RUST Final Major Project ~ Modelling Steinton

Out of all of my characters, Steinton Probably has the most detail in his head, though bears many resemblances to the design of Sprocket (Hinged jaw, large eyes, etc). Because of the amount of detail around his mouth as it just allowed me to trace out the jagged 'teeth' that are around the lip of his jaw, and that contribute to his cranky appearance. In opposition to the other two characters anatomical style (Sprocket: Based off regular human anatomy. Leo: Over sized and hulking upper body), Steinton has a more diminutive body style but with a larger designed head, to show off his character as an 'eccentric genius' archetype.  This made getting the scale of both his head and body to look right tricky, as I didn't want to stray too far from the exaggerated look I was going for. 

The body itself has a curved look, as the top half doesn't connect to a bottom half in the same way normal anatomy does on account of him being connected to all of his computerized machinery: The middle 'rubber insulation' that covers all of the wires and electronics in his stomach area bend back towards where he is attached to his computer rig. The idea I had that as he is heavily modified his original design back when he was available as an administrative droid, would that he's be attached to a reception or some sort of terminal by this socket. In the many years since his modifications though, he has added his own enhancements and wheels so he can move about on his own. 
The arms are very similar in design to those i made for Sprocket, with the same sort of Armour at the forearms and exposed pistons elsewhere. The main difference however is that his limbs are more streamlined and flow to a point, with needle-like fingers. Bar a few exceptions, the two arms are largely identical and so will just instance them over by using the symmetry modifier, then add any necessary differences after. 


Wheel's were as straight-forward as you'd expect, though I left the tire's separate as I'm not sure which part of the wheels I'm going to animate later during the rigging process. I just focused on the exposed part of his lower half, as the bottom half isn't visible, though I'll probably add some wires and other machinery later on. 




The back end of Steinton's rig is probably the most detailed part, and even though his body is the most important part you see, I still wanted the attention to detail to be as high on the rest of him. It was a lot more work than the previous two characters, as where they would end at the legs Steinton had a lot more complex setup with his rig, with wheels and an extra arm attached.  I created the third arm from scratch as it was more minimal than the previous two, but still bared similar attributes, which is why i carried over the fingers (which also saved a lot of time). 

For the final details for the mesh I added all of the wires and tubes that connected from Steinton's upper body to the rest of his computer rig. I made sure that the large tubes that connected his body to the computer, that kept the mysterious energizing coolant that helped power his high powered RAM in his body, had lots of edge loops in them as I was taking into account that these would need to move about a lot once Steinton is rigged and animated. There was also lots of wiring and tubes within the rear of the open section of his body, that took quite a while to add all of the detail too, even though each one was low poly, I wanted to give an insight into the internal workings of his mechanics by showing this amount of detail. 



Final Mesh for Steinton: Probably took the longest to create out of all of my characters, Steinton is the one I'm most proudest of at this point in that despite the tricky nature of his design, I was able to translate it over into 3D successfully, with the amount of attention to detail he has I was worried I may have had to compromise if a part may not have made the transition but I'm happy that was not the case. 

RUST Final Major Project ~ Props, Rigging and Animating Leo

With props now on the agenda next, Looked at creating his basic mask that Leo would wear over his 'head'.  Decided on basing this initial mask (as I'm hoping to make alternate ones with varying expressions for him later, and if i have time) off one of his early sketches, as I really like the expression and the idea of it being made out of crumpled up old cardboard.... The innocent nature of this hulking war droid putting together a new face out of something so flimsy I think reflects his child like personality perfectly. 
Another Prop I decided to make for Leo was a cuddly toy to again highlight his softer personality. I like the idea of him having a little friend perched on his shoulder as he travels along, and as my original concept of having a small child being looked after by my robots as part of the story was scrapped, I've wanted to replace the idea of having something riding on his large shoulder with something else, so this helps keep that original idea. 




And here is Leo with the final textured props. Like with the rest of him, I made them grimy to show wear and tear and to highlight that they were salvaged from a world that has long since vanished or moved on. I liked the idea of him having holes in his mask for his visual sensors to pop through, so it doesn't obscure any of his   sight. Also putting the military helmet on his Bunny stuffed toy I thought was a fun way to show a clue to his military background.

Again using a CATRIG setup for Leo's rigging, I made one from scratch to adapt it to his unique body type. Initially there were some odd glitches preventing me from manipulating the scale of each bone, but after restarting Max which seemed to resolve it I was able to move on. This rig needed a few extra bones adding to it as well as the  regular anatomy, for things like the shoulder cannon and the stuffed toy on his shoulder, as these elements I want to wobble and bounce about as he moves. 




