Babylon 5? hehee.. had freinds actually working on the effects for that. Loved it in it's time, but like many pioneering cgi tv shows, it's effects haven't stood the test of time too well. The later seasons still look good, though, since there were lightwave advancements.

And for the record, back then Lightwave cost more then $2,000, and a video toaster add on would have set you back another 2-3 grand as well. You forget, I was using lightwave back then.

And you didn't use an amiga 500, you used an amiga 1000 or 2000  (later 2500) fully loaded for bear. My one freind had 5 amiga 200 systems networked together (networking alone set him back almost $1000 back then!), and his loan to set up his amiga videotoaster studio ran him $50,000. I well remember him, because that loan and the amount of time invested in setting up his studio almost cost him his marrage.

He currently still is a lightwave teacher at Dave's school. (Last time I spoke with him, which was last year.)

So don't say you could product B5 on a $200 system.. then as today, you needed state of the art hardware and software, and the costs were FAR from consumer based. I REALLY wanted a video toaster, but just couldn't come up with the $4,000 just for a 3d toy.

Even a single still frame render back then on my amiga 2000 would take overnight. Doing TV production on lower end hardware was unthinkable, because 30 frames (1 second) would take you 30 days to render!
 

Way too many people take way too many things way too seriously.