Ahmed's Chunky Robot

Hi Andrew, fellow modellers













I am sorry I did not post stuff on here earlier, but I thought I really need to spend sometime working on the design of my project first, and unlike the guys on here I cant really sketch as well so for me its quicker to start modelling and design actually in 3D



Basically my idea is to design a big robot that has a chest piece that seperate and is more like a a small spaceship..and in order for the robot to come to life the chest part has to dock into where the shoulders sit.







































I am getting a bit frustrated trying to think of an inresting shape for the centre piece.






I have sketched out the front view and a cheezy perspective and thought I can just get on with the model so I can play with shapes and see what I can come up with, akso I have only done low poly modelling so I am learning at the same time.

I have emailed you the OBJ so kindly if you have a moment at all..

Any input from you guys regarding the design or the way its modelled or anything at all would be very appreciated.

Thank you so much for your time

Ahmed T.

Phil Pendlebury - Head/Face WIP

Hey Andrew and crew,


heres my WIP of the Pilots head, having troubles getting the eye area right..






Also put the helmet on and played around with making the visor transparent.. i wont be adding lots of detail to her face as i want it to be obscured by the visor itself.. suggesting a human underneath, mainly by toanl and shape values rather then texture.









Now i go pose her !


<more added 18:45>>

Addition of rough pose:







Well i posed her roughly and as you can see, im having problems in fitting her with the vehicle model. I think im going to have to re do quite abit of the vehicle body now, and then tweak both her and it bit by bit.


.. (after numerous tweaked polys)



Not showing the mesh here, mainly because its messy as hell right now :)







Phil

AM - Ollie Head

Hey Ollie

Your head is coming along nicely. Heads are one of the most difficult things to get working correctly because we look at them every day! I've created hundreds of them and still find new ways of working topology...

I've scribbled over some of your screengrabs to try and highlight some of the key areas that could do with additional work.
The other image is an example of a clean topology. It isn't perfect, but you get the idea :)

Also, don't be afraid to build parts of the head separately and then join them together. This works great for things like the eyes! Grab a nice reference image and match it, then stitch it into your existing head...

Do a Google search for Steven Stahlberg, he is the master of topology and you might find some good tips.

'Kinky Poly's' Emma W.I.P

Hi Andrew
Thanks for your previous update, I would like to apologise for not updating the blog recently, I have found myself at a big planning stage and looking into other areas for my project such as compositing. I have been working on the lighting which I would like to animate and simulate time-lapse lights of vehicles whizzing around the city. Through doing the tests I have discovered I can get my animation fix through this, which I mentioned in my last message. At the time of my last entry I thought I would need to introduce a creature to achieve this, but I believe these lines will reveal the environment just as well and possibly have character too. I’ve also had 2 or 3 stabs at a block test, but not yet happy with them so I will send some of these examples when they are a bit more finalised, hopefully over the next few weeks.

And I have finally started modelling, yeah! I’m discovering lofting is probably the way forward with these shapes and I’m finding it easier to keep a lot of them as separate objects. But I’ve found a lot of aspects tricky, in particular I’m getting a bit hung up on the buckling effect of geometry ie a square surface looks like it has a kink running across it, this seems to happen on a lot of actions such as merging, extruding and bevelling.
The pieces shown below are not subdivided and I am unsure if I should be doing that, which has also lead me to wonder how concerned I should be with the overall poly count of the whole enviroment.

(The shapes are influenced by Gaudi architecture)

(above) had a few attempts at getting rid of these lines running through the geometry on the triangle shape with no success yet.

Regards
Emma

Phil Pendlebury - Modelling WIPs

Hey there,

Ok ive been busy modelling a numer of different sections.
Gonna be quite a load of images here, but i will email you .objs for a closer looksy.

Starting off in XSI and building my base topology from there. Here are a selection of images consisting of the pilots helmet, the vehicles canopy section, its main body and legs and the base topology of the pilot herself.


Helmet:
First thing i modelled, will need to go back and edit to match style of other elements, maybe make it less generic and more organic and fit closer to the contours of a human head.





Vehicle Wing/canopy/back:



I want to work on how the wings sit underneath the upper armour







Below is a Zbrush test displacement.. trying to judge how im going to detail. Its difficult to judge how much detailling i will go into without actually doing it. It is fast and easy in zbrush, and my artist brain tends to want to use it exlusivly for modelling..but i must not.





Im going to use this test as reference to further model the canopy section in XSI

a number of questions regarding Zbrush:


- at what point do i create my UV's. Im told its best to create my own uv's rather then use Zbrush for texturing, would you agree with this?

- In the industry, how much is a program like Zbrush used? As you advised in a previous post, i should wait until the very last moment to use it, and use it for Surface detailling rather then changing topology. As a modeller applying for modelling job roles are skills in using zbrush looked down on or do they benefit?

The main body section: especially at the front where the rider/pilot will be placed is unfinished as i couldnt work out how it would be shaped to accomodate a human, so i felt i had to go ahead and design the proportions of the pilot herself.










The pilot: As she is within the ship itself, she will be naked or have some sort of membrane/leafy/root like material over her.. i thought it would be best to model her as a reference model and then i can pose her and reuse the model again for different poses.












Ok, thats all for now :)

Im now finishing off the pilot and posing her in position to fit within the vehicle. In turn i can then remodel the vehicle body so they fit nice and snug.

Modelling the pilot i realised that alot of work can be done very low poly. So i will now go back and tidy/tweak and add the details in XSI.


Any opinions welcome from the modelling geeks!
Cheers!

Phil.

AM - Dan Dog II

Hey Dan

Your model is looking great. I had a look in Maya and it has the makings of a great character. However, there are a few small tweaks that you could make that will help improve the render quality and reflections when subdivided.




Are you going to make this guy asymmetrical? Adding a few small asymmetrical features will really take this guy to the next level.