_079 : The Robot Empire

_079 : El imperio robot

I started my project thinking about the basic tools Luis had given us, but I changed my mind and went a little further. At first, I thought it would be too pretentious to design something more complex for someone who had perhaps never worked with Blender before, but little by little, I became more comfortable with the program and became excited. I had previously worked with 3D Studio Max with really unrewarding results, perhaps due to its unintuitive interface. I'm not entirely happy with this work, but it may be the door that opens my hopes to continue with 3D modeling, and that's very good.

My project is about a robot _079, a species similar to the much more advanced robot number 5 from the movie Short Circuit. I started making sketches, and none of them convinced me, until I found one online that caught my eye. I'd like to name the creator, but I haven't been able to find it.

Based on this concept, I began modeling my robot, encountering a multitude of problems, including how to generate too few polys in my model so my computer could drag it. Today, I probably wouldn't model even half of the parts as they are, but I don't want to touch them because it's my first model, and I like seeing the mistakes I made later. So, I started experimenting and got tangled up with UV mapping and textures in the node editor. Modeling wasn't enough, and I started hitting more walls.

Once I'd worked on the modeling, UVs, textures, etc., I dived right into the rigging to be able to animate it in the future. This possibility almost vanished in my mind when I saw how long it took to render the turnaround.

Finally, I exported the render in motion after 20 hours, an average of 18 minutes per frame. I also worked on a composition that would serve as the concept for a fictional film.

After all this time working on the robot, I wanted to thank my professor, Luis Arizaga, for all his support. Thanks to him, I was able to complete this course. From the beginning, he was dedicated to providing me with all the possible references, tutorials, and advice that went beyond what is included in the course. Thank you so much for helping me and for your endless patience with so many questions and concerns.

All the best.