Metroid Larva Scene

Metroid Larva - Scene Render and Materials

Introduction

Hello! My name is Triston Guest, and I am studying Game Design and Development at the Savannah College of Art and Design. Currently I’m focusing on 3D Modeling and Texturing and have found it incredibly satisfying work. This Metroid was made as part of a school project, but turned into quite a bit of extra work and a huge learning experience just to undertake such a prospect.

Inspiration and Goals

After playing the recent Metroid: Dread game on the Nintendo Switch, I found myself looking at the previous games in the series. One thing kept capturing my attention; the titular Metroid. After reviewing this horrifying parasitic monstrosity, I knew I had to make one myself. After all, this was a creature I had grown up destroying. It was about time to create one.

Check out the full rendered video here! Then feel free to check out the process below.

Scope and Scale

I started by looking at the Metroid in the games and in work by other independent artists. It was important to see the difference in making a Metroid to be functional in a video game, and how one could stretch the limits by designing something purely for aesthetics. I ended up choosing the latter as our project encouraged high fidelity for the model and the materials. In addition, I really wanted to test my skills and make my most complex model yet. 

One of the game model sheets for a Metroid is shown below.

Modeling

After finding references for the Metroids overall shape and design, it was time to model. Most of my experience is in Maya, so I booted it up and began to work!

I started with the body, then added the dome, brain clusters, and talons. I ended up adding a membrane over the brain clusters to give it a more realistic, clingy feel. This also opened the door for multiple layers of opacity. Then I color coded the separate parts of the model by assigning colored lambert materials. Doing this allows me to separate the UV meshes into multiple categories when imported into Substance Painter as well.

Soft Selection (Activated with the B Key) in Maya proved absolutely vital in creating organic looking surfaces. I really like that you can change its radius and strength (B plus hold middle mouse button and slide mouse for those curious).

UVs

After that, it was time to cut the UVs. I ended up making several passes at these to improve them. Unfortunately, the Talons end up showing some seams far down the line so I’ll need to revisit those going forward. The vein-like neurons are also in need of some overall improvements.

Versions

For our project, we had to make a ‘new’ and old’ version of our materials. For this Metroid, it would be getting ‘Healthy’ and ‘Damaged’, or battle-scarred versions. Veterans of the Metroid franchise know that the best way to kill a Metroid is to flash-freeze it before shattering it with a missile. But what happens to Metroids who suffer only an explosion? In the games; typically nothing. To this Metroid, however, I decided it had survived a large blast and suffered varied injuries, leading to some rotting as it recovers from the encounter.

Materials

Now that the Metroid model and UVs were ready, it was time to create the various materials that it was made up of. For this I used Substance Designer to create the base materials, and Substance Painter to paint the textures, add details, and damage the materials for the second version.

I separated the Metroid into 6 Materials; Talons, Body, Nerve-Cluster Brains, Neuron Veins, the Membrane that held the Brains and Body together, and the Dome its insides were suspended in.

Warning to the squeamish, you may want to scroll past some of these.

Dome - For the Dome of the Metroid, I used cerebral fluid for the reference. 
Body - For the Body, gums were used to get that (gross) wet, slimy look. It made sense to use gums as the reference, considering the Talons are essentially massive teeth.
Talons - For the Talons, I took a look at elephant tusks and the various grooves and dirt that accumulated. 

Brain - For the Brain, I took a look at nerve clusters. However, the design is fairly unique to the Metroid, so I had to take some artistic liberties.
Membrane - The Membrane is inspired by our own brain membranes, with a veiny, weblike skin that stretches over everything.
Veins - The inner Veins were really fun to sculpt, and I got some interesting reference images for them. While they are so small and usually hidden inside of the jelly like dome, getting the pattern and colors right for both the new and damaged versions makes the whole Metroid look just a bit more intimidating.

Substance Renders

Healthy
Here is our healthy, innocent Metroid. If it wasn’t an energy sucking parasite, it’d be downright cute! 

The first pass versus the final...

Damaged
And here is the Metroid after being caught in an explosion. The heat and the blast reached its central nerve clusters and also caused breaks and burns in its talons and body.

The first pass versus the final...

Material Changes

For the damaged version…

Talons have begun to rot and gather dirt in the injured areas.

Dome Is much cloudier and less reflective as it has gathered some dirt, and there is blood pooling on the edges.

Brain has some gouging of the nerve clusters from the heat and force of an explosion.

Gums show deepening of the colors and some more med tones, as well as some scarring from burn damage.

Membrane has some blood leaking and is overall more dull toned.

Veins have dulled in color and are starting to rot.

Final Thoughts and Conclusions

There are, of course, several improvements that could be made with some time.

The UVs for the Talons needed to be flipped so that the normals match, and possibly cut into more pieces. This would reduce the harsh inner seams, but sadly, I didn’t know they were problematic until 95% of the work had been done. In addition, I wish I had given more UV space to the Body/Gums. The back and bottom of the Metroid seems a little empty compared to the rest of the creature. (Though I suppose in the games, we normally only saw their fronts anyways.) And the insides seem…hollow, when they should be filled with goo. Perhaps adding some animations or vfx inside of the Dome would make the innards of the beast have more depth.

But we’re our own worst critics. There will always be room for improvement, because I myself constantly improve. I’m incredibly happy with how this Metroid turned out, and proud of the work that went into it. Just as I look at my old projects now and see how far I’ve come, I know that each and every piece builds into something better that's yet to come.

If you’ve read all this way, thank you! I hope you enjoyed this project just as much as I have.

Contact Info

Want to contact me or see more of my work?

Email me at [email protected]

Visit my website at tristonguest.com

My artstation at https://www.artstation.com/stonx3

The Rookies https://www.therookies.co/u/stonx3