Every
picture tells a story |
| Chris
Short
Freelance illustrator
Chris Short provides graphics for an impressive
roster of clients, including Newsweek, Popular
Science, Readerís Digest, Activision Value, Discovery
Channel, MGM Studios, and more. Chris began his
career as a traditional illustrator, working mostly
with oils to create highly realistic figurative
and landscape work. ìAbout 5 years ago, I started
to notice the potential of 3D technology in the
entertainment industry,î he says. ìSo I
researched all the 3D packages extensively and
concluded that LightWave was the best choice for
my needs.î
He quickly found that LightWave
offered a number of advantages in his freelance
work, especially for the tight deadlines required
by weekly news magazines: ìI can render a low-res
sketch that almost looks finished, so there is
no doubt to what it will look like. Also, with
LightWave being so versatile, Iím able to give
the art director different angles, compositions
or lighting situations, all in one rendering session.
In comparison, the other artists or photographers
may be only showing pencil sketches or very rough
comps.î
These days Chris reports ìLightWave
is the heart and soul of my pipeline when doing
illustration work. It consists of roughly 90%
of the workload on average with composition, vector
and photo editing programs supporting the rest.î
When asked how he manages
to turn out great work in such short times, Chris
replies, ìI discovered early on that the better
the model, the better the final image turned out.
I have worked on many other 3D applications and
LightWave, by far, is the fastest modeling tool
out there. Iím able to come up with my models
very quickly and accurately, which allows me the
time to properly texture, compose, and light my
scene.î
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"I
enjoy the control and flexibility that LightWave
offers. Complex shapes are created with simple tools,
and subpatching keeps the geometry simple."
Joe
Zeff, Independent illustrator |
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"LightWave
3D has modeling ability like no other program
I've used, and the rendering is positively
stunning."
Ed
Gabel, Associate Graphics Director, Time Magazine |
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| Whether
you create with a paintbrush or a digital
tablet, you want the results to reflect
your vision, and not the limitations of
the tools that you use. After all, the right
image can be the critical element in putting
a story across, in making the abstract understandable,
the distant immediate, the imagined real.
Whether an image is intended to simply inform
or to pack emotional punch, NewTekís LightWave
3D offers the range of control in building
the basic elements, composing the shot,
and designing the final look, that you need
in order to create compelling print graphics
for any purpose.
Modeling
LightWave 3D is a true, real-time subdivision
surface modeler. With the ability to model
in any viewport, including the perspective
view, and a host of fully interactive tools
such as extrude, bevel, smooth shift, lathe,
drag, magnet, and more, modeling becomes
like sculpting with clay. In addition, LightWave
offers spline modeling, sketch tools, booleans,
unlimited layers, use of background images
for reference, and import of EPS and other
file types.
Infinite
Layered Textures
LightWave allows as many layers of texturing
as needed on an object or surface, and provides
perfect control of how the layers are combined
in the final renders. Textures can be colors
selected from a palette, images, or any
of dozens of included procedurals. Textures
can be applied for color, bump, or displacement,
using a variety of projections or UV Mapping.
Rendering
LightWave offers, quite simply, one of the
best renderers available. Computing massive
amounts of data with floating-point accuracy
ensures color depth that results in extremely
high-quality imagery. With raytracing, radiosity,
caustics, soft reflections and refractions,
a variety of depth-of-field and motion blur
tools, the LightWave renderer is powerful
and flexible enough to produce photographic
realism or sublime fantasy. |
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| Ed
Gabel
ìIn an effort to find
3D software that allows us to generate highly
realistic images under tight weekly deadlines,
we experimented with several 3D programs. LightWave
blew them all away,î says Ed Gabel, Associate
Graphics Director at Time Magazine. In addition
to speed and realism, the versatility of LightWave
was a major factor making it the program of choice:
ìWhether a graphic calls for a mechanical drawing,
such as a plane crash, or an organic drawing,
such as heart surgery, LightWave allows us to
generate stunningly real images.î
A key element of that versatility
is LightWave's powerful Modeler. ìThe modeling
features seem almost unbeatable,î says Gabel.
ìA simple primitive shape (cylinder, sphere,
cube) can be transformed quickly into a complex
model using LightWave's amazing tools. The manipulation
of points and polygons, along with subpatch surfacing,
is so free and easy it's possible to model almost
any shape imaginable.î
Gabel notes that another valuable
aspect of NewTek's LightWave are features that
make it integrate well with other graphic arts
tools. ìOnce [an image is] rendered, the object-specific
alpha channel settings allow us to quickly insert
additional visual elements into specific areas
of the image in Photoshop®.î
Gabel sums it up this way:
ìSimply put, we know LightWave will yield great
results every time.î
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