Cyborg #3 Renders

Back with project Cyborg for the presentation renders, these are done in Mental Ray with Maya. I ended up using the blue version for the signature image. I was thinking of using the green cyborg image below but I decided that the blue image was more readable. Maybe it's because the laser rifle is old news to me now. You can see that he has a nice collection of staples over his belly and some over his face too, giving him a bit of a Frankenstein's creation look. The Cyborg model is up and ready to buy on Turbosquid, if you already have the Cyber Punk the Cyborg will make a handy team mate for your project.

 I think the metal textures work very nicely in the green and it helps to make the character quite menacing and creepy. The blue version has a nice gun metal military feel to it. It seems slightly reminiscent of Robocop which I also like. I don't think my character looks much like a cop though more like Robogrunt or Roboredneck. Beered up with a laser cannon and a right hook that could cold cut a wooly mammoth, not something I would like to run into.

 Here is a back view, I was thinking of adding some animated pistons to the four circular areas between where his shoulder blades would be, but I wanted to keep the poly count fairly close to the Cyber Punk and I ran out of polygons. There are lots more polygons in this characters cyborg arms than there are in a more normal organic character. I would like to try some kind of bio-mechanical creature as I am a big fan of HR Giger and I think it would work very well as an approach in Zbrush. I have been neglecting the animation for these characters though so I am planning on getting down with some basic game set animations next.

Above are the wire frame shots, it's mostly quads. I cut out some polygons from his legs which were present in the cyber punk version of this model. The Zbrush sculpt, textures and UV map are totally redone from the cyber punk version. I just felt like I needed the practice, I think the boots worked out better but I like the trousers for the punk.

Looking around at other artists interpretations of cyborgs I've noticed a lot of what I would describe as robots. I wanted to deal more with a man machine cross and the slightly unsettling quality of the amalgam of the organic with the synthetic. I imagine that there would be all sorts of complications and new qualities  to such a creation, no longer entirely human but still very much more than machine. You might have noticed that the slots which are present in the place where a normal human characters eyes would be, on this character go very deep into what would be the characters head. I imagine the mix of machine and man with this character to go very deep all the way through to his senses, emotions and how he thinks.

 I do like setting up the team versus scenes even though my computer struggles with them. As you can see I have again opted for the colour variants so that you can use the model in a four way battle even if you only have the cyborg to play with. Rendering one character is no problem but four at once makes my computer chug. I find it hard to go for a draft low quality version, I am good on my first render but once I've turned all the refractions reflections and fancy shiny features on I find it hard to go back to the bog standard render which would be better for my work flow.

 

It's that corridor again. I keep using it even though it is not a friendly render object in any way, I really should build another one that's faster to render.

So this leaves the clear question which of course is pressing on all of your minds: who would win in a fight? the Cyborg or the Cyber Punk?

"Hey stitches....your ugly and you smell of spark plugs"

Cyborg #2 Polygons and Zbrush

 I've been working on the cyborg taking it on from the concept in my last entry. The second design, the green cyborg got the most votes from my readers so that's the one that I'm working on. I did also like the red design, the first cyborg so I may try that one as well. I have also been thinking about doing a zombie character, an alien and also some generic kind of space trooper. 

Above is where I am currently at with the cyborg. I am close to done with the painting, there are some fine details that are not showing up on the trousers and boots. That's probably down to the lighting,  I can maybe get the paint job to help out on this with some more work. The first job was to get the basic polygonal shell in place, you can see it in it's bind pose below. Most of the polygons went into the robotic arms and the cross design on the helmet.

The next job was to get it set up with the same skeleton the cyberpunk is using. It went quite smoothly and because  there is a run animation on the cyber punk I could straight away see the cyborg animating, this makes setting up the deformations on the polygon shell much easier. The laser rifle is the same model I used for the cyberpunk. I am planning to add some more animations although the next post will likely be some better renders with nice lighting, poses and the paint job finalised.

 I then took the model into Zbrush where I started by mapping the UV's. Once that was done I set about sculpting the fine details in. It's a fun job and makes me feel much more like a proper artist than pulling vertices about in Maya (building the base poly mesh above). Poly modelling is quite a cold clinical business you need to be accurate and give the impression of a natural rounded form while working with harsh sharp edges Zbrush really changes that, it's much more tactile. As I said before it's something like painting with clay, you use a graphics tablet and either add or subtract strokes of simulated poly clay. You're still working with polygons but I guess a single stroke is pushing hundreds or thousands of polygons at a time. There is probably a hundred polygons or more in a single scratch in the cyborgs metal plates. Zbrush is great for natural forms like the contours and wrinkles of a face but it is quite tricky for less natural more mechanical subjects like this character. It was quite a challenge but still fun. Putting all the dents, scratches and rivets in at the end was an easy way to add character to the cyborg.
 

Cyborg #1 Concept

 I have been working on some cyborg concept, these were created with my graphics tablet in photoshop. 

