Dior, Thalys, RG512, Le Petit Oiseau Va Sortir, GDF, Suez, Kia… Four years only after its creation, 555Lab has already done impressive work! Interview with Cédric “Khan” Magne, Creative Director and co-founder of this “creative experimentation lab”.
Mia, Jason and Marc met in Cape Town – South Africa – in the early 2000s. After spending a couple of years in an animation studio, they collected their savings and jumped in a plane to take up a big challenge: start their own 3D animation studio in Dubai! Clockwork VFX was born. Hard work and good fortune did the rest! They told us their story…
NewTek Inc spoke to William Vaughan, Animator Director at Splashlight (and former LightWave 3D Evangelist) about his recent work on the Kiss M&Ms campaign.
Always reach for the moon!... That could have been Paco, Goyo, and Enrique’s motto: these brilliant LightWave artists are now living a dream come true. They were hired for the biggest advertizing campaigns and were even recently given the chance to reenact Sci-Fi movies scenes for Antena 3, starring Spiderman and the vessel of Starwars.
Four Emmy Award nominations, an on-going collaboration with world-famous series - Lost, Pushing Daisies, Surface -, advertising campaigns for prestigious brands...
To Giorgi Rekhviashvili, a talented animation director, learning about LightWave 3D® has literally changed his life! He shared his thoughts and experience with us, telling us more about his past–commercials and film projects mostly- and future projects.
Yves St Laurent, Lancaster, Sisley, Canal+ and Canal Jimmy, Gemey Maybelline… and so many more: François Kalife has acquired a strong reputation in photography advertising. As a strong proponent of Lightwave, he tells us to what extent professional photography now requires the use of 3D softwares.
We spoke to Eric Zingraff, CG artist fascinated in History, Art and Architecture who founded GREZ Prod, a 3D’s documentary maker company. The last DVD is a total immersion in the middle of the mediaeval Paris…
We revisit Antonis back at home in Greece. Tight deadlines and small teams are nothing new to longtime LightWavers but Antonis really pushed to generate over two hours of CG in less than ten months.
Sylvain Pellodi and Fabien Bonali (alias Bloom) sponsored by the famous French Studio Partizan Lab recently won the 1st prize in a Sony PS3 contest on Artcade Playstation with a video entirely produced in LightWave.
We speak to this LightWave artist who needed to produce gunfire effects for a low-budget film and so created this stunning piece of R&D in his spare time. Warning: Jasper's film contains scenes of violence
"300" is
the film adaptation of Frank Miller’s graphic
novel.
From set extensions to living smoke, oceans, skies,
arrows, shield, swords, helmets and armies, LightWave
visual effects artists working with visual effects
supervisor Chris Watts brought it all together
in the production of "300"
Ask
an industry veteran the most important thing to have to get into the
business and you'll probably get, "a strong background in traditional
art." Most will ignore this though and go straight for a technical
understanding of a specific 3D. One person who can be considered to be
on a crusade against this is Graham Toms.
LightWave 9 Artists Dave Jerrard & Jennifer Hachigian share their thoughts at the recent sneak peek of LightWave v9.2 in L.A.
This video features them talking about their favorite new developments in the upcoming release.
Nigel Schutte and the LightWave team of three at Luma have recently finished work on a vertiginous ad for a car tracking company in South Africa. We talk to him about how it came about and their other recent projects.
These guys have to qualify for the fastest LightWavers in the South with the creation of websites devoted to housing estates completed within two weeks. We speak to Christo Smit about just how it's done.
Roger amused his son with rhymes about imaginary creatures when he was little, and that evolved into a whole book of the bonkers beasts. We talk to him about the process.
Samuli has spent seven years working on his masterpiece Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning, the last year of which he was unemployed. We ask him about the tests he faced.
We speak to this truly versatile artist who is equally at home in Sweden or Paris - with clay or LightWave 3D modelling tools. He discusses his unique approach to art and reveals his alter ego in the process
Pål
is a multi-talented LightWaver. He got his start
in the demo scene on the C64 and Amiga, designed
the icons for Opera (using LightWave of course!)
and has recently completed a six-screen animation
for an Anti-Virus company...
Rob has
recently finished work on James Cameron's Aliens
of the Deep. He also holds the honour of being the
very first person to complete, single-handed, the
world's first 64-bit animation.
After an
absence of nearly four years Gorillaz are back with
a new video that, as always, mixes 2D and 3D to
great effect. We speak to the supervisor on Feel
Good, Inc.
Khalid is
a well-known LightWave artist straddling the line
between PC and Mac. We talk to him about the architectural
projects he is currently working on.
Richard
Smith is a one-man Shockwave machine. He not only
comes up with the ideas for the games, does all
the graphics and sound, he even provides the silly
voices.
It's amazing
what one man can do in a little over a month of
work with LightWave. We speak to Juan about his
most recent architectural visualisation work in
Spain.
Adam Sharp
has spent the last eighteen months working on his
own short film in his spare time. We ask about how
a person can commit to a project on that scale,
and who his influences are.
