In your opinion, Integrated or separated? :)

Wow! Big question! I've seen on the forums that there have been lots of people who want the integration of Modeler and Layout... As we say in this beautiful region of France called Normandy, I say: Both!

In other words, I really like the separation of different jobs - modelling and layout - I work better this way, it's a question of habit I suppose. I really like the "lightness" of Modeler, the rhythm of modelling can be almost as fast as thought.

However, I would like better communication between the two programs, for example the ability to have a camera view in Modeler, support for envelope modifiers in surfaces, etc.

But integrating LightWave to make it look like another package? It's not worth it, it would be better for this user to jump straight to using a different package altogether! :) LightWave has its own character and I hope it will keep it.

What could be improved for you?

Hard to make a choice... there are several parts to LightWave that I really appreciate and would therefore like to see improve... :)

For Modeler, I immediately thought of NURBS. It would allow you to structure your creation and not lose yourself in millions of points or polygons... Obviously, being able to extend this function to include polygons with more than four vertices would be lovely. For architecture, some tools for alignment and distribution would be useful, as well as functions for rounding angles, like group bevelling and so on...

For Layout, the Spreadsheet is really promising, but I would like for it to be better integrated into the body of the program and with greater access to more parameters. A texture editor in the form of a spreadsheet would be nice - you could improve texture creation by creating sub-folders, for example, so that you could control several spreadsheets with one... With regard to the render, I would like to see an improvement in the filtering of textures that allow as nice an image in animation as stills.

I hope also that the recent offer of LightWave/DFX+ means that there will be better communication between the two, in particular an improvement to the RLA and RPF formats.

What kind of computer are you working on at the moment?

I'm using two dual-processor machines based around 1GHz Pentium IIIs with 1.5 GB RAM and GeForce4 Ti4400 graphics cards.

Are there any plug-ins that you wouldn't be without?

Essentially, I only use external plug-ins in Modeler. I work a lot with Vertibevel for architecture, with Tree Designer for trees, and more little plug-ins like Thedust_points, Speedy Quad and so on. There are tools have have become indispensable for me, such as those by David Ikeda or the "Select Kit" from TM Productions.

I was also a beta-tester for Amleto, a render manager for Screamernet that's really easy to use.

Although it's not strictly a plug-in, I also work a lot with a program called World Construction Set that allows me to work with vegetation at very big scales...