SteamBot - Arm

The final phase of construction (Not counting texturing of course) was to give SteamBot a means to interact with the environment (AKA: Pick stuff up and move it around!). So I decided to give it an arm (Just the one). Originally, it was intended for the front (Where the pressure dials are), but it seemed a better idea to have it on the side, particularly as we might be having outfits over the front! (To be confirmed at a later date)

The first step was to continue the clockwork theme of the right-hand side, and build in a few more gears and cogs (And even a pendulum)

The unit was round ready to house an arm. I decided that the large black gear on the right would be the ideal for this.

The 'shoulder' of the arm unit was made from a pair of cylinders (Pushed into the model so they look semi-circular), and linked to the cog (So that it moved as one). The upper arm and forearm were both simple cylinders (With a few smaller cylinders acting as the joints). As each part of the arm was built on, it was linked with the previous section, so that it could all move as one. Now, if the shoulder moves, the rest of the arm will move with it. If the upper arm moves, so does the fore-arm. And the forearm can move independently (But later moves the 'hand' when it moves)

The hand clamp was constructed from a pair of splines (Drawn from the line tool), linked with a cylinder. As before, these were linked to the forearm (So that they move if the rest of the arm moves), and the pivots of both jaws were moved so that they rotated around the cylindrical join.

With this in place, the arm was now finished!

SteamBot - Clockwork

The right side of SteamBot was to be completely clockwork. The good news was that this would be considerably easier to implement than the Steam (As it required far fewer pipes and drive shafts).

The job of creating the cogs/gears was made exceptionally easy with the lovely spline-drawing tool that was the 'Star'. Not only could you state how many points it had, but also the respective radii (How large the shape was, and how long the points were). With this, it wasn't hard to have a set of gears all created. All they required were a few bolts, and then it was a simple case of snapping them together.

The final 'touch' to this section was to add a small drive shaft to the gear at the back, connecting to the rear wheel. Again, more eye candy. It's easy to get hooked on the stuff!

SteamBot - Steam Power!

It was time to take it up a notch! So far, SteamBot was powerless and looked unbelievably bare. I was unable to decide on whether it should be Steam or Clock-work powered... so settled on both, and decided to create a hybrid (Unrealistic... but that said, it's a robot!). The left-side would be its Steam-powered side.

The first step was the create the Steam Tank on its back. In essence, the power part of the engine. This was simply made from a lot of boxes stacked on top of eachother, with a quick, helpful blast of TurboSmooth for good measure.

Next step was the all-important Steam chimney (What steam-powered locomotive would not have this stereotypical object?). Created from a cylinder, with a cone acting as the base. The top of the chimney (The spiky opening) was created from another cone (Only upside down). In 'Edit Poly' mode, every other vertex of the rim was pulled downward, creating the all-important serrated edge.

The pipe on the side of the chassis was formerly a torus ring. However, in the 'Edit Poly' mode, it was creully pulled into the shape of a large pipe. The nuts were easy to make. (Little handy trick for anyone reading this) Take a cylinder, and in the object properties, switch 'Sides' down to 6, and switch off 'smooth'. There you go, one basic nut shape.

A few more nuts were created, and a smaller version of the main wheels was also built onto them, to create a valve for the pipe. (Pure eye candy... but very tasty eye candy if I do say so myself)

The pipe-work for the pump was all built using similar methods to those covered. All the pipes were former torus rings (Stretched out and with faces deleted) unless straight, in which case a cylinder sufficed. More nuts and connectors were added for greater authenticity (And to make it look even nicer)

The pump was originally housed (and planned) on the side of the lower chassis. However, when the model was incorporated, the pump was too close to the chassis to realistically be able to push the wheel (It stuck out too far!). The drive shaft would end up going through the wheel, to realistically move it...

As a result, the pump was moved a lot higher up, and at an angle to the wheel (The idea was inspired by 'The Rocket', seen below and snapped from the Museum of Power). At this point, the pump was in a stronger location, and the drive shaft was subsequently added to it

The finishing touch was to create a pivot for the drive shaft (As it would have to rotate slightly as it travels around the wheel), and the result is what you see directly above! Now SteamBot is finally starting to look the part! Onto the next side...

SteamBot - Front Panels

With the front of SteamBot currently looking plain, it was time to incorporate the Clock-face and pressure dials I snapped during our visit!

The clock-face was pretty easy to do. A thin torus on a flat cylinder were enough to create the clock base. The minute-hand was a very thin cone, and the hour-hand was a scaled-down minute-hand, with a spade-like shape added to the end (Editted from a circular spline). More importantly, the pivot-points of both hands were placed in the centre of the clock, thereby allowing them to be rotated with ease when it comes to the animation.

The pressure dials on the lower-section were created in very much the same way. The only main difference was the dial for the central pressure gauge. The 'arrowhead' part of it was made from a torus, which several of its faces removed (To leave a half-torus). Other than that, it was all relatively straightforward.

SteamBot - Wheels

Unlike DiscoverBot, SteamBot was going to move by a set of Steam/Clockwork-driven wheels (For those who did not see last year's work: DiscoverBot walked). The wheels were relatively simple to make. The tricky part was making sure that all the components would be able to rotate from the same, central pivot. Any imbalance and the wheel's rotation would look awful (if unrealistic). This problem was solved with handy use of the 'Snap' tool. Drawing a single line on the stage, the vertex of this was used as the centre. The outer wheel and its central axle were both drawn from this central vertex (Ensuring that the axle was in the dead centre of the outer wheel). The spokes of the wheel were simple tubes, also created from the central point, which were cloned and rotated. The finished wheel is shown below. The guide-line was removed before the wheels were imported into the SteamBot model.

With the model and pivot now correct... it was now a simple case of attaching this baby to SteamBot.

Not much had to be done