Pitarque´s Robot

Job - Copy a Pitarque´s robot
Job time - 2 weeks
Software - Maya / Substance Painter / Arnold / Nuke

Last year, I started the advanced course in sets & props creation for animation at Lightbox Academy. The teacher is Jaime Otegui, set & props supervisor in films like Tad the Lost Explorer and the Secret of King Midas, 2017 & Capture the flag, 2015. The first job was to copy a robot from the artist Pitarque that Jaime has chosen for us. Javier Arcos is an artist who makes robots with recycled objects, known as Pitarque Robots [+]. I got the Victor model.

Parts of the robot

I only had two reference photos to be able to model the robot. I had to look for references for each of the objects that formed the robot to be able to start modelling it. It was a complicated research work. The modelling had to be as true as possible to reality. The only way to achieve this was to locate each of the objects that made up the robot. The references would not only be used for modelling, but also for texturing later.

Modelling

I was modelling each part with the correct scale and then I put them all together in the same file to compose the final robot. Taking care of the topology and making it as clean as possible. The mapping was done in UV layout. I used a total of 11 UDIMs.

Lighting / Lightrigs

Before beginning the texturing process, I prepared three lights rig to have greater control of the textures and their behaviours with different environments. A light rig with exterior light, a light rig with studio light and finally a light rig with the final light of the composition.

Texturing

For texturing, I used Substance Painter and Photoshop. Many of the maps and masks were made in Susbtance and I finished them in Photoshop for a better finish.

Composition

The composition was very simple since when adjusting the lighting the render was almost finished. For better control, I got AOVs from Diffuse, Specular, Emission and SSS. I also took ID maps to control certain areas in Nuke.