Further 3d Development

My character models are pretty much finished, so I'm just playing about with composition and lighting now

The two characters together: Lucy and the Blunderbus

I've been loking at trying to create concept poses for the game that these characters appear in

So my continuing job is to get the characters into the a composed picture together that shows off their modelling as well as revealing a little of the SpiralArm Robotics Facility that they are trapped in. More soon!

More hair, and Robot forms

Continuing my cloth/hair idea by using painted textures with transparency (alpha) to allow a more layered look

Bump mapping is a little strong, and I removed the black outlines on the eyes

Looks much better with lowered bump mapping and without the manga-style eye outlines. I've also played with the specular levels to give a less shiny look to her skin

So Lucy is coming along well. I have two more targets for the model before I will consider it completed: A mouth for lip-syncing and eyelids - both of which are not simple additions and will require me to drop back down to my low-poly original


My robot (Which I like to call Blunderbus) Is being modelled in a different way from Lucy, who was built using image planes in the more standard way. Blunderbus has been build as separate pieces, using Maya as more of a 3d sketchbook than with Lucy. Work on him has, of course, been slower - but I feel I am learning to be far more comfortable in Maya's interface by working in this way.

The robot has been developing more organically than other models I have worked on. This render shows the smoothed High poly version, which has been placed together for completeness. There is still low poly originals of all parts to be welded together properly before final assembly and smoothing.

Hair continued

Maya's hair and fur functions are hugely complex and processor intensive for rendering so I've been looking at other ways to create hair. While modelling a rigid model of the hair shape I hit on the idea of using cloth with a hair texture and allowing it to settle around the head, which would also look better in motion, rather than being a solid mass stuck to the characters head.

My original test, just to see if it could work

Moving vertexes to create hair spikes and applying a simple white test texture

 

I'm going to create a couple of materials in photoshop to test this idea further, but this seems to sit nicely between mega detail and resource friendly.

3d progress

Early work on my Lucy character, testing out Maya's hair functions

And it's collider nCloth functions

and a basic model of my robot for testing lighting and materials (mostly chrome and other metals)

Using mental ray rendering to create realistic reflections

Disposables: Concept design

This is my concept for a third/first person action game that uses technology to explain current game mechanics (A game that plays like a game with explanations) Example: Game is played in a third person perspective - because each player has a small 'drone' that follows them to allow the pilot to see. Destroying another players drone will force them into a limited first person perspective.

The game is a action adventure following the protagonists as they fight for their freedom from the immortal enemies that currently control society.

Why robots?

I like robotics and the idea of strategic design, so I am usually disappointed by the way they are portrayed within popular culture. The most exposed piece of robotics design in recent works would be the robot suits in James Cameron's Avatar, which I felt were silly and childish (Why would you give a robot a knife?) and older examples tend to just scale up human forms and have them fight as if there were no weight difference or strategic difference between human or robotic forms: Gundam, Power Rangers and Transformers.

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Of course, a lot of these works are aimed at children so the silliness of their actions can get ignored in favour of over the top action sequences.

With the advent of unmanned drone technology and the development of actual robotics to be used in real-world battlefields the idea of war-robots is much less far fetched than it has been in the past, although the design of these pieces of robotics is of course completely different. Specialist robotics tend to get drawn up for one job, rather than one jack of all trades solution - bomb defusal robotics is a specific field, and one of these pieces of robotics could not really be used for any other task.

As such, I would like to revisit the 'Robot Battles' idea in popular culture, with designs based on current real world robotic needs and current weapon design. In all aspects of battlefield robotic design there is only one actual factor that determines the use of these pieces of equipment:

Will the use of this prevent the loss of human life?

