That’s Blockbusters

Here’s some Blockbusters I’ve been working on, which, rather fittingly, started out as a collaboration but has taken a solo turn. It’s a 3D model of the set based on the 1994 series, complete with the iconic board and hot spot with flashing lights.

The friezes atop the set couldn’t be overlooked – multiple figureheads were installed over the show’s tenure, depicting notable figures and celebrities; Zeus remained constant, watching over Bob Holness. Above is my terrible attempt at recreating one with Bob himself; after that, I resorted to using screenshots from clips.

The 1994 series of Blockbusters – the last under Holness – was a curious one. ITV officially axed the show the previous year, as it appears many regions preferred the likes of Home and Away as pre-news filler, and so Blockbusters had rather fallen out of favour, either shunted to early afternoons or simply not shown at all. It was promptly picked up by Sky and returned in April 1994, now in a prime 7 o’clock slot. Though the theme tune received an update, it was, for all intents and purposes, the same show: same host, same titles, same set, same production team, and only minor tweaks to the format (reverting to five gold runs, and the occasional “bonus letter” promising an extra fiver).

What’s slightly odd is that, despite now being a Sky programme, a few ITV regions showed it as though it had never been axed to begin with. Such an arrangement may well have continued, but alas it seems Blockbusters failed do the business for Sky and no further series were made. A bit of a messy end to a legendary programme.

Here’s the iconic game board on the set model, complete with an updated version of my font:

The very first series, from 1983, has just finished showing on Challenge, and they are a bit of a guilty pleasure – not only for the comfiness of it all and Bob being awesome, but getting a laugh from some of the fashions and hairstyles, demonstrating that, yes, people did look a lot older back then. Happily, it appears they’re following up with series two, so there’s more to look forward to.

Reinventing the Wheel

Wheel of Fortune came back to ITV last weekend. There’s some inspiration to make this model – which, coincidentally enough, was started mere days before the revival was announced back in June – vaguely presentable and get a render out of it. For here, we have a representation of the classic American look for the show.

The wheel was almost entirely completed last summer. There were lots of crazy spaces on the American wheel that never appeared on the UK version, although of course, where they had “Surprise” we had “Brad’s Box”, where you might stand a chance of winning a Walkman, a digital watch, or something else from the Argos catalogue of the day.

The board, however, was where things halted last time, but I managed to cobble something together using my previous attempt at the original UK counterpart. The fan motif took a bit of wrangling, but once the lights were in place things started to come together. The letters on the blocks are also using a custom typeface.

I’m surprised it has taken this long for Wheel of Fortune to return, given how popular it was back in the day. It’s a simplistic game, more sparkle than substance… hard to screw up, surely?

Well, what we have is very much an import of the American version, which has its pros and cons. But, ultimately, it turns out that a whole hour of Wheel is just too much; I was flagging during part three and had pretty much lost interest by the end. It worked so much better – and continues to work Stateside – as a quick, fun half-hour. Also, as much as I like Graham Norton as presenter, I found it quite empty without a co-host – I realise this is essentially a pointless role these days, what with the video board revealing the letters itself, but having someone to bounce off might have livened things up a bit. And this programme really needs livening up.

Oh well. At least ITV’s other American quiz show revival, Jeopardy, is looking much more promising. I was more invested in that one, and I’m glad to say I’m hooked!

Here’s the subject of the puzzle by the way, if you need to inject some eighties energy into a dreary January:

Crystal Ball

Yes, we’ve been watching The Crystal Maze again over Christmas.

I thought it would be fun to try and recreate the fancy little animation that appears at the end of the opening titles, as well as into and out of commercials. Made back in 1992 for the show’s third series – and a vast improvement on the original design – I can imagine the crystal in particular was a time-consuming process which required lots of resourceful thinking and/or trickery. I found it tricky enough decades later!

That’s twenty seconds of time inside the Crystal Dome.

This is a brand new crystal model. I’m not sure it’s perfectly accurate, but it is much closer than my previous attempt, which better resembled the shape of the Crystal Dome. Once I had the model and scene down, I attempted the caustic light emanating from the crystal. Several methods were explored but, as you can see below, it did not go well, so I proceeded without it. It does look rather bare without it, so I’ll probably have another go at some point.

Simulating the ripple effect as the crystal rose was, happily, very easy. It’s just a Formula displacer. My only complaint is that it’s a hair too slow, and I never figured out how to speed it up. The big boom at the end could probably also have been executed better, but dealing with a lens flare, I was wary of blinding people. Possibly a speedier explosion with a stronger Random effector to give a bit more, well, randomness.

So, overall, lots of fun here, but plenty of areas to refine for another go – whenever that may be.

Happy New Year to you. If you’re one of the six or so still visiting at this point, you’re obviously the decent sort. I cannot look into a crystal ball, but I hope 2024 is a happy and fruitful one for you.

Countdown to Christmas

It just about says it all for 2023, really – one of the few projects I actually did complete during the year, I put away for December and then totally forget to post. Here we have a rebuild of the 2003 Countdown set, in what I hope you’ll agree is a significant improvement on my last attempt from way back in 2016.