Working from the basic CATMotion walk cycle, I tweaked each individual aspect of his movement to give him a movement that I think suited his character best. I I tried to make his stride shorter and slower to make him more looming and clumsy looking, and his arms have a more exaggerated swing to highlight their large size. 
Also, i had to limit his head movements as I had to take into account its not exactly a head in the  traditional sense as a sensor array attached to the forward part of his chest, and so only slight movement (to make his mask seem animated more than anything) was necessary here. Also, away from the walk cycle itself, I used keyframes on the timeline to move both his cannon and stuffed toy about on his shoulders, so that they bobbed about along with his walk.




Below, Final render of Leo, Fully rigged and posed: Through trial and error with my first character, Sprocket, I think that I have been able to not only work faster and smoother but also that the end results of my second character have worked out better than i expected. I liked the opportunity to animate other parts of the character that weren't directly part of the CAT Rig as I think the end result is something more dynamic and believable with various elements on the character moving about at the same time. 

RUST Final Major Project ~ Texturing Leo

Like with Sprocket, I just textured onto Leo  base colours to start with, working from my original artwork. Because his head isn't highly detailed and low in detail, I chose various other parts of Leo structure to add to his head map and so to make the most of the space available in the separate head and body map setups (The area around his 'head' and his shoulder cannon would be the parts utilizing the head map). Leo's colour palette   makes more use of breaking up the varying areas of Leo's body then Sprockets initially did, with opposing limbs bearing different tones. 

Once the base colours were laid down, I then worked on applying the surface detail, showing off the paneling and vents, etc as well as any text/labeling printed onto his bodywork. As well as this, I layered on top of it all of the wear and tear, dirt and rust to show the worn nature of his surface. As the main body of Leo is painted, I made sure to make the  edges worn off and scuffed to show the  metallic body underneath, with lots of scratches and patches of rust affecting exposed metal plates. 

Working with the specular maps on Sprocket and the help I got with how to approach creating them on hard surfaces like the metal plates, gave me a better insight when creating them for my second character. Initially the specular's once applied were too overbearing, but once I subtracted the areas that were worn (such as the rust, and dirt) from the white areas it only applied the specular to the areas that needed it. On top of this, with the application of a Gloss map also it broke up the surface properties between the paint job, the metallic surfaces and the markings on his bodywork. 



Below, The finished textured model of Leo: Applied Diffuse, Specular, Glossy, Glow and normal maps, and tweaked and adjusted the levels for the final result. Learning from problems I encountered with the texturing process with my first character Sprocket, helped make the process a lot more straightforward with Leo, with a better knowledge of the interaction between Specular and Glossy maps, which i think has contributed towards making Leo look as polished as he does in the final render. I also like how some of the smaller details on Leo have turned out, such as the 4 stars on his left shoulder joint, to show off his past military rank as a general. 

RUST: Final Major Project ~ Modelling Leo

To begin with, I created Leo's Head and chest to make his bust: Because his 'head' is not so much a head as a cylindrical sensor cluster at the front of his torso, his anatomy is definitely more machine like than Sprocket's more human-like features, and so takes more time adapting from my original concepts into 3D as I plan out where all his components will be. There was quite a few areas of specialized shapes on this character, the main one being his torso plate covering. I made the 'shoulders' larger than original to exaggerate his looming frame. 
In Leo's design he has a largely smooth surfaced design, with lots of curves and rounded components, and so when part of his body is more angular it tends to stand out: This is the case with the barrel of the laser cannon that rests on his back. Because the shape isn't consistent with the rest of his body its stands out, and your eye is instantly aware of this.... This isn't a design choice I initially had any in depth thought about, but during the modelling process this idea became more obvious and a good way to make the parts of Leo stand out that needed to. 


The features on the limbs are exaggerated, with overly large hands and feet to show off Leo's power and size, so I paid careful attention when modelling them to make the arms seem like they were build sturdy enough to power the hands, but also be dwarfed by them. Also, Ill be cloning his arm design over to his other side but it will need some heavy editing as his limbs are noticeably different in scale and shape to each other than Sprocket's were.

Working on the legs now: The design and shape of both of his legs are largely the  same with some differing smaller detail, but It will be easier and more time effective to clone them over. Also with Limb's starting to shape up, I began to manipulate them about to see how they would move once rigged. Also, I thought that at this stage he looked rather tall on his legs , which I think is just down to the fact that his legs aren't posed and bent at the knee yet, His posture is very slouched to show his character and heavy frame. 


Once the legs were finished, I manipulated them into a sort of pose to give me a sense of Leo's overall scale and limb size in comparison to the rest of him. I shrunk some areas and parts of his legs to make sure they seemed diminutive to his upper body, but still thick and sturdy enough to hold his weight.



