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."

Batman vs. Batman vs. Batman

The fake movie trailer may be the highest form of the cinematic arts.
I'd go see this movie:

Streaming Media Readers Choice Awards

The TriCaster has been nominated to the Streaming Media Readers’ Choice Awards in the Encoding Hardware category.  To vote go to the Readers' Choice Awards page, enter your name and email, and you’ll be taken to the voting page. Voting is open until August 25 and while supporting NewTek you are also entering to win an 8GB iPod Touch! 

Check the TriCaster box under the “Encoding Hardware” category and write in NewTek TriCaster under the “Webcasting Platform” and “IPTV Hardware” categories.

NewTek LiveText Hands On Review

LiveText is NewTek's standalone CG (character generator) with Ethernet connectivity to the TriCasters and VT (TriCaster 2.0 or VT 5.2 required). This lets you off load CG editing to a second computer or laptop so you can either pre-produce your CGs or have a dedicated CG operator during a live switch.

One of the drawbacks to the TriCaster has always been the fact that it was originally envisioned to be run by a single operator. This is great for a simple production but as you add cameras replays and dynamic CG pages the work load can pretty quickly overwhelm one person. NewTek has been addressing this with several of their recent new products like the TimeWarp Instant Replay controller and now LiveText.

Installation of LiveText on my computer (WinXP SP3, 2.66 GHz Core2Duo with two gigabytes RAM and an Invidia GF8400 graphics card) was straight forward and no configuration was necessary. It installs and you are ready to go. On the TriCaster (or VT) you just select the LiveText machine just as if it were running iVGA by picking it, by name, off a pull down list in the 'External' (iVGA) panel. This presumes your network is up and running and the two computers can 'see' each other.

The TriCaster 2.0 software sports an 'Ext' button on the overlay section of the interface that once engaged it feeds the signal from LiveText directly to the overlay. All the TriCaster operator has to do is verify that the CG in the overlay display window is the one he wants and then either 'Fade' or 'Take' to display the CG.

The LiveText operator can create pages on the fly and then assign them to the TriCaster's overlay by simply clicking the red 'Live' button or by double clicking the pages thumbnail. If the overlay is live on the TriCaster the page will be displayed instantly so it's possible to update a page while it is being displayed.


Creating or editing pages is very straight forward using the large page edit window. The interface is almost identical to the Edit Text panel in TriCaster 2.0 and very similar to the CG Designer in VT[5] so current users will have no problem adapting. LiveText uses whatever fonts you have installed in Windows and the font selection list actually displays the fonts so they are easy to choose.

You can interactively resize text, apply face colors or even complex gradients in addition to apply outlines and several different types of shadows. LiveText ships with about fifty predefined gradients and user text styles can be added to style preset lists with a mouse click. Of course you get a full compliment of horizontal and vertical alignment, layer ordering, and grouping controls.


LiveText also includes a selection of basic drawing tools so that you can easily create graphic elements directly in the program. If you need to import more complicated graphics - LiveText supports most common bitmap graphic formats with alpha channels intact. PSD from PhotoShop. Are supported but have their layers flattened on import so be aware.

You can easily create scrolls and crawls with full control over speed and end behavior i.e. Loop, scroll off screen or stop on last frame. It's also possible to lock elements on the page so that they don't move and you can even combine scrolls and crawls (scawls?)on the same page if you care to.

Ninty-nine fully editable templates are included so you don't even have to start from scratch with everything from full screen promos to lower thirds. These serve as both pre-done pages you can and examples of some of the things you can accomplish in LiveText.

The last cool feature is LiveText supports both 4:3 and widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio and automatically configures itself to match your TriCaster 's output mode.

The bottom line is anyone doing sports with their TriCaster should consider LiveText a must have. For everyone else, including VT owners, you should give it a closer look because it might really make your life easier. By off loading the whole CG process to a dedicated operator you can reduce the stress of a live production by whole orders of magnitude. You can also free up your TriCaster during pre-production allowing you to build CGs on a separate computer.

