CLEVER ASSETS
ROCKET SCIENCE’S CHRIS NOKES REVEALS HOW THE TEAM HANDLES LONG-STANDING ASSETS
“The Expanse is a long-running show, so assets can be re-used for new purposes or also rebuilt from scratch,” says Nokes. “The Expanse is a mostly Maya show, but we use things like Substance Painter and Mari to create assets. All assets may need to be rebuilt at some point. An asset that maybe you designed thinking of season two might have a new purpose in season four or five. The Roci is a great example: at one point we decided, we’ve used it for three seasons,we want to rebuild it. The ship has tiles all over it, and we decided to rebuild each of those tiles individually and one of the reasons was we wanted to make it look better, but also every new season, there's some new thing that Roci needs to do. And it was really hard to pick out a place to do it. So, we made sure we had tiles that could easily be removed to sub in for a hatch here, or a light there. This type of asset redesign gives us far more flexibility later.”
Is learning physics the key to great visual effects? VFX producer Krista Allain and VFX supervisors Bret Culp and Chris Nokes certainly seem to think so. With good reason.
The Roci landing sequence closely followed real NASA footage references
For six years now, they’ve formed part of the team behind The Expanse: a sci-fi show so wellknown for its scientific accuracy that it was even featured on the front cover of Physics Today by season two.
For the multi-vendor visual effects team, who are now working on season six, it’s meant delivering an average of more than 2,000 shots per year – the same numbers as Avengers: Endgame. And this is all while ensuring that each and every frame is as scientifically accurate as possible.
It’s a lot of hard work, but the added authenticity has been worth it. Despite a tight television schedule, the show’s impressively high production values have attracted a serious following, even in the scientific community. In fact, when Syfy cancelled The Expanse after three seasons, it was the show’s devoted fanbase, including real-life astronauts like Andreas Mogensen, that campaigned for Amazon to pick the series back up.