Final Mesh for Leo: Really happy with how Leo's mesh has turned out! spent a long time tweaking the scale of various parts to make sure he comes across as a giant war machine. Once I make a few props for him, more of his gentle and delicate personality will be obvious, with his mask's he wears to cover his lack of a face.

RUST -Final Major Project- Props, Rigging and Animating Sprocket

Before I began the rigging process, I started creating the additional props I had designed after the final turnaround illustration for sprocket, which are essentially his makeshift pipe, his accessory satchel he wears across his shoulders to keep all his little trinkets in and something for him to hold: In this case I thought it could be his in game weapon that isn't actually a weapon, more a modified version of a welding tool his model of robot would have been equipped to use in their heavy duty tasks. 
I made each thing with his rigging and animation process in mind: His bag I didn't want overly large to interfere with his walk cycle, and his weapon I wanted to be large enough to act like a staff more than a projectile weapon, and him swinging it about to bash enemies is how I envision him using it more than how it was originally created for.


Decided on utilizing the CAT Rig method for rigging my character; I find the process to be a lot more straightforward and adaptable to your needs, in a less confusing way, being able to add parts when you need to. Also the walkthrough's on this method I found online were very simple and allowed me to tackle this process with a more clearer intention that didn't confuse me as much as it has done in the past. Being a robot, the process was simplified anyway as I don't have to worry about skin deformation and meshes stretching; Because of my forward planning for limb move-ability in the modelling stage, its meant that i was able to rig each movable part with ease. 


The process wasn't without its hurdles though. I spent awhile tweaking the feet, as once I began to experiment with moving the limbs about, I found that some areas didn't look right attached to certain anchors on the rig (the areas that act as the 'balls' of the heel basically stayed stuck to the rest of the leg as opposed to following the rest of each foot).
Working at this stage allowed me to see how my design actually worked practically and to see if me working to my original sketches paid off.... turns out it did, and the believable aspect of Sprockets design also works in motion which was a relief.





Making a basic standing pose for Sprocket was something I also spent a lot of time getting just right as well. I wanted his pose to show his age and character, with a sort of old man style slump with his knees slightly bent and his arms hanging down at his side with his neck arched slightly forward. As opposed to how robots usually are, all stiff and supported by their sturdy frame I wanted Sprocket to look more human in his form, his age meaning that he cant stand as straight as he used to and him having a more of a relaxed and worn out demeanor than the sorts of robots your used to seeing. 





For the walk cycle I utilized one of  the basic default ones, then adapted it so that it fit in with more of the style I was going with in Sprocket's standing pose. With the default walk there was far too much emphasis on the swinging of his hips and his head, so i toned that down so that his head barely moved that much apart from a slight pan left to right (as if the joints in his neck are stiff with age) and made it so his leg movement seems more relaxed. I didn't work too far from the base walk or start my own from scratch, just because I was happy with the edited version and I think it fits rather well to Sprocket's character. Also, following the tutorials, I added walk motions for sidestepping both left and right and also walking backwards  in the same motion. This is so once I export him into UDK, I can export the frames for each type of walk and loop it to be used as that particular walk animation. 

The final image of Sprocket: Overall very pleased with how my first character has turned out, took a bit longer than planned but as its my first one out of three, there was several teething things I had to get used to and work around that I know about when I tackle my next two fellahs. There are areas on this guy I need to tweak and polish such as his texture maps and importing him into engine, but for now this guy is essentially finished! On to the next one.

RUST -Final Major Project- Texturing Sprocket

From the beginning I had already made the decision to hand paint all of my textures from scratch, to make the surface quality as accurate to my original artwork and stylised look I was going for. The texture budget was split into: one 1024x1024 size for the head, 2048x2048 for the body and an extra 1024x1024 for any additional props. Originally I was planning to work within each budget to break up certain areas to specific map sizes so I could develop textures for specific areas individually, however once unwrapping was under way I found it much more straightforward to work in the method I was used to and make as much use of efficient space on the UV Map for everything. 




















(Above: Diffuse map for body textures) This is what the model looks like once I had applied the first layer of base colours to it. I worked in very much the same way you would in any painting, first applying a base for then to add details onto and then final add all the little touches and damage/rust to it to show Sprockets character as an abandoned old robot. 
The next step was to add all of the surface detail, the main thing being all the linework to depict the overlapping plates that made up a lot of sprockets main body work, both on his head and his body. Instead of just drawing flat lines I also added a lighter line alongside it to help contribute to making the plates seem more 3D even at just the diffuse stage. I think this will contribute towards the normal and specular maps later on. 


This is the final look to sprocket before I begin to apply all the wear and tear to him. I wanted to keep the main bodywork to him a consistent and basic colour, as the thought process behind him is that he would have been a mass produced unit available to most people and businesses in maintaining their properties, so I wanted to keep things simple. However areas such as the paint markings on him I wanted to match his asymmetrical body parts in that it would have been damaged and re painted over, over the years so that it no longer resembled its original patterns or meanings. 




