Tell us a bit about the company:

We're essentially a creative entity based in London, UK. We have wide-ranging expertise from digital imaging through to professional audio. But we began a website eight months ago dedicated to providing the LightWave community with simple plug-in-free surfacing solutions. We call them "Pshelf™ collections".

Why is your company called "The Worms of Art"?

It began as a typo in an email several years ago, which was obviously supposed to read "works of art". We didn't want a name that sounded too corporate or bland because that's not really our style.

Just how many Worms are there?

As far as numbers are concerned, there are two of us working permanently on Pshelf collections (me and my brother Richard) and another half dozen or so people who come together for creative projects. We're looking to expand on the creative side in 2004 because researching Pshelf collections all the time turns you a bit bonkers!

Hmm, can't say I'd noticed. :) What impetus made you start the website?

3D graphics is an interesting frontier because people are increasingly using quite technical software to produce highly creative work. Many people find it hard to bridge this gap between the art and science of 3D and so we thought we could make this the driving concept behind a website. We've concentrated on surfacing for now because it's a field that even highly competent users often don't have a particularly deep understanding of.

We think that knowing a little of the practical science behind how materials behave in the real world is invaluable when surfacing in LightWave, so we're trying to distill our own thoughts on this subject into collections of exceptional quality surfaces, accompanied by well thought out tutorials, all of which go on the website. It's very important for us to provide people with educational material that's not only beautifully written but introduces wider creative concepts. Our tutorials are half LightWave and half philosophy of art and science.

When did you see LightWave for the first time?

In 1996 we designed a computer games concept which was all rather complex and ahead of its time. We pitched the idea to a company called AMG who were working on the Gormenghast trilogy at the time. During our ultimately fruitless negotiations with their publishing department, they introduced us to the people in a small office down the corridor who were using LightWave to produce special effects for TV. They were rendering shots of a spaceship direct to Beta tape and we found the whole rendering process rather magical!

When did you first start using it?

Various different times, ranging from 4 - 7 years ago. We tend to work in Mac-heavy environments, so it was just about the only professional choice until very recently.

What do you like about the package?

The renderer first and foremost. Having worked with 3ds max users over the years, the pattern that emerges is that they whine and moan about the LightWave interface and workflow until they see it render and then their jaws hit the floor! As people with artistic natures, we'd all rather fight for a program that produces beautiful end results, than advocate software that's quick, slick but whose output is ultimately dull!