| The Video Toaster and Lightwave: together they've changed the look
of commercial video, and they seem destined to change anime production
and make desktop anime as popular as desktop publishing. NewTek is the
company that created the original Toaster, an advanced video production
card for the Amiga personal computer. Phillip Nelson of NewTek brought
to A-Kon the latest version of the MS-DOS Toaster card, along with a demonstration
of the Lightwave software. |
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| Lightwave is a high-resolution modeling and animation program that
lets video artists produce nearly any image they can imagine on a typical
PC, then create convincing animated output. "We realized, `Wow, you can
do anime-looking stuff real fast on a computer,'" said video producer Sergio
Rosas at the Saturday Lightwave demonstration. |
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| You've seen Lightwave in use and haven't noticed that it's computer
animation. The Borg Queen in Star Trek: Voyager, the 1997 and 1998 CBS
television series promos - all were examples of Lightwave in action. The
program has been used to turn these anime story boards and art concepts
into animation for anime projects, Rosas noted. |
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| Lightwave has also been used for projects such as the opening animation
for the two Anime Central conventions. There's a good chance that Lightwave
will find its way into anime production as well, although another program,
Animo from Cambridge, has proven to be more popular in replacing cel animation
without eliminating the flat look of traditional cel work. |
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