I didn't realise they were your animated tutorials. They are great. How did they come to be on the NewTek site?

Thanks, the company that I'm working with is a regional distributor for NewTek products in the south east Asia region, so basically we'll send them any new stuff that we have done, and this is how the links get on the main NewTek site.

How did you achieve the zoom from space shot in your well-known SMU animation?

The initial views of the earth are all 3D, but when it starts zooming in, those are bits and pieces of satellite photos that are freely available online. These are put together in image processing software to make it look as if it is Singapore. There are five levels of detail to each fake satellite map, and while the camera zooms in they are faded in and out accordingly. Once it reaches a distance where the SMU buildings are visible, the camera then cuts to actual 3D LightWave renderings. The whole intro sequence was completed in one day inclusive of rendering and compositing. This shot wasn't requested by the client, but I did it mainly because I want to have something new to kick off the fly-through.

Which version of LightWave were the animations that you are most famous for (iBeach, SMU Flythru and AMF) created?

AMF was done on LW6.0, iBeach was on 7.0, and SMU was on 7.5.

What were the shots of the cathedral for?

The Sibenik Cathedral was just a radiosity rendering test and learning contest at the CG Techniques website. The models were provided, the only thing a contestant has to do is to tweak the lights and radiosity settings to get the best results.

Was the dinosaur anim you storyboarded finished?

The dinosaur storyboard is actually a finished piece as a storyboard by itself. It was done a few years ago for storyboarding contest, telling story about dinosaurs.

Do you use LW for all your storyboards?

I use LW for everything :) even word processing... just kidding.

What does W.A.U. stand for?

'Wau' is a Malay word for the huge traditional kite in Malaysia, just do a image search in Google to see what it looks like. I based the look of the spacecraft that I did on this - the WAU, and I made up a reverse abbreviation for it, which stands for 'WorldTrade Advisory Ultravessel'.

What are you working on at the moment?

Currently finishing up an architectural visualisation and walk through for the Middle East.

What have you got as a freebie for our readers?

Here is one of my clip-mapped, low polygon trees for everyone to explore.

Windows	Macintosh
Zip	StuffIt
528 KB	537 KB
For non-commercial use only

Cool! Thanks for that Tajino. People wanting to see more of this master's work, should visit his site.