A load of little bits of duct tape that help to seal the breeches, above all in Modeler. Thanks go out to the community of developers who create this little gizmos, for the most part free. Plug-ins I can't be without: Worley (G2, Polk), Evasion 3D (shadow designer, x-dof).

You're also well-known as a user of Aura. What do you like about it?

Apart from nostalgia (I was a TVPaint user on the Amiga), what I like most about Aura is that it's a graphics creation tool that doesn't interfere with what I want to do and has an interface that really knows how to make itself invisible. What I mean is that, unlike plenty of other tools, the interface doesn't impose it's working methods on you. It's a tool that really gives me a lot of pleasure to use. In Aura, you don't spend your time in numeric panels or responding to requesters that are more or less justified that are a real stress factor when you are in the middle of the creative process.

As well as all this, it's a tool that really fits in with my video/pixel lifestyle. It's a bit like Paintbox that I dreamed of a dozen years ago!

The TF1 advert idents were all made with LightWave, weren't they? And you made them? Tell me a bit about their creation.

The venture started in 1999 when the agency VIEW took charge of a new ident system for TF1. TF1 had final say.

The 3D work was done at Duran for the first year, before VIEW started their own 3D studio. At Duran, I was part of the team from the start and I was immediately seduced by the project, which was a real exercise in style. I didn't realise that four years later we would have completed nearly 300 three-second jingles with three letters!

In 2000, the director of the production at VIEW asked me to set up a LightWave studio at VIEW. Since then I've been supervising the LightWave team and coordinating with the director Christophe Valdejo.

Did you come up with the ideas for the PUB jingles or did you get inspiration from somewhere else?

As is often the case in series, there are writers who come up with most of the little "playlets".

It's true that you need a certain working method to come up with nearly 300 situations involving three letters and a universe so minimal that it just contains a reflecting sun, even though this universe is progressively enriched with more and more instances of the three letters, different rendering methods like light effects, textures, deformations and so on.

The animators have also brought or proposed ideas to the director who's open to all suggestions as long as they are consistent with the spirit of the universe of planet PUB.

Which is your favourite PUB jingle among all 300?

Now that's a question! I don't think I can remember them all, but I have always preferred the more minimal ones, like the little bricks that come together to form the word "PUB" (you can see this particular animation on my site). I think that these animations have strength in their very simplicity.