Can you describe how the production process starts?

The process starts with engineering department supplying us with a Unigraphics manufacturing assembly. From this every component is split into its own individual Parasolid part ready for translation into a LightWave object file using Polytrans.

The scene is then created and all of the individual parts are imported to be assembled together ready to start the process of surfaces and lighting as required by the brief.

Luckily the translation process carries across the all correct positioning as well as geometry which saves a lot of time.

The brief for a job might be to illustrate the direction the airflow takes through one of our vacuum cleaners or to animate the dirt spinning through one of the vacuum's cyclones, but generally the aim is to produce an image or animation that looks photo-real.

Is the work you do for internal consumption only (just for Dyson)?

No, the Malmesbury office is responsible for all of the graphic material world-wide: all our imagery is used is used for all packaging, print adverts, newspapers and even catalogue pages (i.e. Argos, Littlewoods, Next etc..). We provide a central resource for all our international offices and external agencies to use what ever the media required. Although, due to the demand of Dyson products in the USA we have just added a small graphics division to our Chicago office to mirror some of the resources needed to support that country.

Do you work in all media - print, animation, interactive?

Previously print and print packaging has been our main forms of communications, but now we are finding that other forms of media are becoming just as dominant. This can be as varied as an interactive touch-screen kiosk for an exhibition, DVD video servicing manuals or programming games for our website - for instance, all the 360 degree spins on the website are created in LightWave.

Dyson has always been at the forefront of technology advancement and invests in many new areas that increase creativity and brand awareness. Over the years we have expanded on the types of media created and brought in house our own video production unit, reprographics and obviously the 3D illustration team using LightWave.

Have you recreated all of Dyson's products in LightWave?

No, previously we have relied on traditional photography, but around 2001 Steve Herridge started to do some experimenting with product shots for DCO7 vacuum cleaner. By the time the DCO8 model was ready to launch we had achieved the quality we were aiming for. We ran traditional photography in parallel with 3D visuals and most people could not tell which shots were rendered and which were photos stylised with the Dyson look and feel.

The DCO8 was the first product where all the packaging was created digitally with LightWave. We soon found that working digitally from the CAD models saved months of production time. The illustration team are now creating visuals even before physical production prototypes have been made which are needed before you can have a photo shoot.

Are your jobs divided in the illustration team so that one does model conversion, one does texturing and so on, or are you divided by job?

The projects we work on are usually started and completed by one person, from file translating to surfacing to animation. If a project has a tight deadline then we would divide the job up between the team.

Do you keyframe all your particle animation, or are you using LightWave's dynamics?

We have used LightWave's particle system in the past but we have started to use Next Limit's RealFlow for simulating dirt and dust which integrates with LightWave perfectly.

What are you working on now?

We're working on a number of projects including an airflow animation of our DC11 vacuum cleaner.

Thanks very much for your time Gary. You can see Dyson's website for the UK is at www.dyson.co.uk