For those who were asking about...

 Posted on 2/7/1992 by STRACZYNSKI [Joe] to GENIE


For those who were asking about the neeperish aspects of the show....

BABYLON 5 will utilize as much state of the art EFX as possible. It
will combine mattes, live-action, miniatures and computer graphics imagery in
the Toaster environment using its video frame grabbing capability. There will
be three massive Amiga workstations with multi- gigabyte capability, rendering
simultaneously via an Ethernet network, as well as a Macintosh II, which will
run Adope Photoshop for complex texture map creation. The Lightwave 3D
software program will also be used.

The result will be sophisticated texture maps, and realistic looking
ships and objects with streaking, tinting and defects. All objects rendered
will maintain an equal 1:1 ratio even between objects of differing size and
mass and speed. The beauty pass and the matte pass will both be rendered in
the Toaster/Lightwave environment, then combined with live action via a
Quantel Harry (whatever the hell THAT is). The result will be such
capabilities as that of moving from 50 kilometers away from B5 to within 10
yards, all in one shot -- which would be impossible using models.

I understand *most* of what I've just typed here. Our tech guys provided
me with this. I'm now going to lay down for a while....

jms