NewTek's LightWave 3D, Autodesk's Discreet Combustion, and Wondertouch's ParticleIllusion were used in the production of Battlestar Galactica to maintain a high standard for its visual effects. The show received an Emmy nomination for the effects and won a Visual Effects Society Award for an animated character in an episode. Chris Zapara, VFX supervisor for Zoic on Battlestar Galactica, says todays effects are significantly different from practical models, optical printers, and other methods used in the original series and that shot turnarounds are no longer limited according to lab processing, but instead depend on render times. Almost all 3D elements are generated in NewTek's LightWave, and most compositing is done with Discreet Combustion, but some is done in After Effects, ParticleIllusion is used to generate small details in shots that have many effects. Zapara notes that most of the group's shots are space and centurion shots as well as set extensions. Among the most significant improvements made by the studio in the past season has been in scope and detail. Battlestar Galactica generally tries to avoid a pattern related to a certain number of effects in a scene, and some episodes fully reuse stock footage from earlier episodes, and others have dozens of battle shots with hundreds of ships. The biggest challenge is making effects shots look like all others in the show. The team spends considerable time either tracking our work into jittery, out-of-focus plates, or it is messing up our all-CG shots with camera bumps and focus slips to match the shots around it.