I haven’t posted in a little while, mostly because I’d hit a bit of a wall. I’ve been trying to get up to speed with Modo (a modeling package I like far more than Maya, or anything else so far), and also trying to figure out Normal Mapping and all of that. Normal mapping turned out to be the most frustrating thing I’ve had to do so far.

What you see here is the end result of literally days of experimentation with different methods and programs, and a lot of trouble shooting. I think I’ve got a much better idea what I’m doing now, though this still needs some tweaking. Modo’s built in painting feature is working well for some of it, though I’m sure I’ll resort to Photoshop before I’m finished.

The finished UV map. Still not terribly exciting.

I’m about half way through UVing my model. This isn’t pretty, and being half done it’s not even that interesting or useful, but I wanted to show that I’m still moving forward.

Another capture of the high and low poly bot models, both with and without the wire frame. Also a larger render of the high poly (with a little bit of Photoshop to fix the extra shadows caused by some floating geometry.

The concept art is credited to Junji Okubo, who often works under the name Izmojuki. He’s done work for dozens of games and movies. His web site is here.

I wish I could have credited him sooner, but didn’t have enough information to go on until now. If I’ve mis-credited this please let me know and I’ll correct it.

UPDATE 2012-02-19: Corrected the concept artist credit.

Here’s the final High Poly version of the Bot. The smoothed wireframe looks like a mess, but it actually seems to work fine.

Here’s the final, triangulated low poly version of the bot. I managed to squeak in just under the 5,000 tri budget, while still getting all the detail I needed into it. I’m also trying something different with the rendering, I think it’s clearer and just looks nicer in general.

I should have the high poly version finished and posted some time later today.

Our assignment has changed, and the forklift has been pushed back (they really are preparing us for real life). Now we have this bot we’re doing from somewhat limited concept art. This is the body and part of the leg structure. It will make sense once I post the full bot on Friday.

Made some really good progress today. Added the seat and LPG tank on the back, also got the titular forks on the front, so it’s look much more forklift-like.

Yet more incremental progress.

Not a whole lot that’s new, but what’s here has been tweaked and corrected.