vorlon
11-07-2002, 02:05 AM
From Millimeter magazine October issue:
Zoic is producing visual effects for the new Fox show ."Firefly".
On applications they chose to produce this fast paced weekly show:
"We chose a combination of 3D packages, including May 4., Houdini 5.0, Lightwave 7.5. Our intention was to pre-viz and animate in Maya, model and render in Lightwave, and use Houdini for particle systems and procedural work. but in the end, we decided to use Lightwave for most of the CG work (Houdini was also used in certain instances), while compositing in After Effects 5.5 and Inferno 4.6, an doing our tracking wokr using Boujou 2.5..."
"It was during this period that all ship work and volume renders switched to a full Lightwave production pipeline. The realistic look of the volumetric smoke and the amazing speed and look of the hard surfaces on the ships began to streamline and sharpen our R&D work. We realize that, for our needs, the lightwave renderer was performing better than Renderman in many ways and was allowing for frequent retests and further development, due to the speed of the result"
I watched the show, the visual effects are excellent, and I had no idea it's all Lightwave animated and rendered. This article saids a lot about the strength of LW versus more pricey package in the speed of the render and the modeling ability. If they had needed to do more character animation work, they'd probably keep Maya, but for what they need to do, Lightwave fits their criteria perfectly.
Zoic is producing visual effects for the new Fox show ."Firefly".
On applications they chose to produce this fast paced weekly show:
"We chose a combination of 3D packages, including May 4., Houdini 5.0, Lightwave 7.5. Our intention was to pre-viz and animate in Maya, model and render in Lightwave, and use Houdini for particle systems and procedural work. but in the end, we decided to use Lightwave for most of the CG work (Houdini was also used in certain instances), while compositing in After Effects 5.5 and Inferno 4.6, an doing our tracking wokr using Boujou 2.5..."
"It was during this period that all ship work and volume renders switched to a full Lightwave production pipeline. The realistic look of the volumetric smoke and the amazing speed and look of the hard surfaces on the ships began to streamline and sharpen our R&D work. We realize that, for our needs, the lightwave renderer was performing better than Renderman in many ways and was allowing for frequent retests and further development, due to the speed of the result"
I watched the show, the visual effects are excellent, and I had no idea it's all Lightwave animated and rendered. This article saids a lot about the strength of LW versus more pricey package in the speed of the render and the modeling ability. If they had needed to do more character animation work, they'd probably keep Maya, but for what they need to do, Lightwave fits their criteria perfectly.