FAQ & RAQ - Frequently and Rarely Asked Questions

1. What's the history of Iguana?

I started the actual development of Iguana in June 2002, after some tests. Iguana 1.0.0 dates back to the end of June 2002. The current release is 1.5. The idea of writing Iguana was wandering in my mind from the end of 2001, and the first tests were made in the beginning of 2002. I left me previous job to pursue this project on a full-time basis. I actually thought it would have taken less time - I had given myself just one year. As I said in the features section, I originally conceived it as a photon mapping based renderer, but when I finished with it in March 2003 I felt that I had not reached my goal - I was very disappointed by the whole photon mapping thing. Too clumsy, too messy, too much time to set up a scene, and too prone to problems like noise and flickering. So I was facing two different possibilities: either I would give up with it and go back to work like every good boy should, or I would go on exploring with the possibilities (and difficulties) of radiosity and give Iguana a whole new skin. You know, I never liked to give up... So, down with pen and paper again - I re-conceived Iguana as a radiosity renderer.
To my great regret, I actually had to keep out caustics from this implementation - they were in the design, but time was running and I wasn't sure I could stabilize that part in a satisfactory way, so I cut 'em off. Sorry.

Iguana was entirely developed and debugged on Red Hat Linux, and tested both on Linux and on Windows. Iguana wasn't originally intended to be ported on Windows, 'cause I thought that it would have been a mess. But it turned out to be far easier than I thought - it took me just two weeks to do the port, with all the multithreading and stuff. Good for me.

Version 1.1.5 (added support for HDRI and image based lighting) was done by the end of March 2004, after some people told me that HDRI would have been a nice feature to add to Iguana. Well, you told me, I did it. And it turned out to be a really nice feature indeed, as you can see from the new images in the gallery.

Version 1.5 (current: added interactivity, full integration with Maya, new anti-aliasing and filtering) was done by mid December 2004, since some fixes and improvements had to be done. A lot of optimizations, too. Interactivity is something that came to my mind after I saw some rendering packages and what they could do, and I thought that it could be a nice feature.

2. Ok fine, but why did you do it?

Good question. Well, I could start saying that at a certain age, I was unhappy with the things I was doing. I had been working for years in the post industry, as a system administrator (that I never did with a great enthusiasm, I have to say) and as a software developer - so to speak, because the productions I got involved in were never long enough to really do what software development should be. You know, my country isn't exactly the center of the world...
On the other hand, there was a lot of buzz around about the new rendering technologies, first of all global illumination. And there was nothing for Maya at that time. That's why my mind started spinning around what could be done for that. So what? I decided to jump - and it actually is quite a long jump, because it's almost three years now...

3. Who the heck are you?

My name is Enzo Catalano, and I'm an Italian guy. The company I've been working for more than five years is called Ubik, it's based in Milan (Northern Italy, where I live) and it's quite known here. Please take a moment to check out their website, www.ubik.it. Ubik is the leading visual effects company in Italy, they (we) did quite amazing stuff in the past. And I had a wonderful time with them, 'cause they're the best people I had the luck to work with, very committed and passionate.

4. So, what do you expect now?

Well, Iguana is like a little kid. My little son, we could say. I would like it could grow, because it can. I feel that it can evolve into something more mature, and more capable to give an answer to what the 3D and graphic community is asking for. I feel that interactivity like Iguana's will be something people will ask for in the future. I would like it could acquire all the features it's lacking now, still keeping its simple approach and ease of use.
As I already said, Iguana is not a product yet, and that's why it's free, still I think some quite pretty things can be done with it. So you are all invited.