By Steve Fronczek
4 November 2007

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Did you ever get to meet the cast?

Yes. I really enjoyed working with Luciana Carro, Dean Stockwell (who I helped on set for a VFX shot of the brothers Cavil talking to each other, and he nailed it better than any other actor I have worked with), Trisha Helfer, and James Callis. James is a riot on set but always is spot on when he's working. The entire cast has been great to work with and talk to. They love the work and the show as do the crew. I also enjoyed working and talking with Richard Hatch who plays Zarek on the show but as you and the fans know, played the original Apollo from the original series. Richard is a very talented actor and has a lot of really good advice for people working in the industry. We have a deal too where if he is in Vancouver and if we both have time, I buy dinner and drinks and if I am in LA he foots the bill. Frankly without a lot of Richard's hard work in helping keep the interest in the original series and fan films over the years, including his own efforts to get Battlestar Galactica in some form back on the air, a lot of people wouldn't have had the work and the experience from this new series. We all owe him a lot of thanks and a steak dinner.

What has been the highlight of your career working on BSG?

Having one of the directors from BSG come up to me and honestly come forward with his concerns about what was going on in VFX with respect to the treatment of the Vancouver department. That meant a lot. Same goes for one of the writers who shall remain nameless for [their] own protection from some kind of backlash. We ran into each other on the street one night in downtown Vancouver and [they] asked me what had really happened. Most of the upper layer of the show in terms of the exec's, the writers and the producers had either been lied to or kept in the dark about what was going on in VFX, and that continues to this day.

Outside of BSG, what else are you working on at the moment?

I have of course left BSG at the end of the shooting season of Season III, but I am working in London on a video game/feature film hybrid using Lightwave and Fusion, but I may try and aim for some other shows. England is nice but it does have its draw backs. I am also a bit tired of pub food!

I am lending my expertise to a BSG fan related project which I can't name, however it's already known world wide for being better than a recently released BSG commercial project in the same area. Besides that, I continue to work on my own feature film and TV scripts, one of which I am looking to produce in late 2008 for release in 2009. That project is based on another science fiction universe that has 3 films done for it based on one writers work. I can't get into it more than that because it's essentially going to be a fan film as I could never get the rights to it. Still, I am going to be able to take everything I have learned from working on shows like BSG, SG-1 and Atlantis as well as the handful of features that I have worked on and put them into practice in a why that will shake some people to their core. But first and foremost with this particular project the story that I have written is a human story and anything that is shot or done in VFX is simply there to be a part of it, not dominate it or be eye-candy. I also have to do it very low budget but keep the quality on par or higher than what BSG has done (because it can be done rather easily if you plan it out right) using Lightwave and Fusion to create that story universe. It will involve a lot of virtual set work that's for sure.

Which do you prefer, to draw or to work with CGI? And why?

I used to draw a lot but because of my traveling around I had to give it up because I dreaded loosing the work I would produce to some luggage handler on a bad day. I miss it, but ultimately the things I did as a kid in the backyard with a video camera and a bunch of action figures mixed in with some home made pyro, drove me towards working in CG. That and I don't have to worry about the police or fire department showing up. Well, most of the time :P

What is your opinion on fans who attempt to reproduce LightWave renders of the BSG spacecraft in fan-art? How do you feel about that, being someone who was in their shoes once?

Some of the works I have seen are excellent. It's really encouraging to know that a lot of these people if given the opportunity could work well doing shots for a show like BSG. In some ways its also a head scratcher when the "pros" on the show can't figure out how to load their own plug-ins but these guys online are able to crank out some fantastic work. A lot of these fans would be amazed as to just how bad some of the ships are modeled in some cases. Other times I am sure they would look at some of the work and say "I can't take this on myself, its way to big and detailed!" Great examples of that are the 3D models of the Galactica itself and the Pegasus. Those are intense models.

Who are the 3D artists whose work you admire the most?

I wouldn't really say admire, but more respect. It's the effort that good artists put in that turns them into great artists.

Alain Rivard has to be one of the best modelers out there in hard surface (non-organic). I really wish I had more time to get my modeling skills up to where he is. His work on the Cylon resurrection ship, the Prometheus and other models through out BSG as well as his own personal works are amazing.

It takes a lot of time and effort and even money (because you are not out working while creating these things) to get that good. In the end though it pays off if you can break through the artificial protectionist ceiling that is much of the problem with Hollywood. There are several artists that I would like to work with. At the company right now we have some amazingly talented people. One guy, Yan Goument is amazing when it comes to modeling in Lightwave although he can use other packages but he sticks to Lightwave for the most part. The guy used to do cards in 3D for Renault as well as concepts for products and his work is stunning and very clean. He can build you a completely photo-realistic, geometrically accurate car with interior in under 3 million polygons.

