Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
LightWave ScreamerNet
LightWave ScreamerNet is a stand-alone
program that does nothing but render.
Through discipline, focus, and binary-level
programmatic optimization, the coders at
NewTek have managed to condense
LightWave's awesome might at creating the
incredible; they have distilled all that awe-
some rendering power until it fits into the
528 KB space of a little command-line pro-
gram that would leave room to spare on a
floppy disk.
Using LWSN and a local area network,
you can expand your rendering capabilities
to almost any machine on your LAN. (Don't
throw out that old 366 laptop! Hook it up
and use it as part of your render-farm!)
Note
Because of the way networks generally han-
dle filenames, never have spaces in the
names for your objects or scenes if you plan
on rendering over a network. Even if you
don't immediately think you'll be rendering
across multiple machines, not using spaces
in your LightWave names is just a good
habit to get into. (That's why you see all of
the names in this topic divided with under-
scores (_) instead of spaces.)
Figure 2-106: As simple as it may look, this little
thing has all the power of LightWave's renderer at
its command.
Note
LightWave was first built on the Amiga plat-
form, back when its 1 MB of internal memory
was seen as ludicrously large by the PC and
Apple crowds. Back then, memory was pre-
cious (even as late as 1994, an 8 MB SIMM
could cost almost $1,000).
Even though memory and hard disk space
prices have fallen below where any of us
“old-guard geeks” could ever have hoped,
and a simple word processor can require up
to 500 MB of space to run, the programmers
at NewTek seem to remember the old days
when space was limited. Why is this impor-
tant? Optimization means speed!
(Take a look at how much our old video
game favorites were able to do in the space
and with the hardware that an electric tooth-
brush of today would find constrictive. Most
of them, like Ms. Pac Man, Defender, Star-
gate, and Star Wars, are less than 40 KB
worth of information!)
The larger a program is, the longer it takes
to get a memo from one end of it to the other
(just like in any other bureaucracy or corpo-
ration). LightWave has not expanded to fill
the gaps left by cavernous memory and blis-
tering processor speed but remains stream-
lined, leaving you more space for complex
objects, surfaces, and FX and resulting in one
of the fastest, most reliable renderers, period!
···
All of this is LightWave … and we have just
barely scratched its surface.
