animation, cause, where a an Endomorph pose doesn´t reach its intended use, the animation of the SubPatch guides would help it. Those facial sets, not possible with linear Morphs because of its nature. So, within the program, we might have the modelling tools in a window, the layout tools in other, great....... why not an extra window with all the vertex adjustment tools? There could be a third window called: "Character Setup" or "Vertex Maps" where the tools such as as Vertex Paint could be displayed and integrated, of course, all of them being RealTime, so we could see its effects right away, or to be able to animate its parameters. This window would also include the remainign tools for vertex actually found in Modeller´s Map.

8.- Fully integrated Aura 2.5 as another included module, so we could have our own "Lightwave Paint", improving it with a new set of brushes such as those found in Z-Brush (or Maya Paint Effects), that would allow to paint grass, plants and similar effects. So we now might have our 4th mode, "Lightwave Paint" having also a Viewport, or several, with the UV maps in our project, so we can texturize them, also any other kind of map like Clip, Displacement, etc...

9.- Any parameter in any Lightwave´s element should be animatable without limits.

10.- Color printed (or PDF) Manuals, more detailed, ideally the kind of Manuals found with Maya or XSI.

11.- Both in Modeler and Layout, to have a single, common, panel with: General Options, Display Options, Edit Plugins and Edit Shortcuts.

12.- Viewports should also show in a more integrated manner style panels such as: Layer Options, Statistics, Surface Editor, Scene Editor, Graph Editor, Motion Mixer, etc...

13.- A general point is that it´s preferable not to include any given module/tool if it is not fully working or fully implemented (Motion Mixer 1.0, 2.0 etc...). Quite often it´s worst to have unfinished tools, that need continuous patching; this has ever been quite common with Lightwave, and might reduce trust in it.
As an example, the NLA in XSI is fully implemented and has been capable of high-end production since its appearance, Motion Mixer has not.

14.- Good ideas to improve the Lightwave´s interafce workflow can be found in:
http://www.newtek.com/discus/messages/2/19969.html?1016700233
Also the interface should allow for Drag&Drop operations, such as parenting, targeting, and so.

Modeler wish list

1.- Non-destructive Modelling: Every modelling task should be kept on record in a kind of "historic record" so animation, edition, deletion or change of the order of modelling operations would be possible without altering others. This "Construction History" would offer the option to be recorded within the object file, or as a separate info file, that could be recovered anytime.

2.- EdgeTool included in package: http://www.dstorm.co.jp/DS_E/index-e.html

3.- An Interactive SkelegonTree (non-modal panel) with similar functioning to that of Statistics Panel. Upon selecting a bone in SkelegonTree this should bcome selected in all Viewports to see its referrers (bone or bones).

4.- VertexPaint is a good character setup tool, but could improve if it where integrated in Modeler´s interface.
5.- Weights Maps created with the brush, should allow to choose a "paint color" for every Map. Also, when creating a new map, the former one gets hidden behind, so there are no references (from the previous map) to go on "painting". There should be a way to avoid this, or having a "onion" like procedure.

6.- Metaballs can´t be deformed, they are just spheres that cant be touched at all. Metaballs should allow to be modified into irregular objects by applying to them any of the Modeler´s tools (such as "Organica", Impulse: http://coolfun.com/INFO/PRODUCTS/Organica/organica.html)

7.- Extra curve types for modeling purposes, like Bezier, B-Spline etc: http://hjem.get2net.dk/norregaard/tutorials/si_help/introduction/si_uk_model_intro.htm

8.- Modeler curves should display in RealTime the influence on its vertices on the subdivided mesh. Exmple: In a Rail extrude operation, once finished, the curve should keep on influencing the extruded geometry.

9.- "Subpatch" won´t allow subdivision of polygons having more than four vertices, which often its limiting, it should allow subdivision with more than 4, so adding detail in some areas of the object would become easier.

10.- There should be a feature to extend polygonal objects, SubPatch or curve structures, resulting in a curve that woud blend with the other, like Maya´s "Fillets".

11.- Tools like "Bevel","Rail bevel", "Extender", "Smooth Shift" and some others should project interactively the UV Map like "Lathe" or Extrude" do.

12.- The actual UV distorts the maps because adjusts them to the UV viewport in Modeler; this shuldn´t happen. The UV maps should keep its original proportion and size.

13.- The view at the UV Viewport, should keep the original SubPatch, to avoid distortions when texturizing.

14.- Segmented Knife tool: http://www.newtek.com/discus/messages/2/19295.html?1016294010

15.- New bevel tools that can provide the control and effectivenes found in VertiBevel, and real time.

