hotlinks :

• Lightwave Product Page
• Newtek Website
• New Magic contacts

LightWave 3D^® Powers Serenity VFX

San Antonio, Texas—September 29, 2005

Zoic Studios Relies on NewTek's Award-winning 3D Solution for Visuals for Joss Whedon's Latest Motion Picture

NewTek, Inc., manufacturer of industry-leading 3D animation and video products, today announced that Zoic Studios relied on the award-winning LightWave 3D® as a key tool in producing visual effects shots for Universal Pictures' Serenity, a Joss Whedon film. Zoic produced about 220 shots for the film, and for many of these LightWave® was used to model, texture, animate, light and render the 3D elements. Of those assets that were created in other 3D applications, many were subsequently rendered in LightWave.

"We're honored that the incredibly talented, award-winning artists at Zoic are using LightWave 3D for so many of their projects," said Jay Roth, President of NewTek's 3D Product Group.

"LightWave has now been used in over 180 films, many of them Oscar nominees and winners, and NewTek is committed to making LightWave a uniquely powerful tool for feature film production, essential to any pipeline, complimentary to any set of professional production tools, and the most complete and flexible solution for any digital artist or producer."

In 2002, Joss Whedon joined forces with Loni Peristere and the folks at Zoic Studios to create an innovative visual style for the special effects for Whedon's new television series, Firefly. The series picked up an enthusiastic audience during its run, as well as critical acclaim for its well-turned characters, stories and dialog. Zoic's artists took an Emmy and a VES award for their effects work in the series, for which they had used LightWave for 3D content creation and rendering. The DVD has had strong sales, and last year Universal Pictures and Whedon's production company, Mutant Enemy, went into production on a big-screen adaptation, Serenity.

Emile Edwin Smith, a Visual Effects Supervisor for Zoic Studios, helped oversee Zoic's work on the production of the visual effects for both projects. Regarding the work on the theatrical film project, on which he was CG Supervisor and Peristere was Visual Effects Supervisor, Smith said, "Our primary animation and rendering package was LightWave, and we did a good portion of the modeling in it as well, taking advantage of the great modeling tools. We rendered the majority of the shots and FX in it, utilizing the dynamics system for the explosions, the particle system and HyperVoxels™ for missile trails and firefly FX, radiosity rendering, etc. The biggest challenge we nailed with LightWave was the look of the renders. We did do some work in mental ray, but we were able to get the same results out of LightWave and see those results so much faster that it helped our production immensely. LightWave's robustness as a workhorse helped us fix any issues we encountered quickly."

Pricing and Availability

LightWave® [8] is currently available for Windows 2000/XP and Mac OS X, for a suggested retail price of AUST$ $1295 (inc GST). Registered owners of LightWave® [7] or earlier may upgrade to version [8] for AUST$ $649 (inc GST). In addition to our regular retail price offerings, the following special purchase options are available for a limited time:

LightWave Full Single Unit:

• LightWave [8] full seat, PDF manual, Vue 5 Infinite, free update to V9: $1299 (Inc GST)
• LightWave [8] printed manual: $159 (Inc GST)

For registered owners of LightWave [7.5] or earlier:

• LightWave [8] upgrade, PDF manual, Vue 5 Infinite, free update to V9:$649 (Inc GST)
• LightWave [8] printed manual: $159 (Inc GST)

For Registered owners of LightWave [8]:

• LightWave 3D V9 upgrade with PDF manual and Vue 5 Infinite: $649 (Inc GST) (Get Vue 5 now, Receive the V9 upgrade when V9 ships)
• LightWave V9 printed manual: $159 (Inc GST)

Those purchasing any LightWave [8] full or upgrade product offering after August 01, 2005 qualify for a free upgrade to LightWave 3D version V9 upon its release.

Newtek in Australia and New Zealand

NewTek products proudly distributed in Australia and New Zealand by New Magic Australia.

About New Magic Australia Pty Ltd

About NewTek

With headquarters in San Antonio, Texas, NewTek is a leading provider of full-featured video editing, live production, presentation, animation and special effects tools including LightWave 3D®, winner of the 2003 Primetime Emmy® Engineering Award, TriCaster™ and VT[4]™. NewTek launched the desktop video revolution in 1990 with the release of the legendary Video Toaster®. The company's products are used worldwide on projects ranging from home video to feature film. Recent television and film projects using NewTek production tools include Fantastic Four, The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl in 3D, Sin City, The Aviator, Aliens of the Deep, "I, Robot", Spiderman 2, Battlestar: Galactica, Access Hollywood and Entertainment Tonight. Recent game titles include Doom III, Unreal Tournament, and Age of Mythology.