Unlike some versions of the VT's CG Designer LiveText seems to be rock solid reliable, the installation was painles. The only thing I'd like to see added is away for the LiveText operator to remotely fade the overlay on the TriCaster up and down and cross fade from one overlay to another. But as it stands this is a great addition for both TriCaster and VT users.

LiveText requires a cpu with SSE2 instruction set (typically a Pentium 4 or better) A DirectX 9 compatible graphics card (AGP or PCI-E recommended) and at least 1 GB RAM (2 or more preferred) and a VT with version 5.2 software (shipping soon) or any TriCaster (Tricaster, TriCaster Pro, TriCaster Studio or TriCaster BroadCast) with 2.0 software.

TriCaster to Stream Criss Angel Imploding

We'll, actually Criss Angel's attempt to escape the SpyGlass Resort in Clearwater Florida before it implodes. The live webcast or A&E's Mindfreak hosted by Tim Vincent will be at both www.aetv.com and www.crissangel.com Wednesday, July 30.

The Local ABC Affiliate:

Large video screens will provide a feed of the TV coverage. Illusionist Criss Angel will attempt to leave the building in time before the strategically placed explosives fire off destroying the building's columns. If all works as planned the building will collapse on to itself. At the same time, Criss Angel will be taken away to safety after he escapes his binds.

Criss Angel does some pretty freaky stuff so I'm sure this will go beyond the escape-from-straight-jacket-and-run-out sort of thing.

And look for my hands on review of NewTek's LiveText tomorrow. I'll try to get that posted early in the day.

Visual Effects Emmy Nominations

For the eleventh year in a row all the nominees for the Visual Effects Emmy are Lightwave Users. Proving once again that NewTek owns the TV market.

2008 Emmy-Nominated LightWave 3D Users:

Outstanding Special Visual Effects for A Series:

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles • Pilot • FOX • C2 Pictures in association with Warner Bros. Television
James Lima, /Visual Effects Supervisor/
Chris Zapara, /CG Supervisor/
Lane Jolly, /Compositing Supervisor/
Steve Graves, /3D Modeler/Animator/
Rick Schick, /Compositor/
Jeff West, /Compositor/
Bradley Mullennix, /Modeler

Jericho • Patriots And Tyrants • CBS • CBS Paramount Television
Andrew Orloff, /Visual Effects Supervisor/
Blythe Dalton, /Visual Effects Producer/
John Stirber, /Special Effects Supervisor/
Chris Jones, /Compositing Supervisor/
Michael Cliett, /CGI Supervisor/
Lane Jolly, /Lead Visual Effects Compositor/
Johnathan R. Banta, /Lead Matte Artist/
Josh Hooker, /Lead CGI Artist/

Battlestar Galactica • He That Believeth In Me • Sci Fi Channel • Universal Media Studios in association with R & D TV*
Gary Hutzel, /Visual Effects Supervisor/
Michael Gibson, /Visual Effects Producer/
David Takemura, /Visual Effects Coordinator/
Doug Drexler, /CGI Supervisor/
Kyle Toucher, /CG Artist/
Sean Jackson, /CG Artist/
Pierre Drolet, /CG Modeler/
Aurore de Blois, /Senior Compositor/
Derek Ledbetter, /Compositor/

Outstanding Special Visual Effects for a Miniseries, Movie or A Special:

Life After People • History Channel • Flight 33 Productions for History Television Network Productions, A&E Television Networks
Matt Drummond, /Visual Effects Supervisor/
Max Ivins, /Visual Effects Supervisor/
Steffen Schlachtenhaufen, /Visual Effects Producer/
Melinka Thompson-Godoy, /Visual Effects Producer/
Andrea D'Amico, /Visual Effects Producer/
Danny Kim, /Matte Painter/Compositor/
Dave Morton, /Lead Visual Effects Artist
Jim May, /Digital Artist
Casey Benn, /Digital Artist/

NewTek expands Tech Support Hours

NewTek Tech support now is open seven days a week, 8:30 AM to 6:30 PM.