And what’s more, this one’s done up all nice and camp for Christmas… 2007. At that time, the show was hosted by Des O’Connor and Carol Vorderman, both blissfully unaware that they were soon to be effectively booted out (along with the set, as it happens) for cheaper models.

It was late March and into April when I made this, so you can forgive the memory lapse. But yes, with the exception of the clock, everything was modelled from scratch, working with dozens of reference pictures and clips. The overall scale looks much better than the last attempt, though perhaps the “wall” behind the letters board should be slightly longer. That’ll be covered in the 2030 attempt, I suppose.

Something I did quite enjoy was working with the reflective star stencils dotted all over the place, and not just for the camp. Setting the reflection channel to a spectrum of colour with a strength over 100% worked quite well, with different appearances from different angles. Still a satisfying feature of 3D modelling for me.

Even the big ole clock itself, mentioned previously, has been tweaked a fair amount beyond the festive decoration. The biggest improvement? Probably going to the trouble of varying each bulb’s brightness so that some are dimmer than others. A relic from the show’s inception in 1982, I believe it used incandescent bulbs, hence individual segments wearing out was often noticeable. Thanks to one Adam Beach, fellow Countdown Set Enthusiast, for the suggestion.

And here’s the clock running, showing off the set from multiple camera angles. As if you need telling, the clock is ticking, the countdown to Christmas almost over…

It’s Marathon Time Again

Yes, the Game Show Marathon is back, starting on Saturday. Twenty-four games back-to-back, once again raising money for Child’s Play. Last year they raised more than $10,000, so it’ll be interesting to see if they can match or even surpass that this time.

You’ll be able to watch and/or donate here. I’m sure they’ll be available on YouTube afterwards, if you are that way inclined.

It looks like they’re trying several new ones this time around. Here’s the line-up in BST:

5 PM – America Says
6 PM – Split Second
7 PM – Person Place or Thing
8 PM – Switch
9 PM – Talk About
10 PM – Jeopardy!
11 PM – Moneybags
12 AM – Win Dave Mattingly’s Money
1 AM – The Wheel
2 AM – The Weakest Link
3 AM – 1000 Heartbeats
4 AM – Mock the Week
5 AM – Mastermind
6 AM – Match Game (Blankety Blank)
7 AM – Countdown
8 AM – Press Your Luck
9 AM – Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?
10 AM – Quizmania
11 AM – Tic Tac Dough
12 PM – Super Dice Q
1 PM – Wheel of Fortune
2 PM – All Clued Up
3 PM – Concentration
4 PM – Deal or No Deal

Here’s Countdown from last year, featuring snazzy graphics co-created by yours truly:

And a momentous finale in Deal or No Deal!

Bring On The Chase

Oh no! That must be our brand new Chaser. It’s the Spectral Specimen himself – “The Ghost” Irmin Visible!

Here we have some work from way back in July – an attempted recreation of ITV’s The Chase for another Pacdude Games collab. Unfortunately, the project hit the buffers as we struggled to find a way to properly implement graphics for the show’s final round, meaning these are semi-complete at best. The set is complete, though, so this is going up.

Perhaps TV’s most ubiquitous quiz show, The Chase started quietly in summer 2009, just a short while before long-time rival Pointless reared its head on BBC Two. In the show, a team of four take it in turns to pit their wits against a ruthless quiz genius – The Chaser – with the winners progressing to the final round, where they work as a team to try and defeat the massive geek one more time.

Why ubiquitous, I hear you ask? Well, at some point in the mid-2010s it seems that The Chase rather took off, soaring ahead of Pointless – much to Richard Osman’s dismay, I’m sure – and becoming one of ITV’s biggest shows. This meant other programmes were elbowed out of the way to make way for Chase repeats. As well as the weekdaily showings, it would appear at weekends. During the morning. Celebrity spin-offs. Family spin-offs. And none of this is to mention Challenge often showing nothing but The Chase reruns all day long. While over two thousand episodes have been made, there must be a similar number of showings every year, factoring in all those repeats. And still people go nuts on Twitter whenever, heaven forbid, ITV have the audacity to try a new quiz in the 5pm slot.

Of course, there’s a reason for all of that; the format is very strong and holds up exceptionally well. The final round is probably one of the best of any quiz format, regularly delivering on tension and drama. The Chasers themselves are generally entertaining and likeable – much more than the Eggheads – and more than happy to play up to their perceived persona; as such, there are times where you’re rooting for them. Originally, there were only two Chasers; now, there are six of them – another way in which the show remains fresh.

The lynchpin, though, is surely Bradley Walsh, who is one of the best presenters on TV and superb at both encouraging the contestants and needling the Chasers. It would likely be quite a dry show without him. I don’t really watch it very often, but make a point of catching the Christmas blooper special as he’s bound to make you laugh, either by fluffing his lines or just losing it over a ridiculous question.

