'3D Studio Max'

Software Used:

3ds Max, VRay & Photoshop

Introduction:

My intention was to create a sci-fi robot scene that would challenge my knowledge of CG. As a starting point, I quickly did some small thumbnail concepts of the robot that was going to be the main focus of the piece. The next stage was to find reference photography, either from the internet or from my personal collection. I used these for inspiration for the different parts of the robot as I was aiming for a photorealistic look (Fig.01).

Fig.01

Workflow:

The majority of the robot was poly modelled, which worked well for me as I was constantly changing and developing my design (Fig.02).

Fig.02

For the texturing, I UVW unwrapped an average of 90% of the image, in which I created individual maps. A combination of diffuse, bump, normal, displacement and specula maps were created to produce controllable material properties. Here you can see I have unwrapped a piece of the robot and hand painted most of the wear and tear; the normal direction gave me an idea of what I was painting (Fig.03). The next step was to make the bump map. This can be done by turning your image black and white and changing the appropriate areas to positive or negative depending on the look you want (Fig.04).

Fig.03	Fig.04

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