16.- Snap or reference to objects; this tool would help with modelling tasks that require precision placement of geometry or exact measures. Some useful snap modes: to point; to middle point (in the middle of the edge of a polygon), to the centre (of a circle or disc, etc.)

17.- Improve Booleans.

18.- Interactive clone tools (Clone, Array etc..)

19.- Spiral and springs primitives.

20.- New Rail Extrude that would allow to extrude shapes lenghtwise in a extrusion. (ala 3dsmax). Also to include a Rail Extrude for curves, like that of the plugin "Rail Extrude Curves".

21.- New selection modes that allow for selecting point rows or polygon rows, based on a given selection.

22.- vertexmaps mirror, (Endomorph_mirror, Mirror_weights, Mirror_UV, etc...)

23.- Improve the workflow for simmetry tasks, example:
Having simmetry turned on, any tools acting around a center point (Scale, Strech, etc..) only accounts only for the the center of the mouse pointer, it doesn´t apply simmetry around the selected center. Also, it´s impossible to create polygons with Simmetry, when we make a polygon out of points, Symmetry doesn´t work properly when it needs to establish the order of union, mixing up points from one and the other side.

Layout wish list

1.- Improve texture filtering at render time, as actually it results in "overblur", and it still shows aliasing artifacts in the objects surfaces.

2.- Muscle, sinew and skin simulation module: "Smooth skin binding" & "Skinning", see this: http://www.cgcharacter.com/ACT.htm

3.- Rapid Character Setup Module, that would allow for a fast setupo process to apply bones, IK_goals, Joint Limits, Stiffness, Damping etc... (such Auto Character Setup 4)

4.- Particles and volumetrics should imitate (or have presets to do it) the real world physics of smoke, behaving like a fluid accounting for its density and other parameters. Check the papers at Stanford University:

http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/smoke/
http://graphics.stanford.edu/%7Efedkiw/
http://www.eml.hiroshima-u.ac.jp/~doba/images.html#sig00

5.- 3D Painting Module (such as Maya Paint Effects). The apinting module should allow all kind of 3D effects, effects brushes, modifiable parameters for brushes, similar to those control parameters found in Aura 2.0. It should allow for fast painting of trees, gassm plants, vidual effects, and all its parameters should be applicable to any other parameter in Lightwave.

6.- Sub Surface Scattering with all the features of "OGO_Hikari sub-surface scattering", integrated in Lightwave via "Surface Editor".

7.- VIPER doesn´t work properly with UV maps, sometimes they don´t show up, also it doesn´t display some surface parameters such as transparency, it would be nice that would also display shadows and lens flares. VIPER would improve a lot if it wouldn´t need a render in advance, or everytime there is a change in the model. VIPER should be an independent render engine not needing a previous render; adding to this, being capable to show objects animation would be really cool. VIPER could improve a lot if it had the capabilities of showing the following scene and surface parameters:

- Transparency
- Global Illumination
- Light´s Intensity Falloff
- Motion Blur
- Depth of Field
- Shadows and Shadow Maps
- Lens Flares
- Post-process effects such as Glow

8.- Schematic view is actually somewhat limited; this Viewport should be able to represent all the parameters within a scene (Lights adjustments, surfaces, shaders, filters, special effects, bones, expresions, ParticleFX, Motion Designer, etc.). Example:

http://www.newtek.com/discus/messages/2/20342.html?1016972349
http://hjem.get2net.dk/norregaard/tutorials/si_help/interface/si_uk_if_schematic.htm

9.- Dinamic Targeting.

10.- Animatable Align to path.

11.- Animatable Look-Ahead.

12.- Look Ahead should allow the user to establish the moment it starts and ends its influence on the animated object.

13.- Layout should also have a contrstruction history log like the already mentioned in Modeler, apart from the multiple UNDO!

14.- In Graph Editor there should be a function to rapidly delete all Keyframes in one or several channels (Remove all keys)

15.- In Graph Editor there should be the capability to easily relate channels, in a Drag & Drop style.

16.- Panels don´t have buttons to accept (use) nor to ignore (Cancel).

17.- In Graph Editor, the Velocity graphic or acceleration, should allow to be directly tweaked.

18.- Layout shoud have a kind of "Browser" where we could specify the order to apply tools in a scene. (Deformations, Motions, Filters, Shaders etc.)

19.- In Graph Editor, the command "Save Channel" won´t allow to store more than one channel, and should allow for more, the selected ones.

20.- The Objects Panel shoulkd have an option to adjust how much radiosity affects any given object, such as "Fog Level".