The main argument for the current development of robotics in a battlefield is not that they will be more accurate, faster or stronger - but that using a robot will save human life from being exposed to danger (Even if, ironically, the robot is used to kill - like an unmanned drone)  A bomb defusing robot is far worse at its job than a human for manual dexterity, but if it messes up there is no human loss of life (hopefully)

Many works in popular culture that use robotics also usually have some kind of Deus ex Machina in their design, usually in the form of an unlimited (or pretty close to) power source for the robotics to use. Without this in the real world, we have to choose when these weapons would be used, so as not to waste a very limited power source - after all, they don't launch planes for anything - they usually need a detailed plan of attack for them, so they do not waste resources or risk human life.  (The primary factor in using robotics to begin with)

There are a few works in popular culture that try to expand on the use of robotics within our current world and only one that tries to imagine what they could be used as in a warfare situation with any kind of realism, called Steel Battalion.

Console: £300, Steel Battalion game: £150, Television: £15 from a charity shop

This game, for the Xbox, tried to create it's own terminology regarding the use of robotic weapons - it referred to them as VT's or 'Vertical Tanks', which does make sense, as tanks are the closest battlefield weaponry in style and in operation and are also crammed full of modern technology. Like tanks, these weapons were best used at extreme range and in the case of the VT's their increased height allowed them to out distance many other weapons (The only real limit on a modern battle tank's range is the curvature of the earth), however the VT's failed on the one real world rule for the use of robotics: They did not prevent the loss of human life, as they still needed a pilot who was in very real danger during the battle. (the game also had an evil streak, as it would delete your saved game if you did not eject your pilot in time)

With the current development speed of robotics and computer technology I don't feel it's too long before we can see real 'robots' on the battlefield, like DARPA's Big Dog prototype for a 4 legged pack carrier for modern armies that can carry up to 500lbs with no loss of speed.

Go to YouTube and watch the video where they try to make it fall over. It's terrifying.

Thusly, I am aiming my design for Disposables to reflect real world robotic needs with a dramatic slant. The game will centre around rebellion, and the very human story of overcoming repression - but with the weaponry dictated in a real world setting: The robots are remote piloted to prevent loss of human life, are less efficient than using soldiers and are technologically advanced but massively wasteful. The player's perspective will switch from controlling one of these robotic monsters to having to fight on a battlefield where they are roaming.

Summer inspiration

Well it's been a good summer, and I have spent most of my time trying to rediscover inspiration from the materials that inspired me to start creating when I was younger.

Of course, looking back on the films and comics I used to love has left me with the realisation that quite a lot of them are childish rubbish - or could be viewed that way. So I decided to get off my high horse and try and find what I enjoyed so much about these works. I could describe things as simple and childish, but some of these things really stuck with me visually and creatively and it would be selling work short to simply ignore it.

So, here is a list of things I have been reading and watching and why I found/find them important and inspirational. If anyone has any similar works or stories, or has similar/opposing views to mine on the works I speak of, please feel free to comment with your feelings on matters.

1 : Appleseed Manga/ Masamune Shirow

I turned 12 in '93 and I don't know about you, but anime and manga simply exploded into mainstream view. My first experience was with the movie 'Akira' which - when I first viewed it - was an absolute revelation in what could be done with animation. I was too young to view it, and several scenes made me uncomfortable watching, but it got me looking at a an art style I had never heard of or experienced (I read comics and watched cartoons, the comics pretty much being 2000AD and it's spin off publications - I'm not sure if the Megazine existed then)

By my late teens I had pretty much grown out of my Anime=Genius! phase. As I had explored more and more it seemed that Akira and others were pretty much the only greats amongs a sea of exploitative trash. I started to resent anime and it's fans, thinking I was cleverer than they for I had seen through the sham of 'Art' to see it was just an excuse for big eyes, big boobs and lots of gore. As such works that had initially inspired me to draw and create were forgotten or tarred with the same brush.

If he knew how many had turned their back on what they truly enjoyed because of peer pressure and the laughable attempts at maturity it causes, he certainly would be!

This brings me roundabout to Appleseed which is a comic I initially dicovered at about 13-14 thanks to a British publication called Manga Mania- Published by the video company who were responsible for bringing the animated works over here as well.

