Earlier on this year, there was a shabby low-tech website (at www.r50rd.co.uk - have a look!) that was the talk of robotics geeks and 3D artists alike. It showed a Mini Cooper that had been transformed into a robot rescue machine by a kindly old English inventor. It looked good, really good, but there was the suspicion that it couldn't possibly be real... We speak to the man behind the modelling, in 3D, of the Mini robot, Jose Perez.

Tell us a bit about yourself.

I'm a freelance Visual FX artist. My work includes contributions to TV, film, music videos, commercials, and the print industry. I currently work out of my home office in Miami, Florida. I've always lived here, except for a brief period of five months in California, where I got my foot in the door of the TV/CG industry. Personally, my interests are all things sci-fi, anime, comics and computer technology. Oh, and I'm a big movie buff, all genres. When not in front of a computer, I spend my time with my beautiful wife and two daughters.

Did you weather the hurricanes in Florida without any mishap?

Yes, fairly well, we were spared most of the nasty stuff, as all of the storms turned northward right before getting to our part of town. So just ugly weather, and a whole lot of storm shutters to put up and down :)

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

I believe it was around 1989-1990, not sure. Towards the end of the eighties, after being an avid Commodore user, as well as other personal computers, towards the end of high school, I saved up to get my first Amiga. It was an Amiga 500, and I started dabbling with Turbo Silver and then Imagine. Like many other artists I know, I dreamed of someday working on TV or film or some field using these CG tools that were becoming more powerful on a daily basis. It was at this time on one of my frequent trips to the local Amiga store, that I spotted an Amiga 2000 with a Newtek Video Toaster - I was floored...

When did you first start using it?

It was at this point that started to save up some money, and eventually sold my A500. It was probably around 1991, or so, and I had just seen some pretty pictures in a graphics magazine for a pilot of Babylon 5... So after counting all my pennies, I ran out and got me an Amiga 2000 and a Video toaster. Eventually got an Amiga 4000 as well, and was messing around with LightWave on my own, and making video/3D and graphics for corporate video and early internet web stuff.

What do you like about the package?

What's not to like? Well specifically, I've always been a fan of the Modeler portion, which coincidentally happens to be what I specialise in. Modelling and texturing.

What could be improved for you?

For me, it's all about being fast and productive, and there are a lot of repetitive tasks in modelling. I would like to be able to record strokes/techniques, and be able to re-apply them back on different element selections to duplicate and move on. Something else that I use a lot are bevel and shift tools to add small and large details. Would be nice if the (individual and group) bevelling tools had more flexible and extensive controls, to say automatically merge and correct points that are too close or colliding. Aside from that, the modelling toolset inside of LightWave 3D are the best and most comfortable that I have ever used.