WILL's Prototype Designs

[WILL]

[size=9px]Small footnote; I had this whole long thing typed up and halfway through it my peice of crap laptop died on me becasue of a brownout. :?[/size]

Yes, I like the idea of the arms acting as somewhat seperate from the main body.

Maybe he'll walk away from the table and the little arms will be struggling like a person to reach and grab for the table to stop it from falling and when it crashes to the floor, it drops the arms as if it just gave up...

I love that idea, perfect for the comic relief :lol:, but it'll be up to my animation skill if I can pull it off with any success :?.

I suggest taking a page from Disney and Pixar and try acting out the arms reactions with your own hands. The trick is to give all the emotion and personality of an individual person into these arms, with just what features they have, hand gestrures. But try not to get too carried away or corny otherwise you'll lose the viewers and get a 'disconnect' from the character. [size=9px](Sometimes I think if I wasn't a programmer, I'd have end up being a director. )[/size]

I actually used parts of the Judge Dredd Robot as a reference. I really like that style. What I am trying to accomplish with GUS, is a sort of more newer look than that. Still made mostly out of chunks of metal (instead of composite plastics like the Main Character), but everything is kind of smooth and bubbly looking instead of straight and flat. Like a transition between new and old, yet GUS's 'new' look, is on the way out and starting to get old.
(Hope I'm not being confusing, don't really know how to explain it, but hopefully it'll make more sense in a few more updates)

I'm still planing on putting bolts and rivets all over his shell, but that'll be one of the last things I do.

His panel design was a failed attempt to give more detail to his plain sphere of a body . I don't like it either, came out too rounded and smooth. I'll try something else.

So instead you made it more rounded? Interesting technique. j/k

I think instead of giving up on the panels, you should have kept them simple in shape squared off the corners and made them more 'tank-like'. You know that painted metal armour alloy look. But with the stealy hydrolic joints and cables underneath the shell. The shape of the guy is good, but the pattern on his now is too... fancy pantsy... he is an old robot... and considering his line of work, shouldn't have any fancy or new-age patterns on him. :? It goes to throw him out of reality that he's in.

As for his color/surface, it's still a bit early to be worrying too much about it . But to put everyones minds at rest (for now), I made some quick (and I mean quick ) tests.

Heh-hem . Here's a simple UV maping of his right arm. I just used a default brush in Photoshop to chip some paint away. No real diffuse or gloss map, so it looks too new (Yes, it looks horrible, but it's just a start)


Next up is a procedural map. I just layered a bunch of textures over each other and it came out pretty good. The rust looks better, the paint is more how it should look, nice and flat, and a bit faded.


I expanded on the procedural mappings and added some more layers. I tried to give an undercoating, and it's becomming visible as the top coat is chipping off. Also tried adding scratches as a bump map.


Just some tests, nothing is set in stone yet .

I like these examples! It's a good aged effect, just don't over-do the rust. Make it look like a distinct feature rather than a common texture everywhere.


Otherwise I like his direction. It'd be great if each character in the game got this kind of attention.

[K4Z]

Here's another example, closer to look I'm going for.
Minimalistic paneling with a bump map.

It'd be great if each character in the game got this kind of attention.

LOL, I didn't expect 'ol Gus here to get this much attention .

[savage]

:drool: NICE detailing!

[WILL]

Thats a nice effect. Now, you know if you're gonna have rust like that you gotta then make the rust react to the gaps in the panelling you know.

Don't make him all covered in rust. Just have him so that he's starting to rust in the odd place here and there...

But it's good I like the effect it gives off. Just make it in small patches or on lightly on sparse random areas...

[K4Z]

Being a procedural texture, I really don't have much control on where the rust appears. So I probably won't be able to super detail and add rust comming from the gaps, and well worn areas. :think:

Ofcourse, he's not going be as rusted as these examples, they are just emphasized to show the idea.

If everyone's happy with the surface now :mrgreen:, I'll get back to modeling .

[WILL]

:lol: Quite, right... *ahem* onward old chum... :salute: onward!

Looks good K4Z giver hell.

BTW, anything on that tiling attempt?

[K4Z]

BTW, anything on that tiling attempt?

Short answer: No, not really :shhh:.

Sorry, I have slackened off, other projects and assignments have caught up with me once again

Not much new for GUS, but here's a mini update to the Interface, trying out an idea.


[size=9px]Has this thread been moved (again)? :scratch:[/size]

[WILL]

[size=9px]Has this thread been moved (again)? :scratch:[/size]

I don't recall this thread ever moving. :?


