KIPO and his Amazing Plant Store

This is it! Kipo and his delivery buddy are here with the final render :) 

Not so far away in time and space, there is a store, an amazing plant and shrooms store where Kipo, an ecologist robot is selling out his newest and hottest products. Along with his delivery buddy, they share the good practice of harvesting plants for a cleaner air. It is, however, true that some of the folks in their community are enjoying his plants  just for the esthetics, but that's of no bother to anyone :) 

It has been challenging to have everything ready in time, considering my decision to add a lot of elements to the scene, but working with Substance Painter has been a delight and has made me realized how much I enjoy texturing. It just brings everything to life :) 

The more I got to finishing texturing Kipo, the more I realized how much it resembles Finn from Adventure Time :) 

For the front stand I used two particle systems using two different collections, one for grass and one for mushrooms. To distribute the particle systems so that they don't intersect with the other objects, I used a weight map where I painted out the extremities. 

For the window I have created the glass texture in Substance Painter and adjusted the material from Blender in order to give it less transparency so that I don't have to create an exterior world. At this point, I was really rushing up to finish the last textures so that I can create the final render. 

Testing out materials and lights. 

The scene is also ready, and I need to work on arranging some final materials for the render, as well as tickling the lights :) 

The majority of the materials are made in Adobe Substance Painter, an exception being the glass and plants. 

After numerous trials, I finally finished texturing KIPO :)

Substance Painter - Material creation for some of the props. 

For the pipes I followed Adobe Substance 3D tutorial "Anchor Point Magic 04 - Rust Fade Effect in Substance 3D Painter" where I used the anchor feature. Unfortunately, I am not sure I understand it fully by now. 

The other props are done by adding a smart material and a bunch of dust/dirt/grunge masks until it turned into something nice :D 

finishing up some details on the small robot 

I've added some details to the base materials 

Substance Painter first successful import - the small robot - high poly

I have assigned some base materials for this tinny robot using the ID map based on the vertex paint from Blender. It is the second "serious" work I am doing in Substance Painter and most of what I know is from the Adobe Substance tutorials. I will adjust the materials adding more details to it, like dust, scratches, small details. 

This is how the scene looks so far. I will however dedicate most of the time on finishing texturing the robot as I might not have enough time to finish the whole scene by the end of the contest. 

I am currently working on uv unwrapping. Once this step is done, I will use the vertex paint method to separate different materials and I'll start creating the low poly and high poly so that I can bring the robot into Substance Painter. 

Some details on today's work.

I started to focus on the robot and I am going to leave the scene for the end. Need to finish with the modeling and start adding the details :) 

I tried to do some props today for my scene, plants to be more specific. I will try not to invest too much time on the props though as I might move away from the main objective. 

Building the props for my scene. As I mentioned on the previous update, I will be sticking on low details for now.  I've also added some test lights to see how I can better emphasize the robot, nothing final yet. 

I have also created a little creature :) Currently is not that much in line with what is present in the scene, but I will try to modify it and find a place for it in the story. 

Update 23 Oct 

I stumbled upon a great workflow created by  Visual Development Artist Alex Trevino where I noticed that the first main step of his process was to create the entire scene and then gradually add more and more details to it. Considering this is a learning process for me, I have decided to go with his workflow and to start creating the scene for my robot before adding more details. Thus, I have modeled some of the elements that I want to add in the scene - containers for the plants, some drawers for the mushrooms, and the big main shelf that was inspired from the Dune scene I referenced in my first post. I will continue to model other secondary elements and what I am most afraid of, the plants. 

Update 22 Oct

I started to create a basic shape for my robot. For modeling I am using Blender 3.1.2, and for texturing I will be using Substance Painter. 

Update 21 Oct

I realized I need to make my robot look lovable. So I have created a reference board with some cuteness. I also created a broad for a mushrooms and shop environment idea. In the end, I might change that if I do not have enough time to create it. 

I will start my project by creating a sketch for a gardener robot, a true nature lover who's main purpose is to propagate and deliver his plants to all living creatures in a gray and polluted city.

I will try to create an environment for it as well, for which I will use as an inspiration the greenhouse that was briefly seen in the last Dune movie. I have been reading Frank Herbert's books of Dune in the past year and one thing I noticed is that no matter what times we live in, his books are always a great source of inspiration for the world. Maybe it is his connection with nature as well as human nature that are deeply rooted in the stories. Thus, in a world where we create robots, what makes us think that they will be much different then us.

PS: Frank Herbert used to grow his own mushrooms, maybe my robot will do that too :)

This is the reference board I have created for my Gardener Robot.