Lightwave used in The Dark Knight

It's SIGGRAPH Time and here come the Lightwave Press Releases!

LightWave 3D® was used by artist Stuart Penn at Framestore, for key scenes of one of 2008’s biggest box office successes, "The Dark Knight." A highlight of the LightWave®-generated work appears during the movie’s notable Hong Kong sequence.

"I prefer to model in LightWave 3D because of the interactivity of its comprehensive modeling toolset which allows me to turn around accurate models very quickly. All these shots were in IMAX® resolution and LightWave ensured that the models would hold up and look realistic," said Stuart Penn, joint head of environments, Framestore. "LightWave also allowed us to build a complete model quickly while giving us the flexibility to replace as little or as much of the original plate as was needed on the fly."

Using LightWave, Penn modeled two Hong Kong buildings that Batman jumps between, and from which he is later extracted by a C130 Hercules transport plane. Penn also modeled the damaged sections of one building, seen after the corner has been blown off, as well as larger areas of the building that were replaced or extended.

"Every day, I am reminded about how versatile LightWave 3D is – it is used for $300 million-plus blockbusters, as well as for television, animated shorts, ad work, video game design or any other graphics project," said Jay Roth, president of 3D division, NewTek. "The fact that Framestore chose LightWave 3D for modeling key scenes of 'The Dark Knight,' which is on its way to being one of the biggest movie box office successes ever, is gratifying for the NewTek team."