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Figuring out how to use the UV maps

Again I needed YouTube tutorials for this but this time i had needs that apparently were a bit specific so none of the videos I found gave me exactly what I wanted but one that I found was still very helpful and from there I used my previous knowledge to finish this part. 

This is one of the few videos I found that actually uses Photoshop as part of the UV mapping process. It taught me how to use some of the UV maps features build into cinema 4D but this only helped me a little bit in the end. I had to reuse my knowledge of baking objects from the 3D project earlier in the year in order to get that UV map. But then from this video he taught me how to use Photoshop and implement it back into C4D. Where the difference I had to obviously overcome was using the paint tools rather than just dragging the pictures into the map that he already had prepared. But this was only a small difference and didn’t effect the process at all. 

At this point I had taken all that I could from the video and had a start experimenting with some features to make it fit onto the mech better. I mainly did this by tampering with some of the options in the material editor, adding a bump map or dulling the reflections to make it look more rusty etc. But the video provided the important base from where I could start this daunting step of the project and then finish it with what I already knew. 

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Where I learned most of my skills for using C4D

Youtube proved to be an incredibly valuable asset when trying to learn the more technical aspects of using besides just the modelling part. Parts like adding the lights and using the UV maps etc but a lot of them were also quite unhelpful so some trail and error was required to figure out some useful tips. 

This youtube tutorial proved very useful for two reasons. One of them being how it teaches you how to create the infinite room and the other simply how he uses the material editor. The infinite room is useful for rendering as it creates a very professional setting for the model to be in. It simply helps with the presentation and makes it look much nicer. The other part however i didnt use specifically but it was very interesting to watch a professional navigate the material editor and it helped me to understand it much better. This helped me when using it for different purposes during the modelling and rendering process.

However this person did it differently to me as he added effects to the composited background to give it what he called a more ‘studio effect’. He did this by adding the slight vignette around the setting and I agree that it looks far more pleasant than a plain white background. This is something to consider for future renders of models as I could present them much nicer than I did. 

Again this is useful for two reasons, one of them being the obvious and the second being able to watch someone use the menus and to be able to know more about each option and what it does. So as I outlined in a previous post I wanted to make a render with volumetric lighting because the effect is really nice and the light itself looks more realistic than any other type of lights. Games with this feature instantly look better like Minecraft, Quake II, Killing Floor 2, Hunt: Showdown and many others so I figured I could achieve the same effect here. 

This creator also taught me a lot of how the light effects work like how he talks about the types of noise and how they can effect both the light and the environment itself. Alongside this the gradient feature which I didn't know about previously and wish I had a good reason to implement it into a render somewhere. To be able to have lights that gradient into different colours can really emphasis the atmosphere that I’m trying to create. 

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2000AD/Judge Dredd

The story of Judge Dredd takes place in the somewhat near future like my project does, around 2080-2100 (varies between film and comics). In a world scorched by war, the 800 million people still alive survive in mega cities where crime is more than abundant. And to fight this they breed a new type of justice force called the Judges, where people take the roles of officer, judge, jury and executioner. Judge Dredd is obviously one of these. 

He has a bold outfit with the striking gold pauldrons, the red accent on his helmet and rest filled with black. I like how the gold is quite a regal colour and somehow gives him a lot of status immediately so you know what he is doing is righteous. It takes a different approach with futuristic styling as it doesn’t contain your average curvy armour plates and lights everywhere. This will be similar with my robot as it will have mostly been made in a professional environment but then when it escapes it as to be finished with scraps so it wont look clean as a typical sci fi robot may look. It will likely lean slightly towards the steampunk side for the colour scheme as well to set it further aside from this typical style. 

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Randy Forsyth

Forsyth is a character designer who made this skin called ‘Hellcat’ for a character in the game Lawbreakers. Lawbreakers is a first person shooter where two teams must fight to complete the objective, one of these teams being the ‘Law’ and the other team being the ‘Breakers’. Both teams have the same roles and play styles as eachother. 

