Hawking on Discovery Channel

# 1 27-04-2010 , 10:34 PM

Lead Modeler - Framestore
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hey all

for those in the states, you can see my work on Discovery Channel on the Stephen hawkings Universe series thats just began. We have to wait until May her in the UK to see it but you can see a fair bit on Discoverys Site: https://dsc.discovery.com/videos/step...ing-ocean.html

Its good to see my stuff in action after many months of being responsible for designing, modelling and texturing alot of it.

I was responsible for creature designs and built 3 out of the main 4 models. the only one I didnt do was the yellow predator creature. But that has changed since I last saw it over a year ago, originally the color was like a croc and it looked better for it IMHO. But thats production for you. I also created most of the starship models, the main one being the lightspeed ship and its launch gantry, which I was very proud to see come together as the model took me bloody ages to do as its covered in greebles and took a while to open (cup of tea job) the star backdrops and also a huge cityscape matte were done by me, plus tons of textures and a lightspeed train too....

not all of it looks awsome, there are some hummer moments and there are changes here and there but generally its good for tv and something for the resume...enjoy

cheers
Jay

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# 2 28-04-2010 , 06:04 AM

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The cityscape looked amazing mate,
and i liked the light speed train, simplistic yet believable for a design on it.
The light speed ship looked nice in hd user added image

.
did you do the blend shapes on the aliens?
loved the arse wobble on the sucker alien one if that was you LoL.
Were all of the galactic images your matts?
some of them looked more like particle effects then matts, if that's the case, hats off to ya mate. user added image

all in all bloody good work mate. wish i could have watched over your shoulder while you did it.
look forward to the next installment next week. cant remember what episode it is off the top.

Funny that you'd be working on a hawking documentary, Theoretical physics, and cosmology are a hobby of mine, love them both, cant do the math involved in it, but by god i can talk the talk wiht the best of them when it comes to the theories and the big questions user added image

off subject
i'm tying to send you a update for the model mate, but Google wont let me login for some reason.

[edit] look for one from my hotmail mate. g-mail isnt working atm.

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Last edited by G-Man; 28-04-2010 at 06:13 AM.

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# 3 28-04-2010 , 08:49 AM

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Got them this morning sir!!

All the creatures were rigged normally and dynamically by a fantastic guy called Fabio Boncini. I didnt do any shapes or anything to do with animation on this job.

Yeah they used particles for the foreground and used my galaxy mattes as parallax back drops as well as flat planes too.

speak later

Jay

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# 4 28-04-2010 , 09:13 AM

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This looks like it was a fun thing to work on. user added image

did you get reference material from steven?

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# 5 28-04-2010 , 09:22 AM

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Thanks Hammer

no not really. Discovery, Redvision and Darlowes-Smithson worked with Stephen Hawking throughout because it all needed to work according to his theories but I had free reign in the designs, which I had to show and get approved at a meeting with a huge table full of Execs, Producers and Directors, scary stuff but the tea and biscuits made it all worth it.

laters
Jay

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# 6 28-04-2010 , 10:53 AM

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Fantastic man. Haven't seen it yet, but the clips look great.

making the visions of Stephen Hawking come to life! Brilliant!

@G-man: Yeah, me too. Love the theoretical physics, and Physics in general.

Great work Jay... looking forward to watching it.

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"Your weapons are no match for ours! People of Mars, surrender!"
"Um, this isn't Mars. This is Earth."
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# 7 28-04-2010 , 10:59 AM

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Cheers Steve hope you like it...

Jay

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# 8 28-04-2010 , 03:10 PM

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Hi Jay,

Looks really cool and good fun!

Saw a trailer for this on discovery (or one of the other cable channels) and wes going to keep an eye out for it.

I'll definatly be watching it when is comes on.

Cheers

Steve

"No pressure, no diamonds" Thomas Carlyle

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# 9 28-04-2010 , 04:34 PM

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@steve: we should debate it sometime, love a good conversation on the matter.

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# 10 28-04-2010 , 10:22 PM

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That was an amazing show, I loved it, the graphics were great. I was wondering if Maya was behind it or not. Can't wait tos ee the rest of it, how long of a series is it anyway?

- Mike

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# 11 29-04-2010 , 12:09 AM

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i'm guessing atleast one full season which is usually anywhere from 9-14 shows for discovery channel.

