Adaptive Pixel Subdivision Video Review
By Wes McDermott

Upgrading software is an exciting time for all of us computer nerds. You know what I mean. It’s almost like Christmas morning, where you can’t wait to check out that new feature or take that latest and greatest tool for a test render. LightWave development is in a bit of a renaissance, and with the new slogan “LightWave Reborn” we have a great deal of new tools to play with. Although NewTek has done a re-write on the manuals, there’s not much in-depth info on some of the new tools in LightWave 9. Kurv Studios has jumped in and produced a video with Larry Shultz on one of the most anticipated new features, APS or Adaptive Pixel Subdivision. In this video, Larry takes us through the basics of using APS and helps shed some light on its usage. It’s an exciting time to be a LightWave user and APS has a lot of capability. So, let’s take a closer look at this video’s content and see what it has to offer.

Upon placing the CD in the computer, you’ll notice an HTML driven menu screen. You can use this screen to navigate to all of the contents on the disc and there is a lot of content. In fact, there are over 3 hours of video, not to mention all of the bonus videos that are included, such as rigging examples, ZBrush training, and character modeling. This is a great example of where Kurv videos shine. Each video is chalked full of training. All of the videos are in QuickTime format, so you will need to have the QuickTime player installed on your box. The entire video is broken down into ten QuickTime videos, with each video lasting around thirty minutes. This time duration is great for getting in a little training while rendering, or while cramming down a lunch at your workstation. The quality of the video is good. The screen captures are very clear and it’s easy to read any text or numeric input. The audio is clean as well, with just a small amount of compression noise in the background, but not enough that it is distracting.

The video can be separated into two parts. The first part covers the basics of APS, while the second walks you through the creation of a volcano scene. In the basics, Larry covers the differences between Subpatch and Catmul Clark subdivision and gives a detailed explanation of the Render Subpatch APS Settings, Per Object Level, Per Polygon Level and Pixels Per Polygon. He also covers in-depth the usage of Gradients with APS and the Input Parameters associated with the different Render Subpatch settings. I especially liked the section on the differences between Subpatch and the new Catmul Clark Sub-Ds. In this section, Larry explains how Catmul Clark is using a different algorithm than Subpatch and how this affects the Render Subpatch settings. It helped me to clearly understand when it may be more beneficial to choose one Subpatch method over the other.