Something that I like about this character skin is how it seems to blur the line between human and machinery. Where you look at the top half and thing its a person then you see the thin and technical looking legs with the cat inspired shapes, hence the name. I also like the little detail of adding the cat ears on the top, whether theyre just for decoration or if theyre actually responsible for detecting sound. It shows that they have a theme throughout the whole design and that theyve taken aspects from animals and other sources to make the skin more relevant to the name. 

This uses the very far in the future science fiction style where there’s little to anchor it to any modern day inspiration. With little similarity to modern armour it shows that this takes place for from now which is interesting because it allows you to be far more free in terms of design features. Like the advanced robot legs and the head/helmet with no visor. While I like this style I will be using many features from technology today because the project takes place in the not so distant future. 

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3A Ashley Wood

Ashley’s works main feature that stands out to me is not really the subject, but more so the tone and drama that he creates with it. I love how hes blended the colours in this way that it makes it look like an old wartime photo. It compliments the simple yet impactful robot design at the centre. I like this style because it doesnt have much details wise but with the strong stance and the one hand raised aiming the gun and gives an impression of being fully in control and that it is very strong and capable. 

Also how he uses these particles to show movement and drama in the painting. I also like the blended mid tones around the subject not showing any details in particular suggesting a kind of fog of war where no one really knows what is happening. This would work with my robot as well in a particular render with fog and particle effects. If I were to make a poster I would try and recreate something like this to show off its strength without giving away too much of what it looks like. 

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Effects that industry use to make models more realistic

One of the most important aspects of implementing a digital 3D model into a film is to make it fit in with its surroundings. Every single detail counts to make it seem more realistic and to show that it is where the cameras tell the audience it is. This can be done by adding dust to the model if its in a desert or an abandoned warehouse rather than keeping it clean as the original model would be. 

Obviously the first step is to put it onto a green screen, this allows it to be wherever the film requires it to be. This can be done very easily by just creating the animation in whatever modelling/rendering studio one would be using and adding the green background so that the lone model can be moved and put into other shots. But as you place it into a situation you need to make sure that the lighting matches it. If the model is meant to be outside on a clear sunny day and it has dim yellow light on it then it will instantly look out of place so a lot of these issues need to be ironed out before rendering. 

Other effects which can be seen in the deconstruction of the scenes from Prometheus is to make beautiful landscapes and then cover them up with smoke, steam and clouds. Adding a small amount of smoke in front of a model shows that it is inside the setting that you’ve put it in. If there was smoke and then you could see the robot or spaceship perfectly clear through it then it would look terrible because it would be obvious that it was simply placed on top. Sometimes the key to make something more realistic and for it to fit in is to cover it up. 

Also Pacific Rim is a great example of a film that used unique effects to bring its colossal robots to life. For one example they used a series of miniatures designed by 32TEN to capture some of their high intensity shots. Like a scene where they created a physical model of an office building then send a model robot fist crashing through it on a pneumatically controlled rig. Afterwards they could add the background and the dust effects but that creates a brilliant base for them to work from. As well as this Del Toro was adamant in having excellent water effects inspired by Hakusais ‘Great Wave’ famous woodblock print. 

        Del Toro considers the film's digital water its most exciting visual effect: "The water dynamics in this movie are technically beautiful, but also artistically incredibly expressive (Pacific Rim, Wikipedia)

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Simon Bisley’s ABC Warriors

The ABC warriors exercise a very futuristic, alien and slightly steampunky style with their designs. Especially with the smoke or steam coming from the mouth and joints of the character below. I like how there is little plating on this so you can see all of the detail of the inner working like cables, tubes, tanks and chains strewn randomly around the body. I like the canisters on the arm from a practical stand point because it could suggest weak points and I like a creation to not be invincible. 

Also with their weapon design taking inspiration from modern guns but then going completely over the top with the sci fi aspects to make it fit into this world. Something else that I like is that the design is all over the place but your still able to make out what the arm or body is because of how the internal structure is made. You can see pipes all going in one direction which shows that they have a purpose rather than just having them frantically go in all directions with no real aim or consideration.