Jay, i know you're not much of a partical man but curious if you know or can find out.
the foregrounds thaqt were mate, were they made with calssic partical engine in maya, or n particals? ( i havent ahd a chance to check out n physics much yet in maya )
and if so, the quickest way i can think of to recreaqte that foreground is to create curves for the streamers of particals that were generaqted and use either goals if animated partical flow, or just emit from object with a static shot, and apply a nice PP ramp to the color attribute with a randomizing creation expression. ...n on tnhe less, any way you might can find out how close i am there to how that was done?
would be very interested in the actual process used since dynamics is my #2 specialty in maya.

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# 12 29-04-2010 , 03:43 AM

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Hi Jay,

I only saw the trailer in your link, but S..T mate, that looks like some damn heavy perspiring moments Im sure!!! Cant wait to get the series here in Australia (it might already be on Foxtel but that is outta my meagre budget).

I agree with legend and Mayaniac, cant do the math but I BREATHE doco's man. My missus calls me the geeky bikie? dont ever know what she means?? Reckons I dont look out of place at an AC/DC concert but how the hell I understand this stuff is beyond her.. bahahahaha. I wouldnt think the math would be difficult, like anything it is a matter of exposure to the medium?

Jeez Jay I hope to hell this gets you some good gigs mate, that kinda work is pretty heavy duty man!!!

I hope Hawking cracks the Theory of Everything (unified I think, will have to start reading again). I think he was going to a show on alien contact too Jay??? What would happen to the cattle (US hoomans). I saw something on SBS (home channel) about it.

Keep up the good work mate, cant wait for the release (wife sighs and bows head)......bahahaha

cheers bullet

bullet1968

"A Darkness at Sethanon", a book I aspire to model some of the charcters and scenes

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# 13 29-04-2010 , 08:04 AM

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Bullet
Aye, Unified theory of everything, attempting to rectify the Quantum world with that of the very large, Quantum mechanics dictates that the laws of gravity break down once things get very very small, and also the laws that govern the very very small tend to screw up on the larger stuff ( by large i refer to things that are the size of an atom or greater )

But yea that's what he is working on mostly, he has i have read done some dabbling in the Strong nuclear attraction between atoms that has been used to actually teleport individual molecules instantly across a room, and across a city ( its not actually teleporting the molecule its self, but its forming a bond between it and another then causing the second one to inherit the attributes of the first instantaneously, with a speed that is actually faster then 186,000 miles per hour, proving not only is teleportation possible, but FTL travel without extreme energies is also possible at least on a quantum level.

I just keep waiting for someone like Michio kaku or Stephen to apply Heisenberg's uncertainty principle to this discovery. basically " if i teleport this object across the room, while watching exactly where it is, then no matter how slow it is moving, it exists in neither the place of origination or the places of destination, at any point, yet when i test its speed, it exists at both places at the same time, thus begging the question ...where did it truly come from to begin with? )

far as HAwking's alien show...it was actually the first one in the series to run, wasn't so much based on alien encounters, as on aliens themselves, though he did make the statement " i do not think it would be wise for us to send out our welcome mat to extra terrestrials, just look at when Christopher Columbus sailed to America....it did not work out well for the Native Americans "

Sorry, i could talk about it for days...Maybe i should start a theoretical physics thread in the members lounge.

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# 14 29-04-2010 , 10:42 AM

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Hi g-man,

now you are hurting my brain, memroies are being extracted from deep within the cranium, ears bleeding etc bahahahaha.

I have watched so many doco's and learnt so much different stuff in Surveying they BLEND after a while.

I havent seen Michio, every good thing is on Foxtel and they are bloody expensive AND my wife WOULDNT let me watch!!! She reckons learning Maya is bad enough.

Yeh the strong forces/weak forces was VERY interesting. I think from memory a particle on earth could affect a particle on the other side of the universe in real time and as you say inherit the attributes of the parent particle.

Better start reading again, Im really rusty, and START the thread dude, I will be in on it EVEN if I have to google to refresh.

cheers bullet

PS sorry for the high end responses Jay, good work dude!!!

bullet1968

"A Darkness at Sethanon", a book I aspire to model some of the charcters and scenes

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# 15 30-04-2010 , 09:34 PM

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Guys

jeez too heavy man....

can somebody advise me how to get those videos off the discovery page as they seem to be severly embeded

tried grabbing one as a test but all I got was the damn advert at the beginning

cheers
Jay

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Hawking on Discovery Channel

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