Python is an industry standard programming language prevalent in most CG pipelines. The inclusion of Python in LightWave 11 allows even further integration of LightWave into studio pipelines, as those familiar with Python can quickly begin writing tools for LightWave.

The Virtual Studio Tools first made an appearance in LightWave 10, as a way of using third party controllers to animate items in your scene.
LightWave 11 continues to expand on this concept by allowing more controller types, such as the affordable Playstation® Move. These third party controllers use the new SDK available for the Virtual Studio Tools, which now allows developers to hook into the system directly.
Using the new Control Booth and Device Managers in VST, users can now manage every aspect of how their controllers are configured, and how they are used within LightWave. Essentially, anything that can be animated in LightWave can be controlled, using any device.
It is also now possible to modify how the data input is manipulated as it is captured into LightWave, using the Node Editor. This allows for complex logic to affect the input. Once a virtual performance is captured, the data can be edited in the Graph Editor, letting you hand edit any live-captured performances.
Virtual Studio Tools in LightWave 11 is a significant evolution of this technology, and with the new SDK, third party developers can extend and enhance it even further.

This new Modeler tool was designed specifically to compliment Bullet dynamics in LightWave Layout. It allows the artist to pre-fracture objects ready for destruction.
There are a number of different methods and associated settings to fine tune the look of the pieces as they are broken up. You also have the ability to create an Endomorph of the resulting fracture, which means you can animate the explosion, with or without using dynamics.
Weight maps can also be applied to the source object to control the density of where the fracturing takes place, making Fracture a flexible tool for creating breaking objects in LightWave.

Use the Flock controller, which calculates crowd avoidance of neighbors, target alignment, and cohesive attractions, to create realistic natural motions, with ease.These are the three elements of any flocking system.
Classic examples of flocking motion are:
    •    Flocks of Birds
    •    Schools of Fish
    •    Swarms of Insects
    •    Animal Herd Behaviors
    •    Craft Maneuvers (planes, alien ships, etc)

Instancing lets you create mass duplication of objects in a scene, with very little overhead. Previously, you would simply run out of memory. Now, with the ability to have huge 'virtual' polygon counts, artists can populate their scenes with incredible detail, and yet retain reasonable render times.

While instances can be thought of as clones of the original source objects, they don't need to look identical. They can be randomly scaled, positioned, rotated and even surfaced completely different from the source. This means you can use instancing for any number of uses.