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Surrogates

In the near future, people live their lives free of pain, danger and complications through robotic representations of themselves, called surrogates. When the first murder in more than a decade rocks this near-perfect society, FBI Agent Greer  discovers a vast conspiracy and must abandon his own surrogate to solve the crime, risking his own life in the process.

And when they find out that using one of these Surrogates can be fatal, the company at great risk of the public finding out and losing complete trust in their product. This is the same with my scenario with the company having a foot hold in every persons life with their product but they have to keep huge secrets them in order to keep them naive to the truth. The betrayal and distrust of these big companies are a usual feature with rebellions like with the senate in Star Wars and the police in Minority Report. 

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Borderlands 3

From the robot body builds sheet I did, this ‘Metal Bear’ has the one with the head and torso basically combined into one. And that it has the shoulders and the arms begin at the top of this torso section. I used this build because I thing it is the most realistic concept for a mech as they dont need heads, only cameras, which can be placed anywhere. So they would only need the chest part to house everything including the pilot. 

It also has parts inspired by animals with is a feature I added into my mech as well. You can see them here with the hands, as suggested by the name they look as if they have claws inspired by those of a bear rather than having fingers. I have done the same but this the build of the legs rather than any acute detail. 

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Big Hero 6

This film presents a much different, friendlier approach to robots as few other films do. Even when in his battle armour Baymax still seems cuddly and doesnt seem to want to hurt anybody. And that rather than piloting him from the inside, Hiro simply rides on his back and tells him where to go, similar to how they ride the animals in Avatar. 

Also it is easily noticed that they embrace a much and fun colour scheme which is part of what makes this film so lighthearted and funny. But unlike Gundam or Gen:LOCK, they use these colours with more stylised and cartoony style robots and outfits which doesnt really fit my theme. However what I have learned from these films and shows is that I want to use some form of bright colour in the design whether its simply in the form of a sticker or not. 

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eXistenZ

When Allegra creates a game that can provide the ‘ultimate escape’ others find the need to put an end to it immediately. The game works by using this organic pod and plugging into your own body and your mind is transported into the hyper realistic game. The twist and difficulty of this presented in the film is that they find that they can barely tell if theyre in the game or in real life because it is so life like. Hinting to this by in the real world adding little details that couldnt exist which caused great confusion and concern in the two characters. 

What I like about this is the incredible lack of confirmation of where they are and if anything is real as the plot progresses. Much like how the public of my project are unaware of their thoughts being monitored and that there is great haste to rectify it. And I also like this blur between reality and fiction with how it doesnt seem so alien for this to happen in the future and that is the public were to somehow find out about this the they would begin to question everything as the two in the movie do.

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Metropolis (1927)

The plot of Metropolis is that basically society is still into two groups, the rich people who live in the top utopian city above the lowly workers who work the machines to keep the top city running along. However most of the rich people dont even know that the lowly workers exist and when rich boy Freder finds one he is very intrigued and follows her down to find out more. Progressing forward in the movie his goal becomes to unite to ‘head’ and ‘hands’ of the city with him as the mediator (’heart’). 

Along their journey they meet an inventor named Rotwang who claims that his dead lover still lives as an automaton. The picture below is this automaton and is referred to as the Maschinenmensch, literally translating to ‘machine person’ from german. Her design is very minimalistic with the torso being made of basically one piece of metal. But in the subtlety there are hints at other meanings. For instance the eyes, for some reason I find them deeply unsettling and this is to perhaps reflect the characters and audience at the times lack of understanding of technology and what it could become. 

Whats interesting about this is that in the film depiction it is shown that her consciousness is infact transferred into this robot so that she may live on. As I have explored in several other posts I am very interested by the concept of technology that can connect to the human mind. Whether it is to move it into someone else, read it or use it to control something larger. I want to incorporate this into my project with the government being able to read and monitor thoughts made by the public. This makes for a sensitive and personal issue that most people can get behind. 

