I’ve started publishing a small set of plugins for LightWave 3D 5.x on AmigaOS, built to extend the original toolset without leaving the classic workflow behind. The project currently includes four plugins:
- Fresnel: adds angle-dependent reflections for glass, water, polished surfaces and other materials that look better when edges catch more light.
- PBR Shader: a lightweight “modern materials” shader with metallic response, roughness, ambient occlusion shaping, environment-light approximation, and blurred reflections.
- LensFlare: an image filter that detects bright specular highlights and adds glow and star-streak flare effects.
- ObjSwap: replaces objects automatically by frame number, useful for flipbook-style geometry changes, counters, and frame-based object animation.
The current release is v0.7.0, which means the plugins are already past the rough prototype stage. Recent work includes proper scene persistence for the Fresnel and PBR shaders, expanded LensFlare handling with up to 50 flare sources, and faster ObjSwap behavior for larger replacement sets.
I’m attaching before/after renders with this post so the effect of each plugin is easy to see in practice. If you want to try them, the source and builds are here: amiga-lw-plugin