I wanted to throw some ideas around before I start a new 3d poly model. I may try losing the little finger from this character, that way I can use the joints I save to create animatable pistons or other mechanical gubbins for my human machine hybrid. The idea is that this model will work with the same skeleton as the cyber punk from my last entry and so be able to play the same animations and use the same props. I'm planning to keep the team colour ideas as with the cyber punk. I have stuck with just the torso arms and head being mechanized, I did consider going further but any more and I think I might as well just make a robot (I probably will at some point). I also should have a cool bit of 2d work coming up and wanted to get my drawing head on. 

 My idea of a cyborg is someone who doesn't know when to quit. A character who really should take some time out after losing some fairly important parts of himself but no, not this fella he will just head down to his local Cyber Cyborgs 'R' Us and buy some replacement parts. Something like the Black Knight from Monty 

Python's The Holy Grail but with the perks of science fiction.

 It's all gone a bit dark and twisted, I guess the Borg from Star Trek are shuffling around in my subconscious, that along with Mean Machine from 2000ad, he pretty much fits the mould for how I see a cyborg, not a character that would ever sit out a fight. There are some much older influences creeping in from things like Frankenstein and all those science gone bad cautionary tales. Also recently I bumbled onto the world of Transhumanism and the idea of septic cyborgs seems to have taken root. Apparently if you're the sort that takes a practical approach to recreating yourself as man-machine or human 2.0 a major stumbling block is making sure your body doesn't reject your up grades (yes that is as yucky as it sounds). If you fancy giving it a go there is some handy how to stuff here. I wont be trying it any time soon as I'm sure it would play havoc with my RSI.

I would be interested to know which of the three I've painted you think would win in a fight, or alternatively which one is the most pleasing from an aesthetic point of view.

Astromech Droid for all your space cruiser maintenance issues

I've been refitting my Mech-bot for Turbosquid it's an old Space Temple model so I had to gut it to make it more user friendly. You can see it in the third shot of Space Temple, It makes a good background character for sci-fi films. There are many films that I was influenced by when I made the Mech-Bot, Star Wars for one but also Silent Running and Disney's the Black Hole. I was also influenced by Red Dwarf's scutter robots. It's probably closer too a scutter than an R2D2. I see it as more of a background than a side kick character.

I've been using versions of this model for years you can see a much older variant of the Mech-bot in the clip below, back in the days when I avoided texture mapping. That little bit of animation is from a short film I didn't manage to finish. I keep going back to it because it's fun and easy to animate, it probably makes more sense learning to animate with a character like this than diving into a character with arms and legs.


The robot is a poly model skinned to a simple skeleton with an IK rigg. It has wire handles and the mesh is on a separate layer so that you can select the control you want without any fuss. It was built using Maya. The scale is set to just above knee height on an average human. You can edit the size so if you wanted it Godzilla size stomping on buildings you can. The animations will scale too without any problems. At the front of it's nose it has a set of tools that can be animated (you can see them in the anim demo embedded lower down). The light in the right eye can be animated it has a custom control so you don't need to fiddle with the materials. It's great for getting a Terminator style power down effect.

It comes with nine animations

• Mech-Bot Idle
• Mech-Bot Run
• Mech-Bot Turn On Spot Left
• Mech-Bot Turn On Spot Right
• Mech-Bot Power Down
• Mech-Bot On
• Mech-Bot Work
• Mech-Bot Stand to Run
• Mech-Bot Run To Stand

With these you can put together a nice little sequence and have the Mech-Bot character power up, run round a scene interact with or fix your sci-fi props and power down again. You can see more detailed specs for this character by viewing the Maintenance Robot page.




The corridor below is looking a bit Event Horizon, It's a very simple background that was fun and quick to make. A pretty much ideal setting for the Mech Bot, It would be cool to see a power droid coming the other way. I've tried to make the robot look characterful in it's movements. It's intended as a long suffering well used puttering sort of droid that sputters as it powers down and rattles slightly when it's idling. I wanted it to feel like it had maybe developed a few bugs and was verging on personality rather than merely machine.

For Turbosquid I also include a diagram showing the model in the Maya viewing panel so you can see all the animation controls. It's tempting to add labels for flux capacitors or sublight hyperdrive engines but I managed to control my inner geek.

I also have to provide wire frames which look nice in their own right. I am starting to enjoy the  presentation side more. It's something I tend to view as a bit of a chore, in the past my main focus has been making sure the model looks good and works well.

 I decided to shelve the witch I was working on in my last blog entry, she wasn't getting much response and other jobs kept getting in the way. I may continue with the model at some point.

Hand Of Judgement

Keeping my hand in, with a bit of giant robot art. This fella has been lying around for many months in need of a paint job. I did it to go with the Mecha series I did ages ago but just finished painting it today.

Work Shop

Stilt Wraith

The Wrecker

Red Spider

ClawBot

Robotic Doodle

Gothic SciFi

Have been reading Liz Williams, seems there are some side effects.

Mechanical Castanets