21.- Lights Panel should allow to exclude lights form Radiosity calculations (Affect Radiosity)

22.- Distant lights should be included in Caustics calculations.

23.- Volumetric Fog in "Ray-Marcher" mode is extremely slow.

24.- Sasquatch Lite is clearly unusable to do serious jobs with fibers so it doesn´t allow animation nor dinamics. Lightwave should include in its render engine the full version of Sasquatch, also integrating it in the interface with non.modal panels.
And if Sasquatch can´t be included, at least any other fibers system at least as powerful as this or Maya Fur.

25.- The Glow effect still hasn´t a colour of its own, also, having the capability to texture it would also be quite useful, by using Lightwave´s texturizing channels (T). By default, Glow is an additive effect and it always affects closer objects, and so Glow should permit to choose the "Blending" mode, to shorten things Lightwave´s Glow should be as powerful and versatile as "SuperGlow 2.0".

26.- Layout should have a tool that would allow to explode or torn to pieces objects, and to treat its resulting bits as particles. The actual problem with "FX Linker", is that upon object´s manual fragmentation, and by assigning this bits to an emmiter, as soon as these being emmited, the objects don´t start its trajectory from its actual position, but they jump to the asigned particle position and then start moving. The functioning should be similar to that of the plugin "Kaboom!":
http://www.nafii.com/neil/scripts.html, or "Blowup/Shatter": http://www.cinegraphics.net/product.php?location=BlowUp/Shatter

27.- "Object replacement" should have a kind of "wizard" in order to specify how long does any given object stay in a given sequence.

28.- Layout should keep gathered and integrated all the animation tools in a single panel or spcialized module like "Messiah" or "Character Studio", with applications similar to Softimage´s "Multiped" or CS´s "Phisique/Biped".
This module should have complete integration with "Motion Mixer 2" in its interface, and also should allow to create, copy and paste of animation libraries, in an animation panel such as that of "Surface Presets".

29.- Apart from the envelopes (E), all Lightwave´s parameters should have a kind of button, to its right, that would automatically assign a slider to this parameter, an example (S).
A parametric animation control that would assign this parameter to several controllers: (P), with the likes of "Input Parameter" in surface´s "Gradients":
Example: "Light Intensity: [100 %] (E) (S) (P)"

30.- Pose Mixer, an animation method by poses that would allow to compose an animation by the traditional pose animation techniques.

31.- Orthogonal Rendering, Lightwave´s viewports should allow to start renderings from them.

32.- Motion Mixer integrated in Layout. Again it could be a new view type (like schematic view). Including more video editor features, like cut, selecting part of a track, copy/paste, to create virtual clips to which to apply a single parameter at the same time (Ea., a single weightmap affecting various tracks at the same time), to define in/out points. The possibility to store presets or libraries (in preset self, for instance) to later be applied to a track, by drag an drop. Animation libraries that can be really used, with different skeletons (a kind of module that could allow to determine how to apply bones influences in a library skeleton to another one, like in Life Forms).

33.- Tools such as Sliders shouldn´t be custom objects, as they appear in all viewports. This kind of tools/elements should become program´s global services, belonging to the interface.

34.- Hide/Show all Sliders or selected ones.

35.- Multiple Channel assignment to a single Slider.

36.- Sliders should create its own "master channel".

37.- A Module to assign and edit intuitively MOCAP data to our characters. Something similar to Maya´s "Dominatrix":

http://www.aliaswavefront.com/en/WhatWeDo/maya/extend/animation/dominatrix.html

or at least something similarThe MOCAP module should allow to edit the imported data, with functions such as resampling, to clean and reorder data, a keyframe reductions system, etc.

38.- "NetView", a controller like XSI´s NetView to share scenes, objects, animation information (motion mixer tracks), poses, tools, plugins, scripts, textures, presets, etc. either from a local network area or the internet. Quite useful to create a community with data than could be shared through a net accessing to a common site. This controller could be implemented as another viewport (like schematic view). All this information should be available to load or to apply to the program by simple drag and drop (in an animation, you drag it from "netview" over a character, and the animation gets applied to it, in a plugin, you drag and drop it and it gets installed, etc.)

39.- Motion Blending, Messiah Studio style, this would allow for facial animation using bones, apart from other things.

40.- "Object to Cluster Constraint", Animation on surfaces, the possibility to animate an object over a surafce or over other object. Ea. "A car moves pretty fast while at the same time remains sticked to an undulated terrain ".

41.- General Constraints: "Point, aim, orient, scale, geometry, normal, tangent and pole vector"

42.- Complex Expressions interpreter, coming from, as instance, a text file.

