A greeble ( ), or "nurnies", is a part harvested from plastic modeling kits to be applied to an original model as a detail element. The practice of using parts in this manner is called "
kitbashing
Kitbashing or model bashing is a practice whereby a new scale model is created by taking pieces out of kits. These pieces may be added to a custom project or to another kit. For professional modelmakers, kitbashing is popular to create concept ...
".
Etymology
The term "greeblies" was first used by effects artists at
Industrial Light & Magic
Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) is an American motion picture visual effects company that was founded on May 26, 1975 by George Lucas. It is a division of the film production company Lucasfilm, which Lucas founded, and was created when he began pro ...
in the 1970s to refer to small details added to models.
According to model designer and fabricator
Adam Savage
Adam Whitney Savage (born July 15, 1967) is an American special effects designer and fabricator, actor, educator, and television personality and producer, best known as the former co-host (with Jamie Hyneman) of the Discovery Channel televisi ...
,
George Lucas
George Walton Lucas Jr. (born May 14, 1944) is an American filmmaker. Lucas is best known for creating the ''Star Wars'' and ''Indiana Jones'' franchises and founding Lucasfilm, LucasArts, Industrial Light & Magic and THX. He served as chairm ...
, Industrial Light & Magic's founder, coined the term "Greeble".
Ron Thornton is widely believed to have coined the term "nurnies" referring to CGI technical detail that his company Foundation Imaging produced for the ''
Babylon 5
''Babylon 5'' is an American space opera television series created by writer and producer J. Michael Straczynski, under the Babylonian Productions label, in association with Straczynski's Synthetic Worlds Ltd. and Warner Bros. Domestic Tel ...
'' series,
[ while the model-making team of '' 2001: A Space Odyssey'' referred to them as "wiggets".
]
Other uses
Greebles are also used to enhance interior sets. In ''Star Trek'', corridor walls were decorated with objects such as pieces of pipe, which extended out from walls, usually with several fittings and a label implying it was an important part of the ship's infrastructure. In the movie ''Alien
Alien primarily refers to:
* Alien (law), a person in a country who is not a national of that country
** Enemy alien, the above in times of war
* Extraterrestrial life, life which does not originate from Earth
** Specifically, intelligent extrater ...
'', the interior of the ship ''Nostromo'' was thoroughly greebled. Art director Roger Christian said, "Let's have a go at it. So we recruited some dressing prop people, got a hold of several tons of scrap, and went to work on the Nostromo's bridge... encrusting the set with pipes and wires and switches and tubing... then we painted it military green and began stenciling labels on everything."[{{cite book, title=The Book of Alien, author=Paul Scanlon, author2=Michael Gross, publisher=Heavy Metal Books, year=1979, page=not numbered; heading on page "It's just a monster of coordination.", no-pp=yes]
See also
* Fractal
In mathematics, a fractal is a geometric shape containing detailed structure at arbitrarily small scales, usually having a fractal dimension strictly exceeding the topological dimension. Many fractals appear similar at various scales, as illu ...
* Kitbashing
Kitbashing or model bashing is a practice whereby a new scale model is created by taking pieces out of kits. These pieces may be added to a custom project or to another kit. For professional modelmakers, kitbashing is popular to create concept ...
* Diapering
Diaper is any of a wide range of decorative patterns used in a variety of works of art, such as stained glass, heraldic shields, architecture, and silverwork. Its chief use is in the enlivening of plain surfaces.
Etymology
For the full etymolo ...
* Bump mapping
Bump mapping is a texture mapping technique in computer graphics for simulating bumps and wrinkles on the surface of an object. This is achieved by perturbing the surface normals of the object and using the perturbed normal during lighting cal ...
* Horror vacui
References
External links
Staffan Norling's comments about greebling
Starship Modeler: a resource for science fiction modeling
buzzGreeble
for modo
Greeble plugin
for 3D Studio Max
Greeble plugin
for Realsoft 3D
Realsoft 3D is a modeling and raytracing application created by Realsoft Graphics Oy. Originally called Real 3D, it was developed for the Amiga computer and later also for Linux, Irix, Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows.
It was initially written ...
Greeble plugin
for trueSpace
TrueSpace (styled as trueSpace) was a commercial 3D computer graphics and animation software developed by Caligari Corporation, bought-out by Microsoft. As of May 2009, it was officially discontinued, but with some 'unofficial support' up to Feb ...
Greeble plugin
for LightWave
LightWave 3D is a 3D computer graphics program developed by NewTek. It has been used in films, television, motion graphics, digital matte painting, visual effects, video game development, product design, architectural visualizations, virtu ...
Greeble script
for Blender
A blender (sometimes called a mixer or liquidiser in British English) is a kitchen appliance, kitchen and laboratory appliance used to mix, crush, purée or emulsion, emulsify food and other substances. A stationary blender consists of a blender ...
Greeble script
for Autodesk Maya
Autodesk Maya, commonly shortened to just Maya ( ), is a 3D computer graphics application that runs on Windows, macOS and Linux, originally developed by Alias and currently owned and developed by Autodesk. It is used to create assets for interact ...
Greeble script
for Cinema 4D
Cinema 4D is a 3D software suite developed by the German company Maxon.
Overview
As of R21, only one version of Cinema 4D is available. It replaces all previous variants, including BodyPaint 3D, and includes all features of the past 'Studio' ...
Computer graphic techniques
Film and video technology
Special effects
Vision
Scale modeling