NewTek, Inc. has released LightWave v9.6 for Mac and Windows which includes enhancements to hair and fur, Inverse Kinematics and several new nodes for the node editor including car paint material and a new flakes shader. Improvements to reflection speed and area light speed and quality, along with enhancements to anti-aliasing have also been made. Global illumination has seen improvements to the animation cache, sampling and overall image quality. Other enhancements include an all new lighting system, drag & drop capabilities in the modeler.

LightWave now has several options that allow the user to control the basis for IK calculation. These options provide improved performance for tuning the desired solution for each animation movement.

New Lighting System & New Light API.  The lighting system is now a plugin API, the new Light Plugin Class header has been moved to the public SDK and is now available. Custom light plug-in user interfaces now appear in the Basic tab of the Light Properties panel.