When did you see LightWave for the first time?

I saw it the first time on an Amiga in 1993. I think it was version 3.0 at this time.

When did you first start using it?

I could not afford my own version, so I bought REFLECTIONS 1.0 (Bookware for about $50) for my AMIGA 2000 in 1989.
I worked at home for almost five years with REFLECTIONS, while at the office I worked with LightWave 3.5. Of course, LightWave was so much better, you can't compare these two software titles, except that both are 3D packages!

What do you like about the package?

Modeler is excellent! The workflow is very smooth, also the flexibility of configuring everything as you like is perfect.

The modelling tools are all very sophisticated. In Layout I especially like how the program has an uncomplicated style and the philosophy that lies behind it. The whole program is straightforward and easy to learn.

What could be improved for you?

Better administration of all objects and textures would be good. The spreadsheet should be an integral part of Layout and could also replace the scene editor. All saves should be stored in one file. A scene should also store object-data so that you can use one object but different surfaces.

The Spreadsheet editor should have administration settings, one scene but many different, pre-saved Layout adjustments.

Being able to mirror anything would be great, for example bones and their configs. Multiple cloning with offset in Layout. Procedural textures and clip maps (maybe only as colour) in OpenGL. No edge repeat in OpenGL. Improved Viper with transparency, lights and full weight map colouring visualisation.

What spec machines are you using it on at the moment?

I have two workstations in my company. A full Aluminium Dual Athlon 1800 MHz with 2 GB Ram, GeForce 4 graphics card in connection with two 22" monitors offering a 3200x1200 resolution and an AMD 18+, 1.5 GB, GeForce 4, with the same monitors. In our company we all have at least 1.5 GB Ram, 2 GHz AMD or Intel workstations, many of them with a two monitor solution.
We also have a render farm with 22 processors offering 34600 MHz (34.6 GHz)in total.
The server has 600GB of online RAID 5 storage including a robot DLT Tape-Library. There's about 200GB traffic every week (40GB a day) on the internal net and we have a 2.3 MBit internet-connection.

Are there any plug-ins you wouldn't be without?

Sasquatch full version. Project Messiah. X-Dof. Realwave and Realflow.

How did you get involved with Formula 1 in Germany?

Since we worked before with the concept developer of Inside Formula, the Allianz (with HP invent) - the main sponsor of Williams F1 - asked our company for a bid. Just before being asked we had made something similar with an airplane and we had other good references. Our offer seemed to be at the right level at this time!