NewTek, Inc., manufacturer of industry-leading 3D animation and video products today announced the start of an Open Beta program for LightWave Rendition™ for Adobe ® Photoshop ® on the opening day of Photoshop World in Orlando. Based upon the rendering engine of Emmy ® Award-winning LightWave 3D ®, LightWave Rendition™ for Adobe ® Photoshop ® gives creative artists the ability to render models imported through Photoshop ® CS3 Extended™. The resulting output delivers the richness of detail, textures and lighting attributes found in the original 3D object format, all from within the Photoshop Extended environment.

“With the wide popularity and general high regard the graphics community has for LightWave and Adobe Photoshop, we felt it was important to make the products compatible and extend the high performance and functionality of each,” said Jay Roth, president, NewTek 3D division. “Producers of Photoshop content will now be able to bring an unprecedented measure of 3D quality and flexibility to their 2D artistry.”

“I am very excited that the huge community of Adobe Photoshop users will now be able to take advantage of LightWave’s impressive rendering tools,” said Stephen Burns, author of ‘Advanced Photoshop CS3 Trickery & FX’. “They will find themselves well served by LightWave’s extended texture and lighting options that will bring an elevated degree of realism to their projects.”

LightWave Rendition for Adobe Photoshop will ship with sample projects and a 3D model art library. It works with models from other sources, such as Google™ SketchUp’s 3D Warehouse or any readily available 3D interchange formats, including LWO, 3DS, OBJ, U3D, KMZ, and COLLADA, allowing each to be fully rendered in high-resolution.

LightWave Rendition for Adobe Photoshop includes:

– Slider Controls for Render and Anti-Alias Quality: Allows for quick preview renders up to photo-quality images.
– Material Preset: You have the option to apply preset or selected Photoshop materials to the surface of your 3D object for complete flexibility in design.
– Light Environment: Use the default Photoshop Extended lighting environment or add the power of LightWave Rendition for Adobe Photoshop by using any 2D layer as a light map for complete control of the final light environment.

Pricing and Availability

Open Beta participants in North America can purchase and download LightWave Rendition for Adobe Photoshop now by visiting http://www.newtek.com/rendition. Open Beta participants will be able to purchase the plug-in for $99US for a limited time and will recieve the final release at no additional cost. The final release, LightWave Rendition for Adobe Photoshop, will have a retail price of $149US and will be available for purchase worldwide. For more information visit: www.newtek.com.