Pruned Forest
Paul,
First, I in no way meant to detract from Lightwave, Hastings, Newtek, or the
Amiga community in general by mentioning that the developers were supporting
Ron Thorton & company's efforts to bring low-cost animation to the forefront in
prime-time network TV. In fact, on reviewing the message, I clearly stated that
I thought the production values to be very good.
Second, I am in no position to compare LightWave/Amiga/Toaster with the PC/3DS
platform as I haven't had any hands-on experience with the Amiga-based setup,
and probably won't in the near future. If you decide to go with the Amiga,
please let us know how it compares, as I'm sure many of us here on the forum
would be interested.
Third, according to a recent article (CGW January, 1993) the ILM animators used
"Swivel 3-D, Electric Image and Adobe PhotoShop software running on
Macintoshes" to develop the effects for SR. That being as it may, the stills
look very good to me and I will wait until I see an actual broadcast before
comparing the quality of animation between B5 and SR and if one really "blows
away" the other.
Finally, as a free-lance 3D animator, the advent of personal computer-based 3D
graphics and animation becoming accepted by the television industry can only
make me feel great about the future of our business — no matter which platform
breaks the ice.
Regards,
Alan Iglesias