Clean Sci Fi

Hello everyone!

A WIP thread is something I should have done for my first Asset Store asset. Doh! Ah well, it's never too late, right?

After a very long time working on Clean Sci Fi: Modular Corridors and Rooms I needed a break from environment duties so I thought I would add a related asset to (what I hope will be) my growing family of related assets.

My idea is to create a synthetic sci fi character to stalk those corridors and rooms, giving my environment a bit more life.

Here's a screenshot of where I'm at right now.



The area of the figure that has received most work (and what I'm most satisfied with) is the head and shoulders. The rest of the figure (aside from the feet maybe) needs a lot more work to get to where I want it to be. As you see it is currently not 'synthy' enough, but rather a simplified athletic looking humanoid. I'm looking to strip out areas of the torso and arms, neck etc and replace those areas with air, cables and pistons and whatnot.

Things I need help with:

• I have several favourite sources of inspiration, but I don't want to make him look too derivative. Please tell me if you think it 'looks a bit too much like X but not as good'.
• Do you think he'd fit well into the Sci Fi corridors and rooms (link at the top) I've already built, AND be a useful addition for anybody else out there considering putting a sci fi game together?
• Is he a believable character? Considering the genre, of course. ;-)
• Potential colour schemes (see 'Please ignore', below)

Please ignore:

• The colour/shader. He's currently sporting a shiny matcap shader for sculpting purposes, which is not necessarily indicative of how he'll look once textured.
• His lack of accessories. I'd rather concentrate on the figure itself, at least initially. I'll try and ship with several choices of colour schemes, perhaps indicating the role of the bot (from military, security through to medic etc) so weaponry options are something I'll deal with separately in this thread later.

Um, I think that's it for now. Aside from mentioning that I'll probably do a female version further down the line I think that's it. Back to work!

Simon
Made with Mice

 

I'm going to go with "ironman"/"doctor who cybermen" as the main inspirations for the head... you're missing the "tear" by the eye and the bar thing over the head/between the "ears" which i would say are the two most iconic "cybermen" bits. Avoiding being too "ironmany" is probably going to be a colour scheme thing i think.

I like him overall

 

Thanks! You're right, of course, about the similarities, but you may be surprised to know that those didn't figure in my list of influences. I'll wait to see if anyone else pitches in before I fess up and state what they are.

This is what makes robot/synth character design so fascinating, I think. It is such a well trodden path that it is difficult to make something that doesn't ring those same bells. If you do a metal head and do small round cavities then it looks like a Cyberman. Make those eyes thin oblongs instead and you have Iron Man. Make it a thin slit right across and you have Robocop.

Iron Man and Cybermen are so iconic it will be tough to avoid their magnetic pull. I may have to ditch the small circular eye cavities.

 

It's a nice model (and helmet ). That said, personally, i prefer a model with detachable parts (head, legs, hands, etc ..) and without 'six pack' ( too common, too Crysis, too IronMan etc...), like this one :


Oh, add an 'multiple-head-option'. This is something totally missing on the Store.

 

Looks great! And Clean Sci Fi: Modular Corridors and Rooms looks equally impressive

 

Thank you!
Detachable parts - great idea! I hadn't considered customisation beyond the colour scheme and what is held in the hands. Different heads makes great sense. It's another draw call and texture sheet but that's not a big deal. Create first and optimize later, I say.

Yep, with you on the 'six pack'. I'm happy-ish with the style of the head and feet; everything in-between is up for re-working extensively. I was going in an art deco kind of direction with it, but it comes out like a Roman centurion's chest plate. Not necessarily a bad thing for a bot, just not the style I'm looking for.

 

Why thank you. Very generous words. I must be doing something right.

 

Those are some pretty cool robot heads! And yes, some alternate parts would be great.

 

Binary Domain is a good inspiration.

 

Thanks for this. I like it. The military olive green works very well and the level of 'mechanicals' viewable on the model is nice. That's the sort of thing I'm aiming for, although it's not yet present in my WIP sculpt. I need to turn some surfaces into shells, like motorcycle fairings, allowing pistons, cables and whatnot to be shown between/underneath.

 

Oh yes, do it.

 

Sorry about the lack of updates guys. Fear not, I will continue.

In short, I've diverted energies back to updating the environment pack to make it fully Unity 5 compliant plus Substance support. If you want to know a bit more detail I've got a blog post here -

http://madewithmice.com/2015/05/30/clean-sci-fi-gets-down-and-dirty/

or the Facebook version -

https://www.facebook.com/madewithmice/posts/1612730882298933

I'll be right back updating here once I'm done with that update. Thanks for your patience!

 

Hi Psimoh

About your robot model if :
a) you remove the six pack (ok i confess i can do with )
b) add articulations like those : https://www.unrealengine.com/content/521c3a98448a47c884117ee1e288787b (for example)
c) add multi head.
it's will be fine for me. Instant buy.

 

A shopping list! I like it.

What do you mean, specifically, about the 'articulations'? Do you mean ball-joints and stepped neck joints etc? Or am I missing something?

 

Yes..

 

Hi,

News about the Robot?