43.- Procedural Animation, Lightwave should permit to create complex animations by using L-Script procedures.

44.- KeyFrames handling shortcuts that would allow for copy, paste operation right into the Timeline.

45.- Low Quality Previz system for way complex escenes (like "PlayBlast" in Maya)

46.- "Dope Sheet Editor" with infinite tracks, that would allow for a fast and precise control of KeyFrames and other animation parameters. Possibility to view several channels at the same time, as well as having a reduced mode that sets on top of the "timeline". Integration in Layout could be done as another viewport type, like schematic. (Allowing for a floating panel would also be nice). Possibility to show any channel type, from any animatable parameter. Element Set creation (like actual Keytrack).
See adjoining image.

47.- Layer style Animation like in KeyTrack 1.1. Lightwave should store any animatable parameter in layers, in order to comapre animations, mix them or add up animation details in each layer.

48.- Crowd Animation, a module to create full setup character crowds (Expressions, Motion Modifiers, IK, etc.) to create crowds in an intuitively manner.

49.- Integrated Sound Sinchronization, such as "Magpie´s". This sound system should allow to visualize thwe waveform in a precise and clear way, in order to be able to insert control marks that would later be synchrinized with other animation events, like EndoMorph.

50.- The possibility to asign animation actions to external hardware devices like a mouse or a joystick. All this applicable also to endomorphs, really to any other envelope, an example:
Feet: with a mouse clic feet move forward one step at a time (Foot steps)
Legs: with the joystick we can make the character duck.

51.- Simplify the use of "Sock Monkey", as is not quite clear how it deals with hierarchies and it is a bit queer to use.

52.- Softbodies Dynamics, real time and integrated in Layout. "Motion Designer" it´s OK, but, not only is complex and slow to work with in "heavy" scenes, add to this it also requires a calculation time. Its operation should become smarter. Maya and Softimage dynamics doesn´t use calculation time, they are real time, so Layout should also sport this feature as part ofthe object´s properties, the plugin´s philosophy limits severely the workflow. At least these dynamics should be able to simulate, in real time, the following:

-Rigid & Soft Bodies
-Gravity
-Colissions
-Inertia
-Vortex Effects
-Atractions (Drag)
-Repulsions
-Cloths
-Wind y Turbulency
-Centrifugal Forces
-Q-Strech
-Sticky Effect (adherence) between objects
-etc.

At the same time all these effects would affect any scene element, like an IK chain, particles, geometry, subpatch, even the lights or the camera, etc.

53.- A Brushes Set allowing to define (paint) areas that ar to be affected by dynamics, or a kind of dynamics that can use WeightMaps.

54.- The "Scene Editor" should permit to show all the properties of any given element in a scene in a kind of "map", where we can see in a glimpse how are the whole scene and all its elements built. Also in "Scene Editor" to have the capability to access any property in the shown elelments.

55.- TRUE Inverse/Direct Hybrid Kinematics! Lightwave has never had the chance to rotate a joint at the same time by using IK/FK ala "Character Studio". Or else a simple method to switch between both animation systems (Switchable FK/IK system)

56.- Easy switching between Keyframe/Expressions so we can the required animation control have any time.

57.- Lattice deformers: http://www.aliaswavefront.com/en/Community/Learn/how_tos/dynamics/balloon/index.html

58.- Dynamic Morph Blending: Endomorph should care for bones or displacement maps deformation and to allowthe user to establish the order to apply this deformations.

59.- Deformation tools based in curves ala "FlexMotion" in Messiah.

60.- New objects parameter: "Speed Dissolve" that would allow to change the object´s visibility when moving.

61.- New input parameter for "Gradients": "Speed Dissolve" that would allow to assign a given animated object´s velocity to any texture channel in Lightwave.

62.- New input parameter for "Gradients": "Bump Displacement", this new parameter would work in a similar way to the Bump input parameter but caring for the physical displacement of the mesh.

63.- Motion Track system included with Lightwave (Matchmoving).

64.- True support and update for all the standard data files in the industry: IGES, DXF, OBJ, Softimage, RLA, RPF, Quantel, Cineon

65.- Tags for objects and surfaces in order to determine the surfaces and objects to include in RLA/RPF.

67.- More advanced expressions system, with new features that would include specific data from ParticleFX, Motion Desginer, HyperVoxels, Surface Editor, Shaders, Filters, Píxel Filters, etc.

68.- Camera Markings like Field Charts and adjustable Safe Areas.

70.- New Shaders: Water Shader, Glass Shader, Dirty Shader, Terrain Shader, Metal Shader Snow Shader etc.

