Week 01 - 3D Barrel

This week we started making a barrel in Maya. As homework we finished it, including painting texture in Photoshop and applying it onto the barrel.

I used overlay and multiply with some basic wood, rust and cork textures. Having the layers on normal looked very fake so I painted over them. For example, I used low flow on a brush to go over the rust to give it the right colour and texture.

This was my first attempt at texturing but I'm not happy with certain parts. The edge on the top uses the same plank texture as the rest of the barrel which is not realistic. I also find the colours too harsh and the wood doesn't look worn like the rusted metal.

Week 01 - Robot Classwork

In our first lesson we practiced painting in Photoshop. I haven't had much time on Photoshop before o it was a little weird to get used to after spending most of my time drawing traditionally. We were given a picture to recreate and spent about an hour on it. It's unfinished but I feel it was a good practice for me.

Week 01 - Robot Assignment

 Our first homework was to design a robot starting with three roughs.

My first thought was small robots that follow the main character around in games, like a sidekick who comes in with hints and information for the player. That is where I got the idea for the beacon on the first robot's head and large speaker mouth. I also wanted it to be small and maneuverable, hence the all-surface tank type tires and bendy arms.

I had a lot of inspiration for the second robot. The eye is like in the game Portal, the drill and cage from Bioshock and the propeller from the movie Robots. I really liked this design as it looks cute even if the "tentacles" could do some damage (so if in-game it can help in battle) so overall it would be a nice character to play with.



  I then went on to think about cyborgs. The assignment said robots and though cyborgs aren't technically robots I liked the idea. I decided to have more mechanical parts than cyborgs have usually so that it counted more towards a robot. The wires connecting to the character's neck would connect directly to the brain to control the robotic part. I found it very hard to imagine how all the pieces would fit together around the hips as I don't know what sort of parts would work in reality.

My final robot took parts from all the previous ones. the legs and antennae come from the first; the eye came from the second, and the shield came from the last. I liked the idea of not having as much biological matter in a cyborg so I took this and limited it to just the brain. I also added a door on the back like in Bioshock so the girl can enter and ride inside if there is bad weather. The antennae were designed to catch electricity to power the robot or if there is not enough, there is a solar panel on the back. Instead of one or two legs, I gave the robot six to give extra maneuverability, plus if one got damaged, there'd still be another five. The shield was to designed to precisely cover all the exposed parts on the right side of the robot.

In the far future, after lifetimes of research, humans never did quite figure out how to live forever; so in this barren land, not many remain.

However, when a close friend, your guardian, dies too young, there is a way to keep them with you, though maybe not as much of them as you might want.

So, made of scrap metal pieces and their brain for control, the two set off in search for the rest of the dying race: Humanity.