Tell us a bit about yourself.

Christo Smit, born in Johannesburg South Africa. After school I started studying process Engineering at Pretoria. The University, through a series of aptitude tests sent me to go and study another direction, as my "technical" abilities were somewhat overshadowed by boredom in the field. They sent me to go and study some "Multimedia" course at a private institution called The Open Window school of Visual Communications. It's there that I first got introduced to 3D animation and where I first saw LightWave. I finished the Degree course there as the Best Overall Final Year Student, Best 3D Animation Student, and got the Adobe award for outstanding design. Thereafter I started Virtualscape Visualizations.

What do you like about the package?

Two things. Firstly was the lack of gimmicky icons, and secondly the fact that I could generate a realistic outcome without having to load another 3rd party plug-in.

What could be improved for you?

Not much, maybe a foot spa with each licence?

The foot spa idea is intriguing and something we have considered for a while...

hahaha!

What is your role at Virtualscape?

• Managing director of operations
• Hands-on involvement for quality purposes
• Product development (both existing products and what the industry requires)
• Texturing and Lighting (of some projects if the office is swamped)
  

What spec machine(s) are you using it on at the moment?

Pentium 4 - 3Ghz with 2Gb Ram
Some or the other Nvidia graphics toy
Oh... I've got 2 flat panel screens (which I can go without but don't want to).

What makes having two screens worth holding onto?

They keep my neck from spasming, and one screen reminds me of the early days, long nights, cold coffee and real nightmarish deadlines. ;)

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

Fprime – because it gives me real time feedback on what the heck I'm doing.

Apart from FPrime, do you find you need any other plug-ins? How do you do your trees and grass for instance?

Nope, that's the beauty of LightWave. No need for an Inferno plug just to do fire - Hypervoxels are great for that and so forth. Grass - merely a texture which we "grow" on the side of buildings in Photoshop. Trees... well, depending on the application. With stills we'll got with alpha maps and with motion we'll use 3D plant models. I kinda don't like the latter.

In your opinion, should LightWave 3D stay separated or become integrated?

SEPARATED most definitely! Primary reason is that I've got departments running this side dedicated to either modelling and texture/lighting. Let's not confuse the kids. It works great.