Legal Constraints

Legal constraints are rules that have to be followed by the creators/designers of in this case robot sidekick models, features such as names, body shapes and accessories of characters can be copyrighted meaning they cannot be copied into other designs I have taken inspiration from the robot Weebo from the film Flubber staring Robin Williams. As you can see many features from this robot can be seen in my design however they have been manipulated and are not identical. For example the body of the robots are both spherical however mine is a perfect sphere likewise Weebo is not in addition, My character has many accessories including 2 jet engines, a mini gun and and intake slot as a mouth compared to Weebo's flip up TV screen. Much like Weebo my character has a camera on the from however Weebo has a camera as an extra facial feature where as my characters camera is its right eye. As you can see there are many features that are relatable between these two robots however there are crucial differences in order to ensure no modifications have to be made due to legal reasons.  

Enviroment Proposal

For unit 68 I must create a 3D environment of a futuristic city, this will include a skyscraper as a main feature and other assets such as shops, vehicles, bins, sculptures and other modern features.

In order to create a successful 3D environment I will ensure research is carried out before hand, from sources such as the internet I will gather information to enhance and consolidate my knowledge of 3D design and modern environments in addition, I will collect images and photos that can be applied to assets as textures improving the overall finish of my work. The overall appearance I would like to achieve is sleek and clean; I will ensure I create this look by using sharp edges, and a restricted colour pallet of greys and blues.

When creating a 3D environment I must consider the ethical and legal terms in which I must follow. I will be taking inspiration from the futuristic city seen in the 1976 film Logan's Run and also the game Mirrors Edge, while influencing my work I will ensure I don’t not break any copyright laws by creating all my own assets from scratch that will be different shapes compared to the original my environment will be more of a developed creation by creating my own interpretation what I feel it should look like. Another Legal consideration would be using others images for my textures, to avoid this situation I will reference all my textures in my texture research as I find them. 

The target audience of my 3d environment project would be late teenagers-early adults (16-24) who are intrested in sci-fi as I feel it takes a more mature mind to understand the complexity of a futuristic environment and really appreciate the attention to detail that I will put in however can still enjoy what I have created. I feel that by deciding to create a futuristic city I have enabled myself to be very imaginative and creative with all the possibilities of features I could include. As I mentioned earlier I would like my environment to be portrayed as very clean and sleek, I feel these features very much suit my target audience as they can be complex yet innovative with a level of class to it which I feel will be fully appreciated by the older mindset. I will ensure my enviroment appeals to sci-fi fans by following my modern sleek style, incorporating futuristic features and kepping my colour pallet to whites, blues, greys and chorme.

When creating my environment I will be using the 3D design software Maya, I will have to demonstrate a number of skills throughout the creation of the project. From past experience I have a background knowledge of the software meaning I know how to carry out tasks such as applying textures or manipulating objects meaning I can be efficient when creating my environment. Another piece of software I will be using is Adobe Photoshop, I will use this to create, edit and touch up images and textures that will be applied to assets I create in Maya, I also have past experience using this software therefore when it comes round to using it again I should be very time efficient, a major benefit of using Photoshop would be the fact i could create seamless textures which would help when applying them to large areas so the pattern can be repeated yet line up perfectly. Alongside these two pieces of software I will also need a drawing resources to sketch out my initial ideas and other designs, a computer and possibly a scanner to upload the hard copy drawings I will create and finally, a high quality camera to take images in which I can transfer onto the compute to use as textures. 

Throughout this project I will ensure I use my time efficiently and effective by creating a production schedule, this will mean I have deadlines to complete a certain amount of work before ensuring I have enough time to create everything need to make a high quality 3D environment. I will liase with my client throughout the whole modelling process and seek feedbackfrom them where neccissary.  


Within this proposal I have covered all aspects of the brief, that includes ethical issues, target asuience, requirements and the project as a whole. I created this document in order to throughly understand the brief meaning when it came to the creative stage I knew and understood everything I had to to and the requirements I must meet. This document is extreemly helpful to me as it is cost effective in the sense that when I came to the creation stage I would be able to minimise errors which would penulitamtley cost money to fix therefore, it is better to understand in detail what I am creating before hand. Within this document I also explained my target market, it is essential I understand what they want and need.         

