Tell us a bit about yourself.

I'm the son of Abdulla Al-Muharraqi, a well-known Bahraini artist. Throughout my childhood, I was exposed to the environment of art and colour. My father had tons of books, so I had a lot of different artists and many different worlds to learn from. Additionally, he showed me the traditional ways of painting, the anatomy of the human body and how it works, how sketches are thought through and the best way to execute them.

He was my best teacher, not only because he was a father who wanted his son to learn, but also because he was the best artist in the area. He has illustrations on the walls of palaces all over the Arabian countries, and the rulers of this part of the world knew him well for his unique contribution to art, in addition to his cartoons that depicted daily life and spoke with the voice of the people.

When did you see LightWave 3D for the first time?

Well the first version I worked on was back in the 90s, I think it was version 5 or 5.5. I did not like the layout a lot as I was a Macintosh user then and Apple artists are not used to work with anything that looks like PC and I did not use it at all. Then, in early 2002, I was going through some 3D illustrations on the net and stumbled upon a few stunning images and when I checked on the software these artists had used it was... LightWave 3D! After that I got a demo version of 7.0 and I started to like Modeler. I had a few comments on the layout, but when version 7.5 was released and I saw the problems had been updated and the potential and flexibility of the package I bowled over. That's when I bought the package. I will happily admit that I had been struggling over the last few years to find a solution for my needs and I was very happy to get the solution all in one box. LightWave has been my best friend. It has proven to me that it is the tool that best fits my painting skills.

When did you first start using it?

Well I only started using it in my work after I got comfortable with the package. Many artists expect to be good at something in a short time, just because they are talented but I disagree... I think, as with all things, you need to respect the amount of information that this package possesses. There are tons of things to do and tons of ways to do them, so there was a respectable learning curve that needed to be climbed before I could say "I am a LightWaver!" My first nice result was on a few packaging projects when I was working in the advertising business, and it only moved forward from there.

What do you like about the package?

When I look at the interface I still can't believe that, although it looks simple, it can help me create such excellent results. Most of the other major software titles have worked on making their layouts attractive. With LightWave, the layout does not look all that impressive but the workflow is extremely fast around my fingers, and that means a lot to me. I rarely need to look down to my keyboard or search for a button. I think it is very important to move around quickly and to have a successful workflow - something everyone should agree on.

What could be improved for you?

I really would like to have the option or the ability to track points onto the footage that I load into LightWave to give me the ability to place my 3D scene onto video without having to jump to other programs like the Realviz products.

Shadows in Layout should have soft options for the distant light that would just blur out the shadows.

Colour gradations in the shadows! I wish we could have gradations of colour selections in shadows from different lights: some plug-ins can do it but if it was built-in it would work better than a external plug-in.

More imports and export options from other applications in the market. AutoCAD, 3dsmax, etc.