Also: 1 HP Scanjet died making this compilation

A very special forces thank you to Paul Bettinson, our teacher and mentor. He’s a great inspiration and Noroff’s best weapon for future generations.

I owe you a week of drawing classes for your next year students, Paul.  Feel free to cash in anytime XD

I am a  Concept artist

I create new designs for creatures, heroes, villains, robots, and so on and on and on. You tell me what you need, and I’ll make it shiny.

If you so wish, I will take that design into 3d space for you to animate and render, so that you may play it in a game or watch it in a movie.

Our production is built up by many different roles. You have:

The Director/Production manager

The Writer

The Concept artist

The Storyboard artist

The Texture artist

The 3d Modeller

The Technical crew

The Animator

The Lighting artist

and last but not least

The Post production crew.

My role in this? Usually, when I come into play,the general idea is allready there. But it needs refining. I sit down with the Director and we talk about how he envisions this idea. This gives me something to work with, a design to chase. Depending on my deadline I will approach this design in different ways, but I allways make several attempts at the same design to make sure the director has a wide selection to choose the right one from. After this I will go through a detailing process, in which I’ll  make variations and adjustments to the chosen design until the director is fully satisfied. I use Photoshop and Zbrush for this part.

Example of a small character progress sheat

A concept artists job doesnt always have to stop at drawing,painting or modelling. In my current production it extends to the characters personality, how he moves, how he talks, reacts.  We cooperate with Animators and Riggers in this part. For example:  If you design a creature noone has seen before, and that usually IS your goal when designing a creature, you need to communicate to the animator and rigger how it behaves. If its ears shake violently when it’s angered or if he uses that extra arm to… I dont know… pick his nose,  tell the animator and he will have more to work with and you’ll end up with a better result.

If my character have special abilities, like magics, I might take a shot at doing a small animation of the visual effect it has and how the character interacts with it.

The character draws a material up from the ground

and forms it into a projectile ( Psyonic warrior power)

When it comes to passing on the concept to a 3d modeller, my own experience as a 3d modeller comes in handy! Depending on my deadline I’ll pass on a 2d turntable pose-sheat ( The figure in a neutral pose at different angles), or a finished Zbrush sculpt for him to build topology on top of. But if I would have worked on a major production, I would most likely ask if I could have the time to produce a sculpt to enhance the detail of it. The last option leaves less room for interpretation of form as you allready have it in 3d,  which for some modellers can be a blessing and for others a curse as some modelleres like to be creative in that interpretation.

As a Concept artist I might also be asked to do matte paintings as a backdrop for a scene. This requires cooperation with Post Production. I work in photoshop, and keep my layers clean, so that their job gets alot easier when compositing the different elements.  Dialogue is as important here as it is with the other sections.

To sum up, as a Concept artist, you can involve your work into many of the other production roles. In my opinion, a great concept artist does. I guess I COULD restrict my work to 2d illustration and concept creation, but I personally feel its more rewarding to involve myself and expand my responibilities to that of animation, visual effects, 3d concepts and perhaps texturing.

]]> http://nakri.co.uk/GearFox/news/i-am-concept-artist/feed 0 http://nakri.co.uk/GearFox/news/my-top-5-favorite-robot-designs http://nakri.co.uk/GearFox/news/my-top-5-favorite-robot-designs#comments Fri, 23 Apr 2010 00:12:23 +0000 GearFox http://nakri.co.uk/GearFox/?p=340 I haven’t done many robot designs before this project, but it has been a bundle of fun to expand that horizon. I love the sci Fi genre, how-ever, so here’s my little tribute to what is, in my opinion, the coolest robot designs to date…

5. The Terminator Series

Why: Nothing says ”here comes trouble” more than the Terminator robot design. Built on a Skeletal human form, it may just look like your average Vulcan Minigun-Carrying robot, but what really makes the design come together is its head. Its glowing red eyes draws your gaze immediately and reveals the grinning skull face-mask we all recognize. Why is he grinning, you ask? Probably because he’s about to kick your ass!

4.War of the Worlds, Tripod

Why: Its huge, Its alien, it has a lot of limbs, and it WILL disintigrate you if you don’t wanna ride in its backseat. Because it looks like an insect, it’ll probably read as creepy for most of us, but… dammit… its just so cool! Everything from the sound it makes to the “Big head, thin frame” says this thing is not of this world

3.Metal Gear 3-4, Ray

Why: This robot is amphibious! And you don’t many of those. Loosly based on a seal, its fin-like arms along with its pointy head design grants it great speed under water. Leaning forward, roaring, you find youself wondering if you should stop for a Codac moment or simply run like hell. Also, the signature “Metal Gear” design containing sleek armored plates combined with banded patterns and the occational Circular details to break it up is nothing short of eyecandy.