As the title of the project suggests, things like rust and damaged metal will play a big part in the surface detail in all of my characters to show how long they have been left to their own devices, away from the maintenance of man. Using a faux media effect brush in Photoshop I painted in the rust and grime in the areas that I wanted to be most affected. At the start I pretty much just plastered it all over, but then went around deleting it out of areas I didn't want it to be prevalent in, as well as fading some colour down. Areas such as Sprocket's jaw I wanted to be really obviously affected by rust so that it appeared to resemble facial hair on his, which I think combined with his bleary eyed expression adds to his character. 

The overall body once I finished applying wear and damage to it. One thing I have gotten back in terms of feedback in regards to the rust is that its too consistent throughout. I need to work on breaking it up a bit, making it appear more sporadically and naturally along the plates, and to also appear in different shades in areas to break up the overall colour scheme. This is something I will consistently look at adjusting until I finalise this character as its something I want to get spot on. 





To finalise the diffuse (for now) I added surface decals to it to make give him the manufactured look. Things such as serial numbers, and warning striped on his power pack to give him that authentic feel. With the specular map, I spent a long time focusing on highlighting the areas in between the rust and alongside the edge of his Armour plates to really catch the light, while a lot of areas damaged and scuffed to appear a lot duller. I also took this into account with the normal map, making it only really bump off the outlines of the plates and the areas of rust that were really prevalent on his bodywork, so that it gave the rust a peeling look that is seen on really derelict machinery. 

Final textured version of Sprocket: Though I am largely happy with how Sprocket looks, from a lot of feedback I received there are several areas I need to revisit at a later stage, such as the rust detail and how it appears on the individual plates (needs to be more targeted instead of all over), what areas the specular effects and also refine the normal map down somewhat. Once I have fully rigged this guy and have him all ready for exporting into engine, I will go back to tweak these areas and polish them until I am satisfied with the final look.

RUST -Final Major Project- Modelling Sprocket

As with all character modelling I began with the head, The majority of the character was made up of basic shapes to depict his cobbled together appearance so was very straightforward, I just kept referring to my rough turnaround I did of this characters head and adapted it to look better where necessary. 

Making the head look functional, weather or not I would decide to animate it at a later stage was important to emphasize his personality, so areas like around his jaw, the rubber covering on his neck and his eyebrows I modeled with this in mind. 

I was keen to emphasize the lack of symmetry in Sprockets design, as he is a bipedal character to start with, to make him more interesting to look at. This however meant relying on the symmetry modifier to do most of the work wasn't an option, and so each separate element of the model had to be constructed individually (with the exception of the occasional cylinder here and there). 

I Made the effort to keep in mind how the model would work when rigged, and so I paid attention to joints and how they would move and interact with the rest of the body. As I tend to sketch things out how they look good and functional in one position I had to adapt things slightly so they would not look odd when for example, the forearm bends at the elbow. Moving the arms at the shoulder down to the waist also gave me a good inclination of scale and made me aware if i was making the arms too long or short. 

There is a lot of exposed cables and tubing on this character's design from his head to his feet. As opposed to making a couple of different types then just copying them all over, I modeled them all from scratch for the authentic look for the snaking cables. Seeing them snake between body parts and hanging out of various bits gives the silhouette a much more interesting look I feel.

This is just a fun pose I did during the modelling phase; To make sure both the limbs work with the body when put in situation more than anything, and to make sure there is not weird meshes overlapping in obvious ways. Sprocket's left arm isn't symmetrical with his right, so again I had to construct a lot of its elements from scratch. The hand is mostly copied over as it was largely the same design. I just tweaked the scale of the palm to suit the large forearm it was attached to.

The legs are probably the trickiest part: They're the most openly damaged and cobbled together part of sprocket, with lots of exposed mechanisms and wiring around his broken Armour plating. Once the tricky shaped plating was created, it was just a case of positioning all of the components within in the most efficient way. I mostly used cylinders and other basic shapes apart from areas that were more obvious such as the knee joints, to be the pistons and other parts.

Though I could utilize a lot of the same elements within each leg. the main thigh plating was unique on each side so had to spend a lot of time making this area truthful to my original sketches and artwork. Some areas though, like the shine plate, I was able to use in both legs but adjust slightly so they both bore the same shape but were still distinguishable and separate from one another. 

The final base mesh: Very pleased with how sprocket has turned out! due to the time I spent on even the smallest details he remains true to the original artwork in every way, the only changes I made were so he adapted better to his 3D form. The most important thing though is with his face he maintains his sort of baffled but curious expression that was really important in carrying over to his model.