   

Production Log

In this first lesson we were looking for inspiration in modern design and futuristic characters by researching images and brainstorming ideas. Below is a mood board of futuristic characters/ robots, from this I will take inspiration, I prefer the models with smoother, cleaner curves therefore I this this is what I will reflect into my initial designs.

For the first half of this lesson I finished researching for inspiration and I came up with 6 initial sketches for my robot sidekick character, this took all lesson and I did not completely finish therefore next lesson I will post my completed initial sketches page.

In this lesson I finished my final 2 designs and scanned them into the computer to be inputted into Maya and finally created. As you can see below I tried to create 6 very different characters this is in order to give me the best idea of what sort of character I would like to create.

In this lesson I decided on a character which was the sphere with blades on his head so it can fly. I drew a front, back and both side, I started to input my drawings into Maya however it is a lot harder than I anticipated and I spent most of is lesson manipulating the images in Photoshop. This is my front image.

Today I ran into some difficulty inputting my images into Maya as the different images are not the same scale meaning they do not line up and this would be a big issue in the creation and I had to think of a solution quickly, my options were to either compromise and guess the shape of the robot and have a in precise model or redo my drawings and start again. I chose the second option as it would allow me to have an accurate model and will be more beneficial in the future as I have images to reference back to. 

  
In this lesson I re-drew all my sketches and scanned them into the computer and as I had perviously inserted them into Maya in the past this lesson I managed to do it very quickly in addition, I started modelling 3D shapes. By the end of the lesson I have got the basic sphere and I have also modeled a jet engine in replacement to the propeller as I felt this suited the model better, I got the main shell of the jet engine by using a polygon torus that I stretched lengthways and decreased the size of the radar, I done this with another one but smaller to create and inner shell and finally to complete the outer shell I used a polygon cone and deleted the the tip to look like a small exhaust. To finish the model I use a polygon cylinder and deleted every other face to make it look like a fan, I then put a small sphere in the centre of the fan to make it look more aesthetically pleasing. 

Today I have added a face and I decided to make the face for bubble bot and after I created it, it looked to friendly and a bit like a character that should be in Thomas the Tank Engine so
I change the mouth to an intake scoop where it can suck objects in and to make it look more scary and less friendly I added CCTV cameras as the eyes with some downwards pointing eye brows to make it look to fierce as shown below however I feel this gives a confused message of the robots image therefore I decided against the evil look and changed it back to the original look and continued to make the model look a bit more friendly however from this I have decided to change my target audience would be around the 5-10 years of age. I will continue to make my model with this in mind.
  

Today I made a mini gun to go on the bottom of my character so it can defend its self or enforce the law. I plan to make a casing for this and make it retractable inside its body and add some withs or method of stability while it is in the air.

I found this photo of a plane while researching different tail fin features, I hoped to find an imager I could take inspiration from and reflect into my model. 

Here is the model with the new tail fin feature, the tail fin was inspired by the plane seen above, I recreated this by manipulating and merging different shaped polygons. As you can see it is not textured yet however I feel that the modelling side of the project is near on completion.   


In this lesson I made a compartment on top of my model to allow easy access for maintenance and to ensure it is practical for the model I have added light bars when the compartment is slightly open, to open it I created a hydraulic pump as seen below, there will be 6 hydraulic pumps located on the model in pairs. Toady I also played around with textures applying different ones and highlighting other pieces of the model with different textures, the one I concluded with is displayed below. 

After receiving feedback non bias responses on the model shown above, they said that the model has an estimated target audience of around 15-25, as this was not the audience I was aiming for, so to make it more appealing for the younger market I have made the model lighter and more fun by using chrome and marble textures, I also made a glass window in the top of the maintenance hatch. 



In todays lesson to enhance the look of my robot I created a circuit board that can be viewed through the glass hatch on the top of my robot. I also played around with lighting for the first time changing the distance of the light from the model and the intensity of the light. I still did not get my desired result so I will continue with this next lesson.  










This is my completed model with lighting and rendering.