ZBrushCentral

Is Lightwave still relevant?

And does it make a good companion to Zbrush for animation/ scene layout?

Not sure how to answer per “relevance”, but will say that ZBrush and LightWave actually partner in a production pipeline quite well. LW artists also make strong use of ZBrush, obviously for modeling and texture asset creation, but also for hair/fur generation (FiberMesh) and for Morph Target sculpting. LW has always had a strong shading, lighting, and rendering pipeline, and the team is hard at work on a significant update in that area. Both apps have good FBX and OBJ exchange support, and LW has a good GoZ implementation for rapid iterative exchange of WIPs.