LightWave 3D
From Toaster to Hollywood
The 3D software bundled with NewTek's Video Toaster that became an industry standard, powering the CGI for Babylon 5, Star Trek, and countless other productions.
LightWave 3D began as bundled software with NewTek’s Video Toaster in 1990 and evolved into one of the industry’s most respected 3D packages. Used to create the groundbreaking CGI for Babylon 5, it proved that affordable software could produce broadcast and film-quality animation. LightWave demonstrated that the Amiga creative scene could birth professional tools used at the highest levels.
Fast facts
- Developer: NewTek; originally Allen Hastings, under Aegis
- First release: 1990 (with Video Toaster) — but descended from Allen Hastings’s Videoscape 3D, shown in 1986 and published by Aegis
- Standalone: 1994
- Famous for: Babylon 5 CGI
- Architecture: Modeller + Layout
- Status: Still actively developed
Television Credits
LightWave powered major productions:
| Production | Role |
|---|---|
| Babylon 5 | All spacecraft, effects |
| Star Trek (various) | Visual effects |
| SeaQuest DSV | The submarine itself, and much of the underwater environment, “created and rendered entirely with LightWave 3D” |
| Quantum Leap | Two morphing characters, via the Toaster’s effects suite |
| Hercules/Xena | Effects work |
| Warlock: The Armageddon | Amigas used for many of the film’s effects |
| Commercials | Countless |
The Babylon 5 story is about money, not firsts
This entry used to claim Babylon 5 was the “first TV series with all-CGI effects”. Jimmy Maher, whose account of the Amiga is the most careful one available, declines that framing in as many words:
Such a use of computer graphics imaging (CGI) in film was not precisely new; major Hollywood productions such as Tron and The Last Starfighter had previously made use of such techniques.
What changed was the price of doing it. Foundation Imaging’s visual effects director Ron Thornton made the comparison himself: The Last Starfighter’s CGI had needed a $15 million Cray X-MP. Less than a decade later, Foundation produced “equally impressive effects using a rendering farm of twelve Toaster-equipped Amigas running LightWave 3D”.
The budget tells the same story. Babylon 5’s pilot — which premiered on 22 February 1993 — had a total visual effects budget of $250,000, which Thornton put at “about one-fourth the cost of an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation”, a contemporary space show still shooting models.
What Foundation displaced was physical craft. Those shots “had traditionally been created by filming meticulously crafted and painted model miniatures”, with only lasers, explosions and engine glow added afterwards.
The show’s effects team taught the readers
While Babylon 5 was airing, Foundation Imaging were writing a monthly 3D tutorial series for Amiga Shopper — “The Three Ds of 3D”. Issue 45 bills them plainly as “the people behind the graphics for the TV program Babylon 5”, promising to show readers “how to create 3D images like this”; issue 46 names the author as “Mojo, the man who works with Ron Thornton on the TV series Babylon 5”.
A working television effects house, publishing its methods month by month in a consumer computer magazine, for readers with the same software on the same machine. There is no modern equivalent.
Architecture
LightWave’s distinctive approach:
| Component | Function |
|---|---|
| Modeler | 3D object creation |
| Layout | Animation, rendering |
| Separate apps | Unusual but effective |
| Hub | Communication between both |
Key features
What made LightWave competitive:
- Efficient rendering - Fast for its era
- Good documentation - Learnable
- Affordable - Fraction of competitors
- Capable - Professional results possible
- Active development - Continual improvement
From Amiga to Cross-Platform
LightWave’s evolution:
| Era | Platform |
|---|---|
| 1986-1990 | Amiga, as Allen Hastings’s Videoscape 3D under Aegis |
| 1990-1994 | Amiga (with Toaster), as LightWave |
| 1994+ | Amiga standalone |
| 1995+ | Windows, Mac |
| 2000s+ | Continued development |
Community
LightWave fostered:
- Active user forums
- Tutorial culture
- Plugin ecosystem
- Professional networking
- Skills that transferred to other packages
Legacy
LightWave 3D proved that professional 3D tools didn’t require professional prices — and it had a run-up. Hastings had been building Amiga 3D software since 1985, and Videoscape reached NewTek before the Toaster made it famous. Artists trained on LightWave went on to work at major studios. The techniques developed for Babylon 5 influenced television production standards. And it all started bundled with an Amiga expansion card.