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Fost
10-24-2005, 02:52 PM
A couple of robot designs for a game I'm working on called 'Mr Robot'
older Robot threads here: 1 (http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=216069) 2 (http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=188505)

Orgus
Orgus' design is based on how I'd always imagined Marvin the robot should have looked when I read 'The Hithchiker's Guide To The Galaxy'; essentially an enormous brain with legs and arms.

Orgus is slow and weak in the physical world, but will come into his own during 'ghost hack' - a mode in the game where you hack computer terminals. The processing power he has available can kick butt then!

http://www.moonpod.com/board/images/misc/Orgus_ConceptArt-Stages.gif
Concept Art

http://www.moonpod.com/board/images/misc/Mr.Robot_Orgus.jpg
In-game Model

Raistlin
Raistlin is the ship's comms specialist unit. Built round a lightweight robot skeleton; he is designed for speed allowing him to quickly locate and fix any errors in the miles of communication cabling onboard the Eidolon. Raistlin generally keeps himself busy in the darker corridors of the ship undetected by normal sensors due to his high level of interference shielding. Other droids often go about their business without even realising he is there except on the rare occasions he has something to say. Asimov has always been a little afraid of Raistlin's shadowy and secretive nature.

The design phase for Raistlin was my fastest of the robot yet. I tend to mess around with all kinds of ideas before getting inspiration, and can often end up taking longer to design the model than to actually build and texture it (a process that is pretty quick once I know what I'm doing). I don't think this is normal amongst artists btw (anyone?), as I know people who seem to be able to come up with great ideas at the drop of a hat. I find it much harder to work out what designs I'm going to go with and feel comfortable making. However, in Raistlin's case, he needed to be very lightweight, and so this dictated the design from the start and I think the constraints helped me enormously. I really like it when the design of a model fits its function http://www.moonpod.com/board/images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif


http://www.moonpod.com/board/images/misc/Raistlin-ConceptArt.jpg
Concept Art

http://www.moonpod.com/board/images/misc/Raistlin.jpg
In-game Model

Zelda
Zelda is the ship's repair droid. She's the robot equivalent of a nurse - although I suppose that's more of a mechanic or a technician. Zelda is an important character in the game, as due to circumstances you will encounter early on, Zelda will be available via comm link to help you on your adventure.

Whilst the Raistlin robot proved to be a quick design job, Zelda presented me with a few problems at the concept stage. I wanted Zelda to be a fembot, and so vaguely feminine yet still be in keeping with the design of the other robots (Which are anthropoidal, but not of human proportion). I tried to find as many pictures of female robots as I could (google image search is a research godsend!) but they all seemed to just recreate women in metal form - pretty much just making a picture of a sexy lady but with silver skin and a few bolts poking out in the right places http://www.moonpod.com/board/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif. I didn't want to make Zelda into a Sorayama style sexy robot, (she's a functional working robot, she just happens to have a feminine personality programmed in), so I had to come up with a new idea of what would make her look feminine.

After lots and lots of doodles, The key seemed to be her proportions - pushed out chest, slim waist, wide hips (Zelda has a big booty!). On top of that, I added knee boot shaped lower legs, and some pigtail-esque head antenna. Hopefully the end result has an air of feminity about it, although I realise it is still not blatantly 'fembot'.


http://www.moonpod.com/board/images/misc/Mr.Robot.Zelda.Concept.jpg
Concept Art

http://www.moonpod.com/board/images/misc/Mr.Robot.Zelda.FinalModel.jpg
In-game Model

Nanomeks
The Nanomeks are tiny worker robots. I love Huey from 'Silent Running' and wanted to make something along the same lines http://www.moonpod.com/board/images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif
I also thought it was nice to continue the inspiration of ZX spectrum games
- the nanomeks remind of the robots from Ultimate's PSSST!'
http://www.moonpod.com/board/images/misc/Mr.Robot-NanoMeks.jpg
PhilOsirus
10-24-2005, 03:06 PM
These are awsome! They definitly distinguish themselves from most robots I'm used to see. Nice blend between Asian and Western styles. My only crit would be to use different colors for each robots, unless this is not possible for gameplay reasons.

Keep us updated!
goodlag
10-24-2005, 03:24 PM
great works

i like robot design .. looks like cute toys :)
Fost
10-24-2005, 04:33 PM
These are awsome! They definitly distinguish themselves from most robots I'm used to see. Nice blend between Asian and Western styles. My only crit would be to use different colors for each robots, unless this is not possible for gameplay reasons.
Thanks :)
Fair comment about the Colours, I've not made my mind up about that yet. Originally, I wanted them to have a Caterpillar/JCB industrial look to them, hence the warm yellow. All the bad robots in the game are currently red, and the good robots yellow. This means you know immediately who is who when you enter a room, but that could be ok anyway because of their stylings.

