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Visual Effects in Discovery

The most available if not easiest way is to export the mesh as an .obj, import into LW, recreate any shaders, and reapply the textures.

I can't recall if LW has an .fbx importer, but if there is or you can find/buy one, that's an option too. That will save you the trouble of having to hook all the shaders and textures up again.
 
SOT, but is there a converter for a Maya object into LW object?

Lightwave can import both FBX and DAE. DAE doesn't play well with LW, so I stick with FBX. OBJ is an older format with some drawbacks (my last conversion ran into a problem with OBJ only supporting one UV map per object file. Luckily, I was batch-processing files, so it wasn't any trouble to run it all again to make them FBXs), though it is very lightweight. I'm not sure why, but FBX and DAE files are huge.

While Autodesk has a program that converts file formats to FBX, that app doesn't appear to support .ma or .mb files, because they like finding new ways to irritate me, so you'll need a copy of Maya (or another program that reads Maya files, if there is such a thing) to export the object into FBX or one of the other universal formats first.
 
Lightwave can import both FBX and DAE. DAE doesn't play well with LW, so I stick with FBX. OBJ is an older format with some drawbacks (my last conversion ran into a problem with OBJ only supporting one UV map per object file. Luckily, I was batch-processing files, so it wasn't any trouble to run it all again to make them FBXs), though it is very lightweight. I'm not sure why, but FBX and DAE files are huge.

While Autodesk has a program that converts file formats to FBX, that app doesn't appear to support .ma or .mb files, because they like finding new ways to irritate me, so you'll need a copy of Maya (or another program that reads Maya files, if there is such a thing) to export the object into FBX or one of the other universal formats first.
Thanks,Dave. I asked because I have a small project I will share here.
 
Re: Meshes, do you think Pixomondo use crease edges since they're almost all Maya. Theres few wires from the last movie, suspect they're all nurbs though. I'd like to see them reuse/rework models like the Klingon D4 from the Kelvin timeline to tie in those models and effects with Disco, (plus Disco is missing out on some D4 some dogfights in a planetary atmosphere).
 
I read a post that Lightwave is being used in DSC. Is this true?
My understanding is that Lightwave was going to be used at first, when they were setting up an in-house team to do the visual effects, but that fell by the wayside in early 2016 when that team was disbanded and they decided to go with an outside VFX studio.
 
My understanding is that Lightwave was going to be used at first, when they were setting up an in-house team to do the visual effects, but that fell by the wayside in early 2016 when that team was disbanded and they decided to go with an outside VFX studio.

You are correct that the in-house team was Lightwave. (The company I work for hired them all lock, stock, and barrel after they were let go by CBS. The pipeline department was not thrilled about having to get Lightwave up and running on the render farm again after years of not supporting it.)
 
Lost in Space's new trailer. These effects look top notch and it's an interesting comparison to Discovery.

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lost in space by way of prometheus.
 
Thanks for the Lightwave info, I used to use it back in the day. They were hiring a bunch of Maya roles on their website, hopefully for another season of Disco but it could be for something else, some interesting creature TD roles listed in there too. :-P
http://www.pixomondo.com/jobs/
 
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