VFX

Dynamics
Lightwave is equipped with all the required dynamics such as hard body, soft body and cloth. Hard body dynamics equips the user to simulate effects like rockslides, building demolitions and sand effects, using realistic forces like gravity and collisions. Soft body equips the user with a tool that can simulate jelly or jiggling fat on overweight characters. This can also be applied to characters for a dynamic hair effect. Cloth can be applied to clothing for characters. This can also be used for hair to simulate more realistic hair movement. The CORE subsystem of Lightwave 10 includes a new rigid-body dynamics engine called Bullet .

Particles
The term particle system refers to a computer graphics technique to simulate certain fuzzy phenomena, which are otherwise very hard to reproduce with conventional rendering techniques. Examples of such phenomena which are commonly replicated using particle systems include fire, explosions, smoke, moving water, sparks, falling leaves, clouds, fog, snow, dust, meteor tails, hair, fur, grass, or abstract visual effects like glowing trails, magic spells, etc.

Compositing
Compositing is the combining of visual elements from separate sources into single images, often to create the illusion that all those elements are parts of the same scene. Live-action shooting for compositing is variously called “blue screen,” “green screen,” “chroma key,” and other names. Today, most, though not all, compositing is achieved through digital image manipulation. Pre-digital compositing techniques, however, go back as far as the trick films of Georges Méliès in the late 19th century; and some are still in use.

Match-moving
Match moving is sometimes confused with motion capture, which is a hardware technology for recording the motion of objects, often human actors, in a controlled environment using special cameras and sensors. It is also distinct from motion control photography which uses a robotic arm to execute multiple identical camera moves. Match moving, by contrast, is typically a software-based technology, applied after the fact to normal footage recorded in uncontrolled environments with an ordinary camera.

Rotoscopy
Rotoscoping is an animation technique in which animators trace over live-action film movement, frame by frame, for use in animated films.Originally, recorded live-action film images were projected onto a frosted glass panel and re-drawn by an animator. This projection equipment is called a rotoscope, although this device has been replaced by computers in recent years. In the visual effects industry, the term rotoscoping refers to the technique of manually creating a matte for an element on a live-action plate so it may be composited over another background.

Wire removal
Wire removal can be partly automated through various forms of keying, or each frame can be edited manually. First, the live action plates of actors or models suspended on wires are filmed in front of a green screen. Editors can then erase the wires frame by frame, without worrying about erasing the backdrop, which will be added later. This can be accomplished automatically with a computer. If the sequence is not filmed in front of a green-screen a digital editor must hand-paint the lines out. This can be an arduous task.