MODEL AN ARACHNID MECH IN VR

Glen Southern demonstrates how to create a detailed robot concept in Gravity Sketch

- Glen Southern

I often use VR to rough out designs for a new project. The sketching tools make it very easy to block out my ideas in 3D and then build over the top of those strokes in another layer. It is a very effective way to plan out a design, but with Gravity Sketch I can take it one stage further. I not only sketch the design and block it out for overall shape, but I can add surfaces and more recently polygons with full-on subdivision surfaces. These models can be exported as an FBX and I can use that geometry in other programs, either for rendering or in some cases for the actual animation. In this tutorial and accompanying video, I will work through a session to make a robot with a complex- looking design and use that in Cinema 4D with Redshift to get some very striking renders. I will show you how to sketch out the robot’s overall shape, and how to then block it out to make sure that the volumes and silhouette read well as we rotate the model. I always break the model down with separate materials as these sets can then be used in Cinema 4D to quickly isolate parts of the model and then assign the correct materials and maps.

01 FREEFORM SKETCHING

We won’t use any references for this design as it is sometimes a good idea just to play with shapes and ideas and see what emerges. I had an idea to create a robot that is like a centaur but essentially the body plan of a spider. To begin with I just use the ink or stroke tool and start with symmetry switched on in the main panel so I can work on both sides of the model at once.