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Ghost in the Shell

The story behind this is that Major Killian (Scarlett Johansson) is in a devastating terrorist attack where in order to survive it most of her had to be replaced with machinery. She is the first of her kind, being a combination of both human and robot, engineered to be the best soldier ever. 

However the enemy has found a way to hack and then control every robot that exists which causes major problems as they are fairly wide spread as theyre used as waitresses and such. So they have eyes, ears and fists in every corner of the city which allows for the enemy to have access to a lot of information about where people are and where its safe to travel. 

My projects hold a similar scenario with the government has access to the general population thoughts which allows them to gather information that they shouldn’t own. And that the rebellion is built on stopping this as Killain’s objective is to shut this terrorist group down.

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Gen:LOCK

The main premise of Gen:LOCK is that there are only a specific group of people with the correct attributes that can correctly pilot a Holon suit (one of the robots). They do this not by manual piloting, but by uploading their minds into the robot so they can control it from a distance. This draws many parallels with Avatar with them being able to control their Na’vi counterparts from the connection pod. 

Only those with the a specific nervous system can achieve this, which is known as a Gen:LOCK. This special group is then tasked with defending against the attacks of the evil entity, the Union. 

The designs for the Holons are quite similar to those of the Gundam robots with the bright and garish colour palettes. Again these provide a nice change to the robots we tend to see nowadays and it gives new potential design choices for both colour and build. But I want to focus more on the uploading of the brain side to the story. I like the concept of having to upload and protect the brain and its contents because it adds a far more personal and severe stake to the story. With my project, if the blocker happened to fail at any moment Dr Henderson's thoughts and knowledge on how to replicate the mech would be usable for the enemy which would imminently cause the rebellions downfall. In Gen:LOCK, I can only assume that bad endings come to those who try to meld with a Holon without the prerequisite traits to do so. 

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Metal Gear

The video shows a boss in Metal Gear Solid 5 known as the Salehanthropus. It is an enormous robot described as a weapon that can finally walk upright. While fairly standard in design Ive noticed ways that is attacks. When the fight first starts, because its target is so small it simply stands still and shoots at him. While it obviously cant always be walking and shooting but it make me think it was in some special sentry turret position.

I could do the same with my robot in describing how it attacks. Where it could steady its feet, and lock its legs in a slightly crouching position so that its centre of gravity is lower so it far more stable. And with the bearing at its waist it can simply rotate the top half of its body to shoot like a turret at oncoming attacks and vehicles. 

This means that the pilot can focus more on the guns as they only have to look at two screens. Whereas if it was walking as well they’d have to concentrate on four which isnt ideal for trying to shoot with enhanced accuracy. 

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Hard Surface Modelling

The difference between hard surface modelling and organic modelling is difficult to explain. Examples of organic models would be people, animals, plants etc and examples of hard surface models are cars, machines, anything man made. My model is an example of a hard surface model because it is made of cubes and cylinders etc. 

(Hard Surface) These have much greater use of hard edges and angular shapes.

(Organic Surface) These use more smooth flowing shapes to achieve its end goal. 

Examples of hard surface design in films and games are the robots from Avatar, the cities from Mortal Engines and the guns from Killing Floor 2, of which some very nice models can be found. 

I like how the game has embraced a more sci fi approach in the new updates making for brilliant new gun designs like these. Unlike most of the other guns these now incorporate lights dotted around which really emphasise the futuristic style.

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Gundam

The Gundam robots are piloted from the chest with the head containing all of the cameras acting as an input for whats happening outside. Then that is taken down a screens in the torso cockpit for the pilot to use. In contrast to the robots of Pacific Rim and the Megazord from PowerRangers where the pilots can act from the head. 

It is greatly in contrast to standard robots due to its colour scheme. With many concept artists producing the same sort of vehicles with a different a greys and whites, Gundam ustilised a far more wacky and saturated colour palette which makes them so different. Like with the bright reds, yellows and blues from this one above.