Using the concept we drew up, we started creating a robot to animate using VFX. I had a lot of fun doing this, as it was a challenge and tested a lot of my skills at modelling. I consider myself to be bad at modelling things compared to drawing them out on paper, but this robot turned out exactly how I wanted it.
In the first session working on this I many spent my time planning, putting in image planes (which wouldn't show up for the screenshots) that I had drawn out on graph paper. Having a scale and constant reference to work from really helped during this project, as modelling isn't my strong point.
I started with simple shapes such as a square for the core, cylinders for the spine, neck and torso, and a cube for the head. As it was at the top of my design, I worked on the head first. I rotated it 45 degrees and added more sides to give it the unique shape I gave it in my
concept and image planes.
In the same session I managed to add a rough shape to the arms and legs. These were cylinders that I extruded out, ready to be separated later. I also shaped the core roughly, so that it looked more 'human' like I wanted it to. The spine and neck were also 'ribbed' to make it look more industrial.
I managed to change the pivot points of the arms and legs and then duplicated them across. It was easier to get a visual idea of what it would look like when it was finished by doing this.
In the next session I started work on the shoulder pieces. I wanted my robot to have something different going on instead of the arms just being attached to the sides. In my design I wanted it to have shoulder spikes to make it stand out from other robot designs. Ironically, it ended up looking a little bit like Mettaton from Undertale. This, however, was a coincidence I found out about only a month later. But the comparison makes me laugh.
I started giving the core a curve to fit the legs, and I gave the top of the leg a curve to match it. I only did this to one leg so that I'd have a back-up plan later if I had to redo anything. It was also to make sure everything lined up and would look correct when I rigged it later.
I started marking out the different parts of the legs and arms that would become the joints. I once again used one leg, and put a cylinder through it to give me a better understanding of how it would work. I decided to pull the thigh part out at the ends to give it more of a difference to the shin. This was also to make sure when animating that it would move and look correct.
At this point, I also made sure the core was rounded. I did this by added more segments and gradually staggering them to look more circular. It turned out a but boxy at the edges, but I'm happy with how it turned out. And I only did one corner, so I duplicated it three times and made sure it all fit together.
I also duplicated the leg over and erased the thigh, so that I could start working on the shin. I found the shin harder than the thigh, as it would need to be made smaller at the top as opposed to bigger. I managed to add a face to the top edge that would make the leg look more seamless. I did this by adding and face, then linking up the vertices on either side until all of them were linked.
The arms were much of the same, I duplicated and cut off the top half, and link the gap in the bottom before cleaning it up. The only difference I made was that the top half of the arm stayed the same. I made the forearm a few clicks smaller to compensate, as the movement
wouldn't look right. I made it work, and it took less time than the legs.
On the torso, I rotated the bottom face slightly upward at the front. the idea behind this was to create the illusion of a ribcage, as my design stemmed from the idea of a human skeleton.
At the same time as this, I'd run into a problem with the torso. As I had been beveling it down to make it a smoother transition to the neck, I came across a group of 'ghost-faces'. Ghost-faces are what I call it when there appear to be random floating edges in a Maya file. If you try to delete them like edges nothing will happen. The only way I could get rid of them is by selecting the vertices and dragging the out. Eventually I was able to select the whole thing and delete all of the face. Unfortunately this was very time consuming and took me almost half an hour.
I decided next to focus on the shoulder spikes. I was not happy with the original, so I decided that instead of using a cube that I'd use a cylinder. I turned it on its side and it already worked a lot better than the previous idea.
I scaled the inner circle down so that it would give the same expanding effect as my design, and then tilted the outer face downward. This worked like a charm and it looked a lot smoother on the edges of the torso.
After this, all I had to do were the hands and feet. All six of these shapes were essentially the same. I started with a square, flattened it down and then beveled the two front edges. This was to make them less sharp, but still keep the industrial robot idea.
Then I went onto the eyes. Two of them are the same, but the third eye is actually a light that will flash a different colour depending on what emotion it is feeling. All that was left to do was add edge loops and make sure the UVs would be easier to sort out by cutting them early.
Overall, I think I did well at modelling considering it's my weakest field. I think I could've done better with the elbow and knee joints, as it will clip if you move it too much one way. The head was also an issue, as it started out slightly crooked. It was also a nightmare to add edge loops on, as it kept registering one line as another. I eventually worked it out but it was very time consuming.
I think I did well on the core, as I had never curved anything in the same shape or way as it before. I'm very happy with how it turned out, as it had been the one part of the design I had no clue about.
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