About the change in B5's effects

Foundation Imaging is no longer doing the special effects for Babylon 5, as of season 4. According to executive producer J. Michael Straczynski and others, Foundation was asking for more money than B5's budget would allow, and was going to assign junior animators to B5's effects. Warner Bros. and Babylonian Productions decided to instead do the work in-house, so have contracted with Netter Digital Entertainment, Inc. (parent company of Babylonion Productions) to produce the effects for season 4.

Following are JMS's messages on the subject. More details will be added to this page as they become available.

• There's a lot I can't say on this publicly at this point, though I hope to be able to do so soon. Business stuff that has to get ironed out first.

  What I will say about the CGI for season 4 is just this...that the equipment being used is equal to, or better than the equipment at Foundation; the animators are largely those who have worked on B5 in the past, who were let go some time ago when Foundation downsized, with a few outside additions, just as Foundation would add to its ranks from outside; and there should be *zero* difference onscreen to what has been the case on B5, except that it will continue to improve over what we've done in the past.

  As usual every season, we start out with lighter CGI episodes, and build to big stuff as we go. That will be the same this season as last. Our first really big CGI episode last season was "Messages," which was around episode #8, then "Severed," episode #10. This season we'll hit with big stuff around episode #6, which will likely be as big as "Severed." Rather than push stuff back, we've been able to move CGI stuff forward and expand on scenes.

  Basically, the bottom line is that whatever we've done on the show has been with one and only one goal: we thought we could make it better by doing X. Invariably, when people hear what's up, the inititial reaction is to panic...until they actually SEE what we're doing...and then it becomes clear. This is no different.

• "Who exactly owns the 3D models, the textures, all the stuff that Foundation made for the EFX in the episodes? I assume you or Warner Bro. does."

  WB owns it all. WB owns the copyright on B5 (as does every studio producing a series, as Paramount owns ST), and anything produced in the process of making that show.

  "Part of the reason I ask is, I swear I saw some models or parts of models in Hypernauts.""

  Very likely. I think the rule is that if you change it more than 50%, you can use it for secondary purposes.

  "Are the new guys (NDE) still using Lightwave 3D/Video Toasters etc.? It would be a major pain to try and convert all the 3D models over into a new format. Also, I'm a Lightwave fan . . ."

  I'm reasonably sure it's all been ported over to a PC platform, but it's still Lightwave. These are the latest machines off the line, and they're extremely fast and powerful.

• "With the change in CGI houses, can we expect a "new approach" or substantial change in the *design* of new ships, cities, creatures, etc?"

  Nope. The CGI is created by using set geometries, textures and other elements that are stored as data. We have virtually all that data at hand; as a result, it is made of the same identical elements, and will be indistinguishable from anything done before. So no, what's been established won't be changed at all. What we will do is increase the level of detail and texturing in some of the models, so that we can bring them closer to camera, something I've been wanting to do for a while now. (The closer we get to camera, the bigger and more massive the object appears.)

  I saw some of the first renderings today, and as this was the first stuff off the line, I was in hyper-critical mode, looking for something to quibble with. I couldn't see any difference between this and what we've had in the past. (One was a nifty little sunrise shot, the lights going off as a group of starfuries fly past.)

  There are also about six or seven new major ships we'll be seeing in the first batch of year 4 episodes that are being built now, and the first renderings on them looked very cool.

  "Or - are the show's principle designers still on board?"

  Yes and no. Steve Burg was a principal designer of the Agamemnon, the Starfury design, the Minbari cruisers, B5 itself, and other ships. He's hip-deep right now working on "Contact," and not available for a while yet. We've always had to sandwich in Steve's stuff between his major film gigs. (He did major design work on The Abyss, Waterworld, T2, others.) As soon as he's free, we'll send some stuff his way. Eric Chauvin, who has done our digital matte paintings (Centauri Prime exteriors, palace, others) and other stuff, like the ship-lift used by the Lumati, is still with B5, doing the same stuff.

• At a recent convention appearance, you said that Babylon 5 now had access to technology that could render creatures as well Jurassic Park. Is that no longer true?

  Actually, no, the equipment now in hand is equal to or better than the previous stuff, so that's still a very viable option. I just gotta find the story to go with it.