Then there is Cesar Montero who also works with us. He's a brilliant 3D lighting artist and technician. He also has a concept of no secrets and that comes out in his tutorials on the subject. If you google him you will find his lighting tutorials in Lightwave 3D.

Last but not least, there is Timothy Albee who I got a hold of an immediately pushed to have him hired on as the character animator for BSG Season III. He is so fast it make me sick. Tim also writes and has published 8 books on Lightwave 3D character animation and is also the creator of Kaze: Ghostwarrior which he did by himself, locked way in a cabin in the middle of Alaska a few years back. Thankfully I was able to bring Tim on this project here in London. He's a fantastic teacher and while he has only been here for a few weeks at this company we are all at, he's brought the animation department out of a lull and put it back on track after the XSI based people left because they couldn't handle the work load.

That's one of the things that kills me about people who work in other packages. They always push them so hard and dump all over Lightwave and Lightwave artists, but when push comes to shove, they cave in under the stress. Now keep in mind, that Lightwave is not known for being a character animation package, but so far the new, all Lightwave 3D character animation team under Tim, has produced more working shots for this project than the previous XSI based team did in the last 6 months! XSI is on it's way out the door on this production for one simple reason. Results.

What advice or wisdom would you impart to young artists or beginners getting into 3D graphics or animation?

Think very hard about going to a school that teaches this stuff but along side offers a lap top, and discounts on packages all from the same company. Are you paying to get training or are you paying to get discounted hardware at a really expensive price? My recommendation would be to skip the schooling, get some really good film and 3D/2D books and video tutorials, buy the full seats of the software (Lightwave is 1000.00 US, which is cheap as it comes with everything out of the box) you want to learn, get a kick ass computer and lock yourself in a room for six months. When you come out you should have nice demo reel, and the software is yours! You can go to work right away for yourself or another company if your reel is strong enough. A lot of times it's the artwork quality that gets you the job. But it helps to know people who can get you an interview at least.

If someone had to choose between learning Lightwave, 3D-Max, Maya or Cinema 4D, which one of these would you suggest and why?

Lightwave first and foremost, then a very, very distant second Cinema 4D. The reasons are simple. Lightwave has been around a lot longer than any of these other packages and it's going to be around a lot longer regardless of what fan boys of these other packages say. Lightwave has a massive track record for doing VFX work that simply can't be topped. Sure, everyone pays attention to the big flashy stuff like the LOTR or whatever but Lightwave is very much Hollywood's dirty little secret. It's used on a lot of high end block buster projects and productions and people don't even know about it or even see it when they do. It's an ass saving tool in a lot of ways. I know of at least one studio where they have a bunch of "Maya" boxes (they grabbed them from some display at SIGGRAPH I am told) laying about for show when a producer comes through to see a facility. When asked what package they use they say "oh, yeah we use Maya, you know...all the best tools" but in reality all the artists are running copies of Lightwave because it works, its fast and doesn't require a huge staff. That's why it is the best package out there hands down.

Maya is "team ware". It's actually billed as that in their ads I think. Lightwave is different. You can produce seriously amazing stuff with it by yourself or you can have a team of 100 artists or more working with it and working well cranking out top-notch shots. It's used all over the place from Hollywood to Shanghais, to Paris to Vancouver and back. The problem is the marketing companies of these other packages are the best features those packages actually have. Lightwave has always been very solid for doing top notch work but for some reason its been given this reputation that its either no longer made or supported, still costs $3,000 US (at one point the price was up there but that was almost 8 years ago), that you can't do character animation work in it, or that no one uses it. Nothing could be further from the truth however but unfortunately NewTek, the makers of Lightwave are a very small company and don't jump up and down and have huge trade show booths sticking it in your face that Lightwave is the best package out there. They don't really have to if you think about it. Look at the current production list for shows and films that use it and you will see exactly who is using and where. And not for some small handful of shots but I am talking about front to back. Modeling to Rendering. Pre-vis to VFX. And it's FAST! We would never have been able to get BSG shots done in any state with 3D Max or Mental Ray with XSI or Maya and Renderman. It would have taken too long and cost too much. Neither one of those is desirable in Film and TV work.

A good thing though that comes from this is that because of the work on BSG and other shows over the past couple of years more people are starting to realize that LW is the package to use for doing this kind of stuff and more. In the mid-90's Lightwave absolutely dominated TV visual FX and today it still does but now, more and more day it being used extensively if not exclusively for the 3D solution on feature films.

I'd like to thank you for doing this interview with me today.

Cheers and thanks again.

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