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LWO converter

An .lwo file is a LightWave 3D object container. In the LWO2 revision it stores points, polygons, vertex maps, surface assignments and texture parameters as bounded IFF-style chunks.

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Drop LWO files here

Batch files can each use a different output. Nothing uploads for local conversions.

Working inputs include camera RAW, browser-local audio/video, PDF, CBZ/CBR comics, office documents, ebooks, markup, 3D models, structured text, images, and archives.

Where LWO comes from

NewTek introduced LightWave alongside the Video Toaster, and LWO became a common asset format in broadcast graphics, television effects and early game production. Later LightWave releases evolved the chunk vocabulary, but LWO2 remains the interoperable revision most third-party importers recognise.

How LWO works

  • The file is a big-endian IFF FORM whose form type is LWO2.
  • PNTS chunks contain big-endian float triples; POLS chunks contain variable-width vertex indices grouped into polygons.
  • Odd-sized chunks are padded to an even byte boundary.
  • SURF, VMAP and related chunks carry appearance data separately from topology.

When to use LWO

  • Recovering assets from LightWave projects
  • Opening archived broadcast or game models
  • Extracting polygon geometry from an LWO2 object
  • Moving a legacy model into a modern delivery format

Strengths and limitations

Strengths

  • Chunk structure allows readers to skip unknown data
  • Indexed polygons are compact
  • Long history in production asset libraries

Limitations

  • Multiple format revisions exist
  • Surface and texture semantics are application-specific
  • Modern rigging and scene exchange generally uses other formats

Compatibility

LightWave, Blender and several model utilities import LWO2. Novus Convert validates FORM and chunk lengths, reads bounded PNTS and FACE polygon data locally, triangulates surfaces and exports STL, OBJ, 3MF, GLB, glTF, PLY or USDZ. Malformed chunk boundaries and unsupported polygon types are rejected.

Point and polygon topology is preserved; surface, vertex-map and texture metadata is not represented by the current geometry-first outputs.

Convert LWO to another format