How did you start in 3D?

Like some of you I started in CG in the Amiga days. I remember using Sculpt 3D, Turbo Silver, Imagine, etc. and I read something about VideoToaster and a 3D software that comes with it. When I saw things made with LW (specifically Babylon 5) I knew that LightWave must be an incredible piece of software...

When did you first start using LightWave?

I don't remember exactly, because for some years I worked in software development, and 3D was only a hobby at the time, but for the first commercial projects I remember using version 5.0 and 5.6 on the PC platform.

Your scenes are very heavy in polygons. How many are typically used?

LightWave works very well with large scenes in visualization work. Usually I have from 2 to 4 million polygons in one scene without any kind of instancing and Layout works very well. The render sometimes becomes slow using radiosity or area lights... but with the cost of computers dropping, where's the problem? ;-)

Some of the images in my gallery need between about 12 and 24 hours to render in print resolution... but they do use radiosity, area lights, 100s of lights in night scenes and so on...

LightWave's render engine is incredibly flexible and predictable, with only a bit of work it could be one of best renderers of any package today... it just needs some improvements in anti-aliasing, speed, GI solution, a better distributed render method and things like that. A while ago I worked for five years developing graphics software (render module to civil works program, real-time simulation on SGI machines and so on) so I know that upgrading the render engine of LightWave is not difficult.

With renders taking 24 hours, what sort of computing power do you have?

I use Screamernet to run LightWave and it works fine for me. My main computer is a Pentium IV at 2.8 GHz with a classic GeForce2 card and for the render farm I have five Athlons at 1.2 GHz plus another Pentium IV 2.4 GHz... all with 1Gb of RAM. The only problem is the heat and noise in the office, but other than that it all works fine. :)

Do you use any plug-ins for your work?

The only plug-in that I actually use is the excellent HDInstance for heavy scenes.

For architectural visualisation, a plug-in like "RPC Real People" in LightWave would be very useful, and using the LightWave volumetric plug-in architecture it could be fully integrated into the render engine, to provide real shadows, reflections and refractions, etc...

Are you traditionally trained in architecture?

No, my training is in computer science and computer graphics. Only experience and work has provided me with the training to do this professionally... I am totally self-taught .

How did you start with architectural modelling if you have no background in it?

My history as a professional is a bit complicated... I began at 17 years old in video production with Amiga making flying logos. After that I worked as a developer of modelling and rendering software for engineering and real time visualisation software for the defence industry on SGI machines and after that I began to work with architects in visualisation software and services. I suppose that all these things combined together provide me with the background to make these kind of projects, my actual work in last 2 or 3 years. I think that the secret is the combination of my artistic background in video and print production combined with the technical knowledge provided by my other technical work.