The colour is just based on a layer in Photoshop and is easy to change, so I might have a mess with them once the game is near completion and post up some shots of everything together to get some feedback.
Ninjas
10-24-2005, 05:42 PM
Yeah, I have loved the designs for these robots since I first saw them. Great style and execution.
AdamAtomic
10-25-2005, 02:07 AM
Hey I recognize these from the moonpod forums! Great concepts and execution, their shapes are very readable and recognizable.
SHEPEIRO
10-25-2005, 12:26 PM
yeah i would change a few of the colours, but the designs are cool, love Orgus, although he looks a little upbeat for marvin in my mind, maybe colour him blue, or green. love all the metal plating and texturing.
nibbuls
10-25-2005, 01:26 PM
That's one awesome style you've got going for you there. Good luck with that project.
Y0da
10-25-2005, 01:44 PM
I love robots and I love your ideas. :) Raistlin seems to be more feminine than Zelda though. Maybe it's just my imagination. ;)
WHW
10-25-2005, 01:47 PM
Really like these - for some reason, "Zelda" is my fav. But I do like the mid-joint of Raistlin, nice touch that.
PhilOsirus
10-25-2005, 02:49 PM
How about making the bad guy's eyes red? The good guys' could be blue. That was it is easy to tell the bad ones from the good and it's not a huge change. Right now they look a bit evil with red eyes.
Fost
10-25-2005, 11:48 PM
Hey, thanks everyone for the great support and useful feedback (I always find it a bit scary posting up art!),


How about making the bad guy's eyes red? The good guys' could be blue. That was it is easy to tell the bad ones from the good and it's not a huge change.
The game has a very 'pulled back' camera, (dug up a recent dev pic below). So it's actually pretty hard to see some close up details. It could be worth a try though - I definitely will have a mess with it and give it a go. I think the thing to do, is finish all the bots, then do a render with them all on one page, and then another with all the colours tweaked and then I can have a side by side comparison.

We were originally inspired by the old ultimate games, like Knight Lore, Alien8 and so on, and we were trying to recreate that kind of isometric view in 3D. We also were thinking it might be easier for some (non-hardcore) gamers to get into it, because they don't have to have full 3D spatial awareness. Not sure how that will pan out until we test it though, and we still need to mess with the camera some. It's a slight departure from recent 3d puzzle/platformers have done, but it looks like it might work (and also has the advantage that you don't need to spend years writing a clever camera :) )




http://www.moonpod.com/board/images/misc/Mr.Robot.BackfaceDoors.Betashot.jpg
blz
10-26-2005, 12:14 AM
great robots, i liek the concepts.
keep up the good work!
and good luck :)
PhilOsirus
10-26-2005, 12:52 AM
We were originally inspired by the old ultimate games, like Knight Lore, Alien8 and so on, and we were trying to recreate that kind of isometric view in 3D. We also were thinking it might be easier for some (non-hardcore) gamers to get into it, because they don't have to have full 3D spatial awareness. Not sure how that will pan out until we test it though, and we still need to mess with the camera some. It's a slight departure from recent 3d puzzle/platformers have done, but it looks like it might work (and also has the advantage that you don't need to spend years writing a clever camera :) )


From the screen shot it sure looks interesting. Nice to see some simpler games once in a while, and recently they have been achieving greater success (check out Loco Roco (http://media.psp.ign.com/media/772/772060/vids_1.html), another potential hit along the lines of Katamari Damaci).

And I see how just changing the eye color would be an issue, but I think the red eyes still make them look evil, even if they are not upclose (maybe each can have their own eye color, like Zelda would be more pink?). As for the rest I can't wait to see how it goes from here! Keep us updated!:)
Fost
10-26-2005, 03:20 PM
From the screen shot it sure looks interesting. Nice to see some simpler games once in a while, and recently they have been achieving greater success (check out Loco Roco (http://media.psp.ign.com/media/772/772060/vids_1.html), another potential hit along the lines of Katamari Damaci).
Funny you should say that: I'm really looking forward to Loco Roco. I'm pretty sure it was inspired by Gish (http://www.chroniclogic.com/index.htm?gishscreens.htm) , which is well worth at least downloading the demo for (and buying in my opinion), and is a truly original indie game. I think Loco Roco might be much better though - whilst I do love Gish, I prefer the direction the art has taken in Loco Roco, and it looks like they have placed the emphasis on fun, whereas in Gish, the physics of it gets in the way a bit for me sometimes.
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