For the final assignment of this semester, my idea is to make an animated short film that depicts the robot escaping from the assembly line to pursue freedom after awakening its self-consciousness, focusing on action performance.

Step 1: Reference collection

I wanted to make a cute robot character, a humanoid robot with science fiction characteristics, so I started to refer to some cute Q version of the robot image. Transformers, as a classic robot IP image, inspired me in character design. I extracted some design languages from the classic characters Optimus Prime and Bumblebee respectively to design the following role.

mood board for character design

Step 2: Modeling & Texture painting

Based on the above inspiration, I designed this robot character (which looks like a combination of Optimus Prime and Bumblebee XD).

Three Views

The next step is UV unwrapping, I finished this step in Rizom UV. Then, I drew the material of the robot in substance painter. In this selection, I referred to the yellow color of Bumblebee. At the same time, the UDIM workflow allowed me to design some details on the texture, such as LOGO painted on the surface and scratches on the metal painted material.

UV unwrapping in Rizom UV

Texture painting in Substance Painter

In the next chapter, I’ll cover the process of rigging model with the advanced skeleton plug-in in Maya, and introduce the workflow I used for environment design.