CompuServe Messages

Sorry, all answers are from Charles. Hmmm….I think the fine point is that while disassembling someone else's copyrighted work and adapting IT for a commercial product is not legal….disassembling someone else's copyrighted work and adapting a commercial product TO it is. The difference is in modifying someone else's work (totally wrong) and *looking* at someone else's work and making something to work with it. Didn't mean to avaoid your questions… 1) In one of the classes (Lightwave 3D), yes, LW is necessary (hence the title) 🙂 2) In the other (expanded) it isn't (for each student). One copy (running on the school's Toaster) suffices fine since it also has a Bridgecard and runs PC stuff (3D Studio) to give a comparison. 3) Is LightRave a safe investment? Not sure right now. We will watch and see. (Heck, it is a school and operates on a fiscal budget. Budget will be set aside for LR but if it doesn't look good and stable (legal wise) then the money will probably be used for a second Toaster and to upgrade the A1200s. I'm not sure what NewTek is going to do. It is my *opinion* that they will take a bit of a laid back attitude for the following reasons: 1) Most people who need LightWave bad enough to spend $400-$600 for an alternate dongle are probably making money with it. If so, they can afford (and most likely have) Toasters and will get more. 2) Those who just get it to "have" Lightwave aren't cutting into profits 'cause they would have never bought Toasters in the first place. If they're going to work with it (not mny people get Toasters ust on a whim to fiddle around), they will want a full Toaster with manual and support. 3) NewTek keeps up with those who produce stuff with Lightwave and it looks like they promote them well. If they see some work popping up from unregistered people it would not surprise me if they contacted the individuals and checked to see if they had a bougt copy of LW. If not, they may get nasty (more power to them). If so, they might lay low. 4) As far as "render farms" go. After a preliminary look see at the cost of, say, 040 based A500s with enough RAM and network connection….their Screamer product is *much* more cost efficient at the current suggested price ($10k + RAM). I may be wrong, but I don't think so. Lightrave is (in my estimation) going to find a nice niche for those who have a Toaster at work and want to continue modeling/rendering at home without dragging the entire system home. Maybe for those who want to add a second renderer via ParNet but I seriously doubt any "render farms" are going to pop up. If so, they will probably die when the Screamer is released to the public. (Heck, until it gets a serial passthrough, it is a pain to use.) If anything, I think LR will boost sales (a bit) at NewTek with people buying upgrades. -Chas