Over 400
effects shots in a four hour mini-series makes nearly
two shots per minute for Zoïc Studios when
they did the effects for a remake of 70s classic
Battlestar Galactica. We speak to the show's Visual
Effects Supervisor, Emile Smith.
Peter works
for Criterion making art for games. He's recently
finished work on what some are calling the fastest
car racing console game ever - Burnout 3.
We speak
to this community evangelist about how he got started
with LightWave, what he's working on right now,
and also how his accounting package plug-in is coming.
We speak
to the man responsible for all the illustrations
in the forthcoming STAR WARS - Essential Guide to
Weapons and Technology about how he achieved the
images he's made for it.
Dyson has
always been at the forefront of technology. We talk
to Gary Bidwell, the Graphics IT services manager,
about how Dyson is using LightWave to show its wares
to the world.
Well-known
for his incredible realism and eye for detail Jacques
Defontaine has just co-written a book on photorealism
and animated some mineral water.
We speak
to Seneca who's been busy modelling hell-flesh and
machines for Doom 3 for the last three years, when
not working on his ultimate fighting game arcade
machine.
Marco and
Gianni got into 3D to attract girls. It didn't work
brilliantly but they discovered they were having
a lot of fun anyway, blowing up aliens and racing
across deserts.
Jurgen came
to England nearly thirty years ago and became a
well-known illustrator producing posters, postcards
book covers and more. We speak to him about his
work, his inspiration and why he uses LightWave.
We spoke
to Ron, an Englishman who made his name in the States
working on a variety of ground-breaking TV shows,
who's now back at Pinewood managing probably the
largest team of LightWave artists ever gathered
in one place in Britain to remake a version of Captain
Scarlet in 3D.
3D Festival
comes around quickly and after the success of our
user meeting the year before we thought we'd have
another! You can read about our great time in Denmark
and also at fmx/04 in Germany herein.
Jan's a
supervisor at GRID, one of Belgium's largest CG
companies. He worked last year on the Oscar-nominated
animated film, Les Triplettes de Belleville, a story
by acclaimed animator Sylvain Chomet.
The artist
behind the animation of the Annoying Thing tells
us about just who it was that made the sound, his
architectural and astronomical animation and what
he's up to now.
Iain is
a renaissance man. He has worked on films, TV and
other projects with LightWave. He's worked full-time
for effects companies and as a freelancer. We ask
him what he's up to now.
The Hive's
director of animation, Nathan Laud, gives us the
low-down on the new piece they have just completed
for BBC TV's comedy selection for this Christmas.
An odd name?
Yes, maybe, but it doesn't stop David Todman and
his brother Richard creating their Pshelf textures
and graphic masterpieces for a variety of uses.
They've
always made graphics to wow people, ever since the
Amiga Demo scene but now Ole and Zafar produce fantastic
commercials, music videos and more with LightWave.
Ex-BBC
graphic designer Paul Baguley still does the majority
of his work
for the BBC, but being freelance gives him a much
shorter commute to work and the chance to see
more
of his kids.
This excellent
LightWave artist works for Argonaut Software on
their forthcoming game Powerdrome - a remake of
the seminal Atari ST/Amiga game of the late 1980s.
He talks to us about himself and his work.
He may
be Swedish, but this superb young LightWave artist
has already lived in Mexico and now resides in
Canada where he's busy creating tutorials for
his "Soviet
propaganda"-style web page. We talk to him about
his plans for the future...
This high-flying
LightWave artist always asks his two-and-a-half
year old niece Nana her opinion about his work
before he's satisfied with it and his designs will
soon be gracing the front of t-shirts across America.
We wait for him to fly back from Zurich to talk
to him.
We speak
to an industrial designer who uses LightWave for
all his visualisation work. He also created the
LightWave vX project that got a lot of people talking,
but, all things considered, he would rather be playing
Dragon's Lair.
This French
artist got started with computers at a young age
because of his interest in film special effects
and now he's working hard on the second series of
an archaeological documentary for French TV.
Gregory
tells us about his infatuation with Jurassic Park,
working on clouds and creating the new ident for
Viacom - all in a day's work for this talented Greek.
We speak
to this Sydney resident who is a self-taught artist
not content with the usual head-building tutorial
gathering. He has made a complete city and a science
fiction film for television, for himself!
We speak
to this prolific ex-Disney instructor who pays for
meals by scribbling on napkins, changes his Dalí-esque
paintings into 3D and teaches animation and LightWave
to anyone who'll have him...
Son of
a famous Bahraini artist, Khalid always used
to
paint and draw. Since 2001 though, he's been busy
with LightWave, even creating coins and plane
interiors for the kingdom of Bahrain!
We spoke
to Scott Coulter, an American living in Bulgaria,
about
Worldwide FX's latest film project - Alien Hunter.
The film, which has nearly 500 LightWave special
effects,
was shown on the Sci Fi channel on Saturday 19th
July 2003.
Two Norwegian
guys are attempting to put one of their buildings
or bits of furniture in every city in the world.
Read about how their attempt is going so far as
we interview Mats and Trond...
