Interview with BSG effects house Zoic Studios

Battlestar Galactica Online has posted a great interview with the Zoic team responsible for BSG's amazing visual effects:

BSG-O: Which tools did you use, for the mini-series, but also for the episodes of the series?

Zoic: We primarily use Lightwave for the 3d animation, with the occasional use of Maya for most of the Cylon Centurions. To composite the imagery, we use a combination of Combustion and After Effects.

BSG-O: Which effect was the hardest or the longest to conceive (Mini-series and episodes)?

Zoic: For the mini-series, we thought the jump effect was going to be the hardest. We spent a lot of time developing an intricate look for it; after all it was going to be the "Warp Effect" of the series and would persist through the life of the show. The director had another idea, that is was extremely quick and not that eventful, we took his direction and were quite pleased with the way it turned out, which was simple and concise. The actual hardest effect to finish would have been the ragnar cloud. We shot multiple cloud tank elements, which we found looked too traditional. We ended up displacing 3d geometry and layering it with volumetric elements to get the final look.

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Comments

[cobolhacker]

> For the mini-series, we thought the jump effect was going to be the hardest

Of all the effects in the show, I think that this is one of the best. One of the key Naturalistic SciFi elements that Ron Moore and co. is all about. With Star Trek or Star Wars, FTL is a big fancy production with big sound and stars flying. But with BSG it's simple. "Ready for FTL." "Jump!" Done. Nothing fancy. Just one of the machines on the ship, nothing special.