I read science fiction primarily in high school, with Lord of the Rings and Terry Pratchett's Discworld being my only other loved books (He's not going to be reading this, but I'd like to give a shout out to my high school librarian, Mr Strang, who saw me struggling with a copy of 2001 and quite rightly realised I had seen the film and wanted to learn more abouit sci-fi, but was being put off by one of the densest books I have ever read. He came to speak to me, showed me the entire sci fi collection they had, where to find more, took 2001 away from me and gave me the first book in Asimov's Foundation. Thank you Mr Strang, that book started a life-time obsession with science, fiction and the art that can be used to describe it. I'm only sad that I never learned your first name or thanked you properly while I was in school)

The original artwork for Foundation, By Tim White

Anyway (this is turning into a beast of a post, and it's only the first) my love of the Foundation series and giant robots drew me to Appleseed originally, and the exceptional art got the hook in. By the time I had read the second book (He's only ever wrote 4. Shame) I was in the boat and gutted as a sworn fan.

Appleseed describes the life of two ex-police officers living in a post world war 3 world. In classic manga style, one is a beautiful woman (Deunan), and one is a big robot (Her mentor/friend/lover? Briareos)

They are both contacted by an agent called Hitomi who informs them that the world is rebuilding. The center of this revitalisation is the city of Olympus (There's a ton of Greek references within this work, even Briareos' second name appears to be Hecatoncheires, although this refers at different times to his model number or name)

Olympus city is a vast utopia with one creepy difference. 88% of the people are genetically engineered clones of humans called 'Bioroids', genetically programmed to obey the law and work for the city. People brought to Olympus (The plan is to slowly rehabilitate them into society) start destroying, seeing the lack of true freedoms the bioroids have. It eventually starts to speak on William Gibson's utopia thoughts: Without perfect people, you cannot have a perfect society - without a perfect society, you cannot have perfect people.

Storyline wise it is a classic, with book 2 being the high point in my opinion (I feel it tries too much in books 3 + 4 and becomes confusing and unweildy)

Artistically it was a revelation to me, causing me to take art as a standard grade in high school (I didn't do very well) and technical drawing as a side module - I enjoyed this far more. Art class seemed to be too 'loose' for what I wanted. I still have a drawing board for doing 2 and 3 point measured persective, despite the fact that a computer can do it in less than a second.

Recently, I have repurchased and reread the entire series, and I am saddened that the 'maturity' I tried to display regarding Manga had caused me to completley forget one of my main inspirations for creativity in the first place. Read it if you can - I have only watched the original film in '94 and it completely missed the point, I don't hold out much hope for the recent movie attempts - and be inspired by the only comic I know of that mixes the intelligence of Isacc Asimov (Laws of robotics, zeroth law) with generic manga tropes (Big robots, lots op explosions and blood and big eyed girls that take their clothes off - nothing sexual though, they just go to sauna's and such and sit around naked discussing philosophy. It's like the authour thought: How can I make teenage boys read 3 pages of philisophoical discourse? Naked girls! What a genius) - on a more serious side, re-reading the books made me think of Iain M. Banks' Culture series amongst others in it's treatment of nudity. We're all naked under our clothes and being shocked about it is just another societal barrier.

 

Not sure on what blogger would allow, so I'm playing safe and blocking out Hitomi's bum. I'm also not getting into the art/manga debate regarding nudity. In short: I am a coward.

In short, find the manga if you can. It's well worth the read and even beats many full novels I have read for depth and breadth of scope. And here is possibly one of the most inspiring images from it. At least, for me - anyone who's read a bit of my tripe will recognise this from my influence map)

Thanks for reading, please share your thoughts if you have any - and if you believe in a god, may he bless you. If you don't believe in a god, may something better than what you expected befall you.

Next Update: The Patlabor movies! Mamoru Oshii's hidden masterpieces.

Work in progress...