San Antonio, TX — The movie “Titanic,” has wowed both audiences and critics, and recently received 14 Academy Award nominations, a tie for the most nominations for any movie in history. Much of the appeal of the hit movie lies in the scenes of the great ship sinking, and some of these elements were created by animators at Digital Domain using LightWave 3D, announced NewTek, manufacturer of LightWave 3D, the Video Toaster and the Video Toaster Flyer.

“The models we used for ‘Titanic’ were huge, and LightWave was extremely adept at handling these enormous databases,” said Edward Kummer, Vice president of Digital Operations for Digital Domain. “Our team of artists appreciated being able to do all the modeling, texturing, lighting and rendering in a single package.”

“It’s always exciting to see the amazing things that skilled artists can do with our software,” said Brad Peebler, director of 3D graphics software development. “It’s particularly gratifying when LightWave 3D is able to play a role in a movie as successful, both commercially and artistically, as ‘Titanic.’ In addition, this is another example of the great synergy between LightWave and Digital Domain.”

To film “Titanic,” the movie makers created a set that included part of the ocean liner, as well as a series of miniature models of the ship. Digital Domain used LightWave 3D to create portions of the “Titanic” that were used as extensions to these sets and miniatures. In two very wide shots in the film, LightWave 3D was used to render a fully digital Titanic.

“We needed to animate the set extensions whenever the hull of the Titanic was visible, because in reality, the set consisted of scaffolding from the goldline on down,” said Kummer.

In addition, in one scene where the ship is up-ended and sinking, the set did not extend far enough. Digital Domain used LightWave 3D to create almost all of the decks that appeared above water in this scene. Digital Domain also used LightWave 3D to model, animate and render a sequence seen early in the film: showing the way in which the Titanic’s hull was punctured, how the ship sank and the impact on the ocean floor.

Digital Domain previously has used LightWave 3D for effects in other hit movies and numerous television commercials.

LightWave 3D helps professional 3D animators create stunning images and effects for motion pictures. LightWave 3D can render animations at resolutions of up to 8,000 by 8,000 pixels, defined by the artist in any ratio, including custom pixel aspect ratios. The LightWave 3D camera is based upon real-world functionality, providing Depth of Field, Lens Flares and extremely accurate Motion Blur, making it easier for animators to create film-like animations. The camera can be adjusted according to zoom factor, horizontal or vertical field of view, or focal length for matching background plates or accurately matching reference footage.

The animation system’s variable levels of anti-aliasing allow film animators to set the level for a particular shot, so they can trade off between speed and accuracy. Enhanced anti-aliasing, a feature implemented in LightWave 3D during a joint project with Digital Domain, effectively improves anti-aliasing quality by 500 percent.

A capability called Front Projection Mapping (FPM) enables animators to composite elements with background images and have them interact. Instead of typical 2D, flat composites, FPM creates depth for the background plate for more realistic results. LightWave 3D’s FPM, which is based on real-world FPM, allows 3D objects to cast shadows and reflections and to refract across the 2D image, thus creating seamless integration of the various elements. As an example, the 3D animated ocean liner in Titanic casts a shadow and reflection across a background plate of the ocean, and the shadow and reflections are deformed according to the shape of the waves.

LightWave 3D provides multiple light types, such as distant, point, spot, area and linear light. Combined, they provide very realistic shadowing effects, such as creating very sharp shadows at the base of an object that fade out the farther the objects recede from each other. All the light types can be used for ray-traced shadows, which means that animators don’t need to combine the lights to get the desired fall-off effect. This capability mimics a natural attribute of area lights and creates extremely realistic lighting.

In addition, LightWave 3D supports shadow mapping (spots only), which is much faster than ray tracing. Animators using LightWave 3D also can direct lights to not cast shadows at all, or to affect only specular lighting or diffuse lighting. With these tools, additional lights can be added to a scene to create a specific highlight, without creating unwanted shadows or additional lighting effects on the rest of the scene.

Animators appreciate LightWave 3D’s ease of use and short learning curve, which allows a film house staff to ramp up extremely quickly. LightWave 3D also includes ScreamerNet, a network rendering system that adds 999 render nodes at no additional cost — whereas makers of other 3D animation software generally charge $2,000 per render node (based on SGI workstation pricing). The software’s low cost per seat means that film houses can incorporate more animators per project without adding appreciably to the budget. And LightWave 3D’s cross-platform compatibility enables these groups to leverage their currently installed UNIX workstations while also integrating less expensive Macintosh or Microsoft Windows systems.