What is your role on the project?
Primarily, I am a Lightwave 3D Artist, although I do have other duties from time to time that relate to my position, before I came on board the B5 team, in MIS.

Most of my day includes reducing existing Lightwave 3D models down to a real-time manageable size, texturing and surfacing those models to try to retain as much of the "show" look as the programmers will let me, and coordinating the jungle of files I create with my co-workers.

Occasionally, I get to do the really cool stuff (not that making this game isn't cool...), like creating [3D model] ships from concept drawings or doing animations for the marketing department.

What are you currently working on?
Several things actually...

I am responsible for the B5 Station model (and likely will be for the better part of the development cycle). It takes up quite a few resources in the current game engine, so I am revisiting the model and surfacing to trim it out a bit.

This is a tough balance to keep, as frame rate is very important in a flight simulator, but also the look of the show must be kept. I have the heavy burden of deciding what details have to be forsaken from the show models to keep the model a manageable size.

Our high detail level game model is hovering around 4,400 Polygons with 1.5 MB of texture images, as compared to the 120,000-150,000 polygons and 6.5 MB of images that make up the shows model. There is an Ultra High Detail version planned (for FX cards that can handle the processing) that will be probably about twice the resources for the High Detail version.

I am also re-visiting past models that I have done already to add detail and fix things the programmers want or need done. The list of ships I have done so far (excluding the station) are the Centauri Cruiser, Centauri Fighter, Raider (Traditional), Raider (Special), Freighter w/Cargo Pods, Freighter w/Tanks, EA Orbital Defense, and Cargo Loader.

Lastly, I am also working on a new model never seen in the show. It is for the Abbai race. This is where my job gets really fun!

What is the hardest part of your job?
Enduring the (constant) pain of low polygon counts and small image allocations in our game models.

One day, we will be able to use models like those used in the show. We're almost there, a couple more years and a few better FX cards, and some faster machines.

If we don't do much in space for the next 50 or so years, at least we will be able to dream about it, and in vivid color!

What is the coolest part of your job?

The job itself and the fact that I get to work on a project I only dreamed about working on 5 or 6 years ago!

I originally started messing with 3D Animation stuff in the old Amiga days with the Video Toaster, and I've been a fan of Babylon 5 since I first saw the 2 hour pilot on TV.