2. The Matrix, Sentinel

Why: When the Matrix blew my mind 11 years ago, I had never seen anything quite like the Sentinel. Its design being a blend of a octopus, crab and spider, works perfectly together to create a robot who’s clearly ment to raise your pulse during movie-night. Why we percieve creatures with multiple eyes and legs to be “evil” or villainous, is perhaps a topic for another time, but that’s the ways it is  perhaps “creepy “ is a more accurate description… This guy has a good point though http://arcadeberg.com/causerie/animalistic-robots/

1. Warhammer 40K, The Necrons

Why: Warhammer designers did something really awesome after their success with the fantasy version. They converted the whole thing into a Sci Fi setting, keeping some of that medievalness in their designs. The Necron Lord is a sci fi version of a skeletal undead knight. Its bent over, zombie/mummie-like stance and the skeletal facial features will tell you much about this guy. He’s not out selling cookies. Furthermore, the design contains a knight-like armor, and a cape, which spells AWESOME, and gives it a intimidating as well as slightly heroic silhouette at the same time. You can shoot these things to pieces,  but that wont stop it from putting itself back together and ripping you a new one. Its slow, but it will simply keep on coming, which is a major fear factor  You cant see it in this image, but all necrons have a ghastly green tinted glow in their eyes which adds to the fear-factor.

Honorable mentions

Marvin, the depressed robot from “Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy”

“I talked to the ships mainframe”

…”And?”

“It hates me… “

Half Life 2: Dog!

“Here boy!  Fetch!”

Eldorado Firefighter robot, Rendered in 3dsMax with Vray. Concept made in Photoshop

A few things worth mentioning about the design here: Its based on animalistic features, More specifically a T-rex  (Dinosaur made famous for eating lawyers in movies), an Ostrich, and a Eremit Crab.  What we started from, when doing sketches for this thing, was simply ” A huge robot enters the shot, signaling the crowd to make room”  so obviously we had a plenty of freedom.

The main challenge was to find a use for a huge robot. Was it a heavy lifter? Construction/Demolition-bot? would it transport people? Why it became a firefighter probably has something to do with the shape of its “Shell”because  It reminded us of a Firefighter helmet. The use for its  Shell came from the eremit crab, as the Firefighter would retreat into its shelter when waiting for a job.

Another challenge came when trying to imagine how this creature should move through our streets. Its HUGE, and it looked really clumsy, so I decided to elevate its main body  allowing me to give it more elegant legs.  To add to this elegance, I fixed it up with a swaying accessory in the form of a chained lamp hanging from its head like jewelry. The idea was also to make him walk like an ostrich, taking some of its elegance and majestic-ness.

( which, obviously, we’ve been creating alot of xD): Your Diffuse material might give you some idea of what kind of metallic look you’re going for, but it alone won’t be good enough for a realistic light-setting.

What we need to do to enhance this material, is to mask out less Reflective and Glossy areas. Also we need to emphasize the scratches and rust-patches by adding a bump. The reason we need to do this is quite simply ( take a look at our worn down car ) because the light does not reflect evenly on a worn down surface. Rust does not reflect the same way polished metal does and it will corrode the metal and possibly leave a rough edge where your car-paint is scraped off. If you have dirt splashed up from a dirty pond covering your metal, it will be less reflective, and leave a layer of fluid which means a un-even surface.  So when I make my diffuse map, I always think ahead and put these different elements in layers.

The above example is set up like this:

Layer 1 is the colored patterns

Layer 2 contains the base Metal texture with basic scratches

Layer 3  Rust Patches

Layer 4  Splashed Dirt from ponds.

I do this because it makes it so much easier to mask with accuracy. You can mask it with your wacom or mouse from scratch if you absolutely must, but it will be ten times the work, and will proably never be as good. So adding a Reflection map, modifying our different layers, you’ll notice a couple of changes. The Reflection is overall sharper, because of the brightness of the map, but the black spot ( being rust ) in top of its head is masked out of the reflection, as well as most of the letters. You’ll also see an example of the dirt being masked out of the sharp reflection. As you have probably guessed, the brightness of the image controls your reflection amount. As you make these kind of maps,  picture the contrasts of the image as a controller ranging from 0 to 100% where 0 is black and 100 is pure white. This controller is a extension of your Vray settings.  Example: to produce a Reflective glossiness value equalent of 0,5 ( Vray settings) you need to make your map 50% gray.  64% gray to produce a value of 0,65 and so on.

