By jin choung (Jin) (63.28.231.20) on Wednesday, January 08, 2003 - 11:19 pm:

holy cow,

the model consists of 1.1 MILLION polys and was built entirely in lw!

wow. Digital Domain really has a commitment to lw!

coooool.

jin

By Michael Green (Dodgy) (217.207.247.34) on Thursday, January 09, 2003 - 04:58 am:

So was the big enemy ship, built by my mate Big Rory.

I'd guess a lot of the stuff was built in LW, and possibly animated in LW too, I have another friend who works there, and he says they're using more than ever since 6... And he gets advanced betas, the basket!

By Chris W. (Chriswork) (24.123.214.36) on Thursday, January 09, 2003 - 07:16 am:

For those who haven't seen the story:

http://cgw.pennnet.com/Articles/Article_Display.cfm?Section=Articles&Subsection=Display&ARTICLE_ID=165170

By Rory McLeish (Unclerory) (198.211.88.11) on Thursday, January 09, 2003 - 02:24 pm:

Happy new year, one and all! Hallo Mikey! Uncle Rory here, and the main version of the Scimitar was indeed built by myself, and textured by me and the amazing Mr Marc Perrera (not forgetting all the talented guys in the Trek Ship team who built and textured specific areas of the Scimitar for close up shots, like the retros firing and the wingtip beam emitters)!
The ship did indeed come in at 1.5 million polys, after it was optimised! We did a lot of panelling that ended up being bump mapped, and most of the interactive lighting on the ship (spotlights, mainly) were luminence maps, which cut down rendering times quite considerably. She was built, textured and multi-pass rendered in Lightwave.
Hard work, but great fun! I also got to work with John Eaves, which was a big thrill as he's one of my favourite designers.

By Rob Trombino (Extrabyte) (209.6.255.51) on Thursday, January 09, 2003 - 07:53 pm:

Hi Rory.

Just wanted to thank you and everyone else at Digital Domain for a beautiful job on Star Trek:Nemesis. Your work is really inspiring and because of the high level of quality and care that obviously went into this, it really let the FX serve the story in such a natural and seamless way. Which in turn, allowed me to be involved and immersed in the whole experience. That's what it's all about, isn't it? I am a student here in MA and I've been studying Lightwave thru a distance-learning course from 3D Exchange in CA for about a year now. When someone in the business posts here on this forum, it makes me feel so much more connected to it all. My dream is to be doing exactly what you’re doing(and did on Nemesis). It is gratifying to be able to thank someone in person(so to speak)for not only your work, but also for taking the time to post here as well. So thank you Rory. And I wish you all the success and fun that this can bring you.

By jin choung (Jin) (63.28.231.246) on Thursday, January 09, 2003 - 11:07 pm:

howdy rory,

great work!

by any chance, were you the guy on a newtek demo reel a few years back that talked about the STEEL CITY car commercials?

i just remembered someone with from dd with a scottish accent and an affinity for lightwave - and you are a Mc after all....

coincidence?

jin

By Michael Green (Dodgy) (217.207.247.34) on Friday, January 10, 2003 - 07:19 am:

Hey Rory, how're you doing? Long time no talkie!

That steel city guy was Cris Blyth, a guy who used to work here at Team 17 with me and Rory McLeish. Now they both work at DD, and here I am still at T17 We're a talented bunch here LOL

By Pierre Salazar (Sailor) (80.14.208.98) on Friday, January 10, 2003 - 07:37 am:

Hey guys congrats !...very good job...i'm curious about the model itself...is it a subpatch model or a freezed one fpr the receases and stuff if subpatched is it 1 million subpatched or once freezed ? and whatbout the polygon creation? spline patches or other? thanks for ur answers will be very interesting to know

cheers

By Matt Clary (Mattclary) (208.255.196.71) on Friday, January 10, 2003 - 09:46 am:

Yes, I was wondering the same theing Pierre asked!

By jin choung (Jin) (67.116.166.130) on Friday, January 10, 2003 - 08:20 pm:

well i just gotta say,

if it's a million plus polys and it needs to be subpatched, that's OUTTA CONTROL!!!

that's insanity!

my money's on everything being converted to polys for the sake of the possibility of sending it to other apps for different shots....

jin

By Rory McLeish (Unclerory) (198.211.88.11) on Friday, January 10, 2003 - 09:03 pm:

Almost off to the pub for some Friday beers!
Thanks for the nice mails guys, and Rob: Do the best work you can, and work hard towards your goals, you'll get there eventually! Regarding building the Scimitar, the engines and main body are frozen sub-d cages, which were tweaked and booleaned for shuttlebay recesses, reactor glows etc (anything curvy on the ship is probably a frozen sub-d cage). The wings, weapon arrays and mid-section were constructed in the usual way, vertex by vertex! When the models were started, we didn't have quite a number of shots nailed down, so we made all the ships as detailed as we could so they would hold up if we needed to go in close, hence the heavy poly counts (all those bevels...).
We also used the same panel maps on the Scimitar for spec, bump, diff and gloss, which helped keep the memory use close to something sensible!
For anyone who's interested, we rendered passes for diff, spec, glows, windows, freznel (to simulate glancing Rift lighting), Rift lighting and z-depth passes (when ships were close to camera). Hope that's answered a couple of your questions! Have a great weekend, y'all!

R x

By Jim Williams (Hiraghm) (65.70.121.97) on Wednesday, January 15, 2003 - 12:23 pm:

I curious, with 1.5 mil polys, what kind of hardware were you working on so that you didn't have to wait 10 minutes for a refresh?

That's just incredible. Thanks, Unclerory, reading about this has really inspired me to knuckle down and focus on the details.

By Christian Avalos (Cavalos) (64.213.56.192) on Wednesday, January 15, 2003 - 05:53 pm:

i´m curious too but in another field. Maybe the ship was modeled in LW but what about the rendering departament?

Best
Christian

By Elmar Moelzer (Elmar_Moelzer) (62.47.36.118) on Wednesday, January 15, 2003 - 08:26 pm:

Hey Christian
Just scroll up a bit there is Rory and he sais:
"She was built, textured and multi-pass rendered in Lightwave."
So this si cool, isnt it?!!
Great work fellows! I am looking forward to seeing this movie!
CU
Elmar