Computer Graphics World

November/December 2013

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■ CLOCKWISE from top left: mated content for the restored 25th Anniversary Edition of Carl Sagan's original Cosmos series. Later, he developed, created, produced, wrote, and directed three original documentary specials for the National Geographic Channel, including Hubble's Amazing Universe, the Emmy Award-Nominated Alien Earths, and its sequel, Finding the Next Earth. Berry currently works as a freelance producer, director, and artist, and most recently was hired by NASA to create art and animations for its latest LADEE Moon Mission. Insofar as the space program has evolved over the time span of Berry's career, so have computer graphics. When he entered the field, Berry's tools were centered around an SGI Iris 3130, a machine the size of a refrigerator. Today, Berry utilizes a more powerful desktop computer with Autodesk Maya software at the core of his 3D graphics pipeline. But Maya is more than a software tool for Berry – from the warped edge of a massive black hole, to the very frontiers of time and space, Maya has been Berry's main portal to the universe. ■ CGW Daedalus: The Daedalus spacecraft appears flying past an Earth-like world. This scene was derived from art generated in Maya and Adobe Photoshop. LADEE: The spacecraft and the moon were generated in Maya, with texture maps derived from photographs of the actual spacecraft. The moon features are based on LRO and Clementine data. Wrecking Worlds, Making Moons: The planets and ejecta stream were modeled and rendered separately in Maya. Texture maps were derived from photos of rocks, and the ejecta combines Maya shatter elements with ink-on-paper splatters. C G W N ove mb e r / D e c e mb e r 2 013 ■ 45

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