Adding a Specular map to the Reflective glossiness sub-material now, we’ll even out that sharp reflection and bring out the scratches in the metal. Even without a bump map, you begin to notice the material getting the depth it needs to look somewhat realistic. The text is now completely masked out and gets a matte look. Make sure your maps line up, This shouldn’t be a problem if you have layered them properly. You’ll notice the Areas which are supposed to be red ( as seen in the diffuse map) have a darker color, and will be less glossy. The idea behind this is that Red is a less reflective color than the metallic gray.

Finally, add your bump. Scratces will need a darker color as they punch into the metal, while spills or dirt is a overlayed fluid and will extrude out from the surface, thus needs a brighter color. Having your dirt on a layer it will be NO problem for you to invert the color, as it is probably Dark from working with the specular/reflection map. I also have a Normal Map, quickly made in Zbrush to liven stuff up and add extra details. Quick tip: If your Bump, Normalor Displacement map lacks details when put into Max, tune down the Blur to a minimum (0,01) in the Bitmap sub-material.  You might also try experimenting with your RGB offset.

With the Bump and Normal map on we can see our scratches get a little more depth and our dirt pops a wee bit out. Its the little things that can make all the difference.

This might not look like much work, but it actually takes quite a while when you need to do it for all the parts of a big robot. Its all worth it when you put the model into a awesome scene with HDR lights and so on, and if you ask me, I’d say its essential when youre making the kind of short we do.  I’ll Post the finished model with texture later, so you can see the results from doing this stuff. Remi out…

All hail Zbrush, the mightiest of sculpting tools. Grant us shelter in times of crunch and deliver us from the time-consuming tasks of lesser Apps etc etc. Zbrush plays such a vital role in our Production, and here’s why: Detailing characters and doing so QUICKLY. I’m struggling to become a Concept artist and I take a healthy amount of pride in my sense of detail. As I splash down 2d concepts on a digital canvas or whatever I try to include as much details as I can, but now more than before I catch myself leaving certain areas of the Concept with less detail because it just doesnt feel that important.1

However: I feel that when working in a 3d space, your brain goes into turbo-detail mode. If you sculpt a shoe in Zbrush, you feel the need… or atleast I feel the need to put in the seams on the edges, the underneath pattern and some extra details to make it pop. Whereas in 2d, I might not have considered the shoe worthy of such detail, and succumbed to slacking. This is a bad thing because you never know what will end up selling your character, It might very well be those shoes.

You pay attention to areas you might have left out in your 2d concept, and you might even begin to re-evaluate your whole design. Taking your concept into a 3d space means you now have the ability to view it from all angles, not just that awesome pose you drew it in, or your classic turn-table. You might figure out what works from one angle might not work from another, so being able to sketch in 3d with Zbrush could end up saving you a bunch of time and grief!

I saw an Interview with Neville Page the other day, which by the way is one of my favorite artists, where he shared some knowledge about the work he did on the upcoming Green Lantern movie. Due to the number of characters he needed to design, he found it faster to just skip the 2d rendering and jump into Zbrush to do his concept there for the director to see. Not every director has a art degree or the ability to look at a napkin drawing and go “aaaah, I understand that design”. Some directors need to actually see it from every angle or even fully rendered in enviroment to get the idea. Does Zbrush produce better quality Characters or Designs than a 2d medium? Not necessarily, since it all comes down to individual skill and so on, but in general i think it will make it fully readable for everyone involved in the project alot quicker.

I love drawing, both digital and “traditional”, and I’ll never fully substitute this with Zbrush. However, on some projects or specific designs within a project, you might discover that a 3d concept reads better or simply save you some time. Another great advantage of building your character up from scratch in Zbrush, even if you built it from a 2d concept, is the chance to take this mesh into 3dsMax2010 (or 2009 with polyboost) and build your topology on top of this high poly mesh. It should be possible, once you built your topology, to reproject the details from that high poly onto this new topology for smoother rigging and animation. More on this later!

One of our salvage bots, yet to be textured

Plan for this week: Push out the remaining concepts without spending too much time on rendering, Figure out a effective texturing workflow and finish another model.

On a sidenote, I REALLY wish Noroff would purchase some wacom tablets for their students. I have one at home, yes, but bringing your CintiQ21UX to school is really not recommended…