David,
who's 25, only started using LightWave a year
ago but
he's already creating professional-level work.
We spoke about animation in general
and
his
outlook
on
life doing 3D in the Czech Republic.
If you attended
our user meeting at 3D Festival this year you would
have been privy to the first public unveiling of
Tinny Tom, the new animation by Lemonade, creators
of Robots.
There are
plenty of places where grown-ups can learn LightWave
skills around the world, but LightWave user Tolu
Abisola has a first: a course for 9-13 year old
children to learn not just LightWave but the art
of 3D in general.
John and
I met up again at the 3D Festival this year. He
is a 21-year old student at Lincoln University where
he's taking a course in animation. Of course, what
he really wants to do is dir… I mean act.
NewTek Europe
hosted a user meeting on the 7th May
2003 at the fifth 3D Festival, in Copenhagen, Denmark.
We thought it would be cool to bring William "Proton"
Vaughan over for the show.
Vassilios,
the head operator of LightWave 3D at the Foundation
of the Hellenic World, is recreating the past for
a realtime tour in time for 2004's Olympic games.
We asked him about the methods used for bringing
ancient Greece back to life.
Leigh is
only 23 but already she has a reputation online
as a texturing goddess. We spoke about her forthcoming
book and why she likes helping her fellow users
so much.
Elvis, or
Lewis is an excellent car modeller who works for
his local TV station. Lewis, or Elvis, also freelances
creating cars for court reconstructions and has
been collecting computers for quite some time now.
We ask about his techniques for modelling cars and
the reasons behind his nickname…
Jonn first
came to prominence as the creator of the X-Men total
conversion for Quake. His aborigine character has
been used on all sorts of LightWave promotional
material and now stars in an animation about lipsync.
Although
Phil heard about LightWave ages ago, he didn't start
using it until last year for visualisation work,
but he's made up for lost time with the quality
of his renders! We talk to him about his work and
his plans for the future.
We spoke
to Olivier Michon, a great artist who lives in Bordeaux
and who has used LightWave and Aura since the start.
French people should know his work, especially the
little "jingles" that come before and after the
ads on French TV channel TF1.
We interview Dino "Mascio"
Mascitelli about his work on forthcoming sideways
scrolling shoot-em-up T-Zwei and his love of the
work of Keith Haring.
A new LightWaver is born!
11/03/2003
Ben Vost
offers his apologies for a lack of user stories
over the last two weeks. He was distracted by the
birth of his son - Finn Vost. A new story will appear
this week on Friday 14th March 2003.
The LightWave Expo Madrid
takes place on the 20th and 21st
February 2003. We talk to one of its founders Hector
Moratilla about his role there and what he wants
to see improved in LightWave.
Since the demo scene
on the Amiga to the present day Cyril Kravtchenko
has sung the praises of LightWave 3D. He's currently
working on a game called Star Ancestor using LightWave
for all the graphics, both real-time and cut-scene.
We talk to this young
Belgian artist who was once thought talentless about
his stunning short film - the inspiration and techniques
behind it and what was like studying at RITS.
Veli-Antti is a self-taught
Finnish LightWave artist working for an effects
company in Helsinki. We talked about his skin rendering
methods, working for Nitro FX and what working is
like at different times of the year in Finland.
William Vaughan is well-known
to the LightWave community as the guy who most often
says, "Wow!" and swiftly follows it up with, "Will
you put it on Lightwave3d.com?" Long a fan of LightWave,
he actually started out in… in… 2D graphics!
Asylum 3D is the warped
brainchild of two talented Photoshop artists Robin
Konieczny and Matt Westrup. I made the possibly
fatal mistake of taking them both on at the same
time for this profile, rather than taking the easy
way out and selecting a company spokesman.
High Temperature
Superconductivity to modelling for one of Europe's
best-known CG houses doesn't sound like an obvious
leap, but it's one that our artist Stuart Penn made
with ease.
He's just turned 30,
he has a love of creepy crawlies and all things
dark and he gave up web design in favour of 3D.
Sounds like a perfect candidate for a short, but
sweet, profile!
A new German LightWave
training DVD is just the latest item on Andràs
Kavalecz’s CV. As a young animator, originally
from Hungary and now living near Frankfurt in Germany,
he has worked on a number of games for a variety
of German games companies and is now freelance.
Emanuele is a talented
young artist working at Revolution Software on the
forthcoming Broken Sword 3. We spoke to him about
his progress with that and also his other interests.
Chris Morris is one
of the UK’s most controversial comedians. From
being thrown off the national radio station Radio
1, to writing a comedy programme about paedophilia,
there is no subject that seems to be taboo for him.
Right now, he is engaged in producing a one-off
show bizarrely called "My Wrongs 8245-8249
and 117". In it, a talking dog called Rothko
and a garrulous baby provided some of the biggest
challenges for LightWave, courtesy of StormFront
Digital boss, Ben Smith.
We spoke to Olivier
Jeannel, a 30-year-old lead animator who’s
just completed work on a superb manga-style spot
for Euro 2004 for Eurosport, a satellite sports
channel broadcast throughout Europe.
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