Making Of 'VT-61'

Introduction

VT-61 is one of the main characters of a short film we are working on. In this section I should explain a little of his life to give you a better understanding of him.

He lives in a planet where only robots can survive and the only way to stay alive is by keeping themselves full of the only energy provided by the nearest star in their galaxy. The VTs are the guardians of that planet; they just protect their most valuable source of life.

There is a more detailed and deep story about him and his environment, but I think this is a good start. He has propellants not to fly but to jump like a jetpack. So, keeping that in mind, let's go and start his creation process.

Concept

First of all, it is very important before starting any 3D work to previously have as many sketches as necessary to be 100% sure you know what to do in 3D. As we always say, "Design on paper, not in 3D". Well, here are some of our sketches (Fig.01) and the final concept painted in Photoshop (Fig.02).

Fig. 01_sketches

Fig. 01_sketches

Fig. 02_final_concept

Fig. 02_final_concept

Base Mesh

Since he is a robot with uncovered mechanisms and pieces, I did some research on the internet and found some pictures of pieces that I used as references for him (Fig.03).

Fig. 03_references

Fig. 03_references

I modeled each piece as shown in the following images (Fig.04 - 06).

Fig. 04_modeling

Fig. 04_modeling

Fig. 05_modeling

Fig. 05_modeling

Fig. 06_modeling

Fig. 06_modeling

For the body modeling, I just looked at my concept art and worked on each piece to finish up with something that matched the original form. The following image shows the WIP of the body (Fig.07). I made a few changes to his hand, such as adding a melee weapon for defense. Also, I included some extra pieces on the shoulder and knees.

Fig. 07_modeling

Fig. 07_modeling

After having everything modeled it was time to start building him. I did that by coping, scaling and arranging the first pieces all around his body. I show this work in the following images (Fig.08 - 09).

Fig. 08_modeling

Fig. 08_modeling

Fig. 09_modeling

Fig. 09_modeling



Now it was time to get each piece and part of the body ready for sculpting in ZBrush. I was going to use the new "Import and Crease Smooth Groups" plugin in ZBrush, so I needed to set all the polygons with the correct smooth groups in Max.

Sometimes, when you finish working with all the smoothing groups in Max and the mesh is imported into ZBrush with the aforementioned plugin, you won't get the result you expect when dividing the mesh. In that case, you will need to come back to Max and try a different smoothing group for the polygons until you get the result you want. In the following image I show you one piece with bad results and the one which worked the best for me (Fig.10).

Fig. 10_sculpting

Fig. 10_sculpting

Sculpting

Once that process was done (smoothing groups) with every piece, I proceeded to sculpt all the details. It is very important to mention that I worked on each piece separately for a better handle of the sculpture.
Note: Since I made the base mesh in Max, I didn't sculpt any shape from scratch. I divided each piece eight times to have between at least seven and nine millions polygons, enough for very well-made details.

Now, I will show you one piece as an example and the alphas and brushes I used for it. Remember to always use Store Morph Target before making the details so you will always be able to come back to your flat model if you are not happy with a particular detail:

1. I made all lines and cuts with the Slash3 brush (Fig.11)

2. I used Masks and Inflat in positive or negative value for everything I wanted to take up or down and finally different alphas were used in the desired parts (Fig.12). I also used some Planar brushes here and there.

3. The last step was adding some damage. I made them with Mallet Fast brush for knocks and the Slash1 brush for scratches (Fig.13).

Fig. 12_sculpting

Fig. 12_sculpting

Fig. 13_sculpting

Fig. 13_sculpting

This was basically what I did piece by piece and with everything put together, VT-61 now looked like the following images (Fig.14 - 15). Once I finished that, I used Decimation Master and brought the new mesh into Max where I made better topology for each piece. Then, I imported the new topology meshes into UV Layout for unwrapping. Next, I came back into Max to project the Normal and AO maps from the Decimated meshes. I got the AO map by applying into the Decimated mesh a V-Ray light material with a Dirt map and baking down the texture. I then projected that texture into the topology mesh. Here is the topo mesh with AO and Normal maps (Fig.16).

Fig. 14_sculpting

Fig. 14_sculpting

Fig. 15_sculpting

Fig. 15_sculpting

Fig. 16_sculpting

Fig. 16_sculpting

Texturing

I started the diffuse texturing process in Photoshop with the AO map in Multiply. Underneath this I proceeded layering the base color, metal textures, yellows and gray details, some blue glows, rusted damage and so on. I created the Specular map from the Diffuse. Fig.17 shows one section of the texture sheet. One important thing is that I worked with the scratches masked in an empty layer. This fact made it easier for me to change their color, brightness and blend mode.

Fig. 17_texturing

Fig. 17_texturing

Lighting

The last steps were the shading and lighting settings. After lots of tests with different shades, we found the one which worked the best for the final result we wanted.
The same was true for lighting; it involved a lot of trial and error until we finally got the results we wanted. We used one Dome VRayLight with the chosen HDRI, one Key light and some fill lights with different colors for some nice changes (Fig.18). Again, remember to always make sure you have Gamma Correction and V-Ray Frame Buffer enabled to get better results.

Fig. 18_lighting

Fig. 18_lighting

With all these settings and the indirect illumination established, we finished out with the final render which I brought into Photoshop for extra touches and, lastly, the final composition (Fig.19).

Fig. 19_final

Fig. 19_final

His back looks like the following image (Fig.20).

Fig. 20_final_back

Fig. 20_final_back

Conclusion

This robot was a real challenge, mainly because he has around 40 pieces that I had to individually create, detail, decimate, make the topology for and project. It was a long and hard process but at the end we finished successfully with a model which is actually ready for animation. And currently I just finished the game mesh of him.

I hope this Making Of has been useful to you all and thank you very much for having taken the time to read it.

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