The Last Witnesses of Humanity

In a desolate world ravaged by massive earthquakes, generated by nuclear attacks marking the last trace of the last civilization, everything seemed to have been consumed by dust and rubble. Most of the living creatures had perished, and only a few survivors still wandered the desolate land, clinging to whatever hope they could find.

Amid the devastation, robots rose up with a single purpose: to find and rescue the few remaining survivors. Its metallic casing glowed with dark orange and green tones, standing out in the seedy and dusty environment. It was a sign that someone, still alive, had sent an army of machines to his rescue.

The bright glow of blinking emergency lights and moving clangs were the only signs of life in an empty landscape. But through it all, there was a spark of hope in the air, a promise that maybe, just maybe, humanity still had another opportunity.

This is my first international contest that I participate in. But I would like to clarify that I'M NOT ELEGIBLE FOR THE CONTEST, I DID IT FOR FUN :)

I really enjoyed the texturing and rendering process of this model. It was a close experience to what happens in big studios, where many artists receive models from other artists, and you have to overcome obstacles, solve problems and try to contribute as much as you can to the model.

Let's talk about my working process!
As usual, I started my work with an exhaustive search for references, in addition to those I already had constructed in my imagination, inspired by video game titles such as Mass Effect, Deus Ex, and others.

Then I moved on to a simple stage of conceptualization. In this case, since I already had the model at my disposal, this process simply involved finding an appropriate color palette that fit the concept I had in mind. With the new trend of artificial intelligence and robots, it was obvious that a clichéd theme like futuristic survival in post-apocalyptic times would be closer than ever to my focus, haha.

And of course, obstacles couldn't be left out! But in this case, I only put my effort into fixing defects that would only be visually noticeable.
Problems with the model's normals and smoothing groups were my main focus for fixing. I also had to deal with geometry that sunk and disappeared under another part, but this was due to the construction of the low poly model, which was made to be subdivided.

Once the normals were smoothed, I decided to apply subdivisions to the model. Since I didn't have a high poly model as a reference for the bake, I wasn't sure exactly how to harden or soften some of the edges. 

Throughout studying the model, I found other problems, which I simply decided to leave as they were because it would be extra work and take me away from the main goal of the contest. Some of these problems were missing geometry, unsoldered vertices, asymmetrical UVs, and UV islands with the same texture ID in different UDIMs.

Once I thought I had the model ready for texturing, I decided to generate Curvature maps, AO, Position, and other spatial maps that would help me a lot in texturing by baking the same model as High Poly in Adobe Substance Painter.
Here I show you the results of the maps and the model already textured inside Painter.

After texturing, I decided to create a small scene with some elements from Epic Games' Megascans to give this project the post-apocalyptic vibe I was looking for, based on the concept I had in mind. Then, Vray gave it the magic it needed.

I'm very happy with the result and I really enjoyed the working process. I didn't anticipate an ultra-realistic job on the textures, but I was looking for a model that looked dynamic, colorful, and rhythmic, and at the same time conveyed my concept.

With this last render, I say goodbye to everyone.
I hope you enjoyed reading and my working process. If you liked it, don't hesitate to visit my Artstation.
https://www.artstation.com/ernestobarroso

Thanks to everyone!

Ernesto Barroso 
3D Artist