An issue with continuity:

Something I think I should mention, because I think I seemed to have missed it, but it's vital to make it happen in all things visual in this game.

The hero robot and his 'brother' are unique! The white shell casing style and design are exclusive to them alone. Why is their design so exclusive? Well there was only 2 and it was a 'secret' project. The doctor was only able to publish a few papers and reports on his progress before he had to go into hidding. And the only two models, that remain unreleased to the public, were either lost in a cave in a tropical swamp or stollen by the evil commander in an attack.

So really you can't use the same shell design anywhere else in the game, except for maybe the designs of some of the bosses of the robot army. And of course the hero, and his brother and all the cool upgrades our hero finds.


Also, as far as the current world technology. The world just faced a HUGE 40 year war... in the streets of cities, all over. The world isn't a very cheery place, esp. since they took almost all the 40 years to recover to where it is now AND the threat is still out there. :shock: So there is a constant gloom still about in the less rich places in the world. In the big cities, you know how you have the poorer parts and then the very rich and core portions? Well only the core and the richer parts of the city (City Hall, Big Corporate areas, shopping centers) will looks all spiffy and clean, the rest shows it wear and tear of industrial steel and concreate living. So just keep that in mind as you design new areas of cities and machines and materials for the game in general. Exceptions of course are exotic locations, like the underwater bases, and hidden fortresses, etc. [size=9px]*hint hint*[/size]

[K4Z]

Heh Heh, yes I know .
The shiny white plate look is only going to be used for the main character and his 'brother', with slight hints of this style throughout any other of the Doctors works. If we ever see anything else made by the Doctor, it will be shiny and white so it's easily recognized .

The only other place this style is to be used is the interface. The interface should somehow match the main characters look a little bit, so everything blends nicely together.

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Just to elaborate more on the styles. It depends on when an object was manufactured. Things that were made before the 40 year war will be smooth looking mostly made out of plastics. And those made during and after are going to be hard, straight, and made out of rusted metal.
So, my idea of GUS is that he was built a little while before the war, with a smooth bubbly look, but is now rusting from lack of maintenance.
While with the main character, the Doctor would of had enough funds and recourses to keep on with the clean looking style.

Although slow, everything's under control, and has had some thought put into it :mrgreen:

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I'll do a GUS update (as well as some other things) when I get home.

[size=9px]lol, I'm sure this thread started off in a category that got removed months ago, then it was in creative and then in Project Planning. I just noticed that it's now in 3d modeling and texturing. Doesn't matter, it's just funny [/size]

[WILL]

Ok well all seems on par with my overall concept.

While with the main character, the Doctor would of had enough funds and recourses to keep on with the clean looking style.

GUS waould have been made several years after the doctor's work stopped. He is not only a completely different model and line of robot, but made by technology invented by completely different people from a different era. I guess you could think of the difference like two chains or lines of evolution. Kinda like mamals and reptiles have.

Timeline sorta works like this:

- Doctor invents sentient robot technology. Real AI!
- He then writes a report stating his accomplishments publishing it publicly.
- The evil commander after taking notice then starts planning to steal the technology.
- The allied government's intelligence people warn the doctor about the threat to him and his work.
- He then scrambles to protect his work and stop this evil force from getting his prototypes.
- The convoy with the two prototypes is attacked and the doctor is killed. His assistant and some members assisting in the doctor's project manage to elude the attacking forces.
- in the next 3 years the doctor's assistant works with colligues to create a new robot to stop the evil robot army from being created. Some parts of the allied military join in on the fight. The allied government it's self ignores the threat as anything serious.
- When the assistant's plan is launched and the HQ of the robot army is discovered, it's too late, the new robot is destroyed and the assistant and his colligues were left defeated. The military friends the assistant made were wiped out and their base was oblitterated.
- in the following year the 30 years long robot wars start and the world is sent into chaos.
- Things die down near the end, where an uneasy ceace-fire and stand-still peace agreement is signed.
- 10 years without fighting is spent by the world picking up peices and licking wounds. Nothing has been heard of from the robot army, the world still recovering is scared and weary.
- Now it's the current day and our Robot hero, one of the two prototypes awakens from his long 'sleep'.

I guess you can refer to this whenever to need a chronology to fall back to for consistancy.


Oh, and I forgot to mention how cool the interface looks.

Someone suggested switching the 'Exit' and 'Play' places as it might work better the other way around being as the whole left to right hand-eye co-ordination thing. It's more common the other way around.