Here’s one notable example of that aforementioned final round, where only Judith made it through and still managed to rack up a score of 20 for the Chaser to try and match.

Countdown 1991

I got the bug again after my last Countdown effort. It seemed like the obvious choice to pick my most dated model and give it a refresh. My model of this short-lived (1989-1991) set hasn’t really been touched since my blog post on it which, scarily enough, was more than six years ago. Pre-Brexit, even!

Since that 2016 attempt, I’ve learnt that the letters and numbers boards were the wrong way around, so that’s been fixed, and the boards in general are much improved, having been flown in from my more recent models. I believe they used pretty much the same boards until 1999, so that’s handy, really.

Elswhere, a newer clock is dropped in; weird arch over said clock redone; desks reworked; lighting completely redone.

It does look a lot better, despite the unusually dark lighting; perhaps, by this point, they had decided that darkness was the best thing for this set, or maybe it was an attempt to create mood for the Champion of Champions mini-series. We’ll never know.

Remember when I tried to rework the titles of this era? They’ve been updated now – well, in February anyway – hopefully free of (glaring) errors like the double NOD.

Now, I’m off to Do the Bartman listen to some Metallica. Definitely Metallica.

Hi-Res Countdown

Recently, I gave my model of the Countdown clock a revisit to meddle with its animation. With that, I thought it rude not to give the whole set an overhaul.

It wasn’t really much in the way of reshaping or remodelling elements; the vast majority of it was achieved by modifying textures – some of which hung around for years, much longer than they should have – and lighting. I referred, quite slavishly, to screenshots from a recent episode to create a more authentic setup.

It does rather reinforce just how much a model (or set, for that matter) depends on lighting. The build is mostly the same, yet it’s night and day. I suppose braving the higher resolutions – and resigning myself to the longer render times – helps in the long run. Thank god for Muckluck and his Broken Sword playthroughs, is all I can say.

And here’s the impetus for the whole thing, a render of everyone’s favourite clock running:

Apparently, the new clock (in place since 2013) runs at 29.5 seconds, not 30, so I reworked it accordingly to see if it made a visible difference. I’ll let you decide…

If you were to take a look back at my first attempt from January last year, I hope you’d agree that there’s a significant improvement. I’m pleased with this particular upgrade. Onward, and upward.

Countdown, and indeed Channel 4 itself, will celebrate its fortieth birthday on 2nd November. Not long now – the countdown has started!

Is That Your Final Answer?

Back into the realm of PowerPoint game shows we go, with a mock-up of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? in its classic, Tarrant-led incarnation. This is something I’ve attempted several times over several years, but this is definitely the best yet. Some extra sparkle is provided by renders of my now rather old 3D model of the 2001 set. I would ideally have gone for the original 1998 set, but my model of that is inferior and, frankly, the motivation to redo it isn’t there.

Hopefully it’s not too hard to see how it works from the video, but in any case: the options appear by clicking anywhere. The quizmaster then clicks on the letter at the bottom of the screen corresponding to the contestant’s final answer. Clicking on said letter a second time reveals the correct answer. Lifelines function for every question; it’s just a case of remembering to input the information beforehand. I have yet to find a way of carrying over the usage of lifelines; it might not even be possible, so as it is the contestant has all three available for every question.

Question setups for each correct answer are ready-made, and can be copied and pasted in any order to create a full stack.

It’s quite a convoluted animation setup, as anyone who’s worked with PowerPoint beyond spinning and bouncing text can probably imagine, but it works rather well and isn’t overly hard to edit. It’s implementing the sound effects which is likely to be the phone a friend moment.

Extended Titles

It’s that Countdown sequence remake I mentioned back in January, when I reworked the 1989 titles. You have doubtless been on the edge of your seats since then, and for that I can only apologise.

And yes, there are some errors in there, but hopefully none so shamefully glaring as previously. It’s an extended cut this time around too, as, for some reason, the original Countdown theme tune was edited down to twenty seconds, despite predecessor Calendar Countdown using a perfectly serviceable thirty second version. I’m using that uncut theme here.

These snazzy CGI titles were introduced in 1987 for the 500th episode special (for the record, we’re fast approaching 8,000 episodes and forty years on air) and lasted just over two years. I’m wondering if they were perhaps saw the teatime game show on the other side – Blockbusters, of course – and decided they too would like a futuristic 7-segment style logotype? While we’re at it, how on earth did Bob manage to get away without a single appearance in Dictionary Corner? He’d probably have been a brilliant host aswell. Perhaps he was just too cool for Countdown.

Though obviously a big visual update back in the day, I was somewhat indifferent to the titles prior to working on this. I can imagine the animation process in the eighties was rather more challenging and laborious than today, and still I found it a pain to get those letters and numbers to fly around into the box. That’s partly why I hit the wall months ago – I just didn’t have a clue how to do it properly! Eventually, after resolving to get it out of the way by hook or by crook, I found a way using a spline and offsetting each letter. But it still doesn’t look quite as elegant as the original, so hats off to YTV and whoever animated this sequence.