71.- New procedural surfaces allowing to be created by tree-like schematics, such as in "Dark Tree Textures"

72.- When using "Load From Scene" there should pop-up a listing with all the elements in that scene, so we could choose what to import and what not: Objects, Lights, Bones, Cameras, Motions, Plugins, Shaders, etc.

73.- Advanced ShadowMaps that care for the distance from the light to the objects, the smoothing threshold, etc. with features similar to those found in "Shadow Designer". This advanced Shdow Map panel should show up in the Lights Panel. Also ShadowMaps should be applicable to all kind of lights.

74.- Shadow Maps should detect objects having Dissolve or transparency on.

75.- New post-process filters: Bloom and Light Difussion

76.- Bones with "smart" range of influence.

78.- Interactive system to adjust bone rotation and bone rest positions

79.- OpenGL Transparency Maps.

80.- OpenGL Procedural Textures.

81.- Global controller for surfaces area. A parameter that would allow to simultaneously scale all textures in a given object. (As an example, to adapt a surface preset to an object of different size).

82.- Tool or Command to create polygons without caring for the point order selection of its vertex (ala "Speedy Polygons" plugin).

83.- Spline Curves that can be rendered (to create lines, cables, etc.)

84.- A more advanced (ellaborate) presets library.

85.- ToolSet for modelling with brushes (Amorphium style).

86.- "UV Imaginator" included in Modeler to export UV's to Photoshop.

87.- Object Selection mode in Modeler.

88.- Tools for adjusting Pivot Points, that would allow to determine fixed positions in a given object´s Bounding Box.

89.- Coordinates Axis for objects and polygons in Modeler.

90.- Vertibevel included in Modeler, or a similar toolset.

91.- "BandGlue" should have an option to delete or not, the extra vertices.

92.- Command to convert triangles into quadrangles, such as "Quadrangulate" in Maya, specially useful when importing.3DS objects.

93.- "Quadsew" included in Modeler.

94.- "Point Belt Selector" included in Modeler
.
95.- Possibilty to indicate Lightwave a listing of alternate paths to the Content Directory to be able to locate images.

96.- Render Pause command: "Render Pause/Resume".

97.- Render progress gauge (indicator).

98.- Lightnet included for Batch render and net render.

99.- Shader that would allow to control procedural textures or bump mapping by using an Effector, like "Surface Effectors" or "Acid".

100.- Cable/Lines Dynamics to create tentacles, chains, etc. Something like Worley´s "Hoser"( Taft Collection) or "Dangle" (Polk Collection):http://www.worley.com/taft/taft_hoser.html#tophoser
http://www.worley.com/polk/polk_dangle.html

101.- Lens effects library for lightwave´s camera, like Worley´s "Lens" (Polk Collection) http://www.worley.com/polk/polk_lens.html

102.- Lens Flare Module such as project Dogwaffle´s Radiance.

103.- Bone X-ray is pretty cool, also "Lights X-Ray", etc...

104.- Surface based Clip mapping.

105.- The actual texturizing system, in layers, sometimes becomes a bother. Example: if you want to assign a alpha type layer (Alpha blending) to several layers at the same time, you´ll have to duplicate the Alpha layer for everyother layer. The ideal method would be to do it in a hierarchical way, with a blocks diagram (tree-like schematic like schematic view).The layers should be able to group, connect its values one to each other, etc. (see image)

106.- Lightwave should include most common shading modes: blinn, cook, phong, lambert, Oren nayar, etc.

107. - Animated Gradients!, gradient´s Keys, as well as its values should be animatable, in a way that could be related with any other animation (Ea., by Pavlov).

108- Maya compatibility, as an example including the "Beaver Project" would really be nice.

109.- Area lights should permit to determine the side the cast light from.

110.- Improvement in surfaces listing: http://www.newtek.com/discus/messages/2/20396.html?1017072027

111.- Spreadsheet must contain all the program´s parameters, or redesign it so the user can choose which parameters he wishes to include into spreadsheet.

112.- One Pass Antialiasing.

113.- "Light Objects", objects as lighting elements, without Radiosity.

114.- Animatable Metaballs in Layout.

115.- Save Tranformed should keep Subpatch objects, actually it freezes them in polys when exported.

116.-ScrubReplace: animation via Object Replacement should update by means of the Scrubbing.

117.- Equally as it happens with Snappy plugin (ParentToPoint), Lightwave should allow parenting to points or point groups and polygons.

118.- Unmultiplied Alpha that permits to extract the alpha channels based in the RGB luminosity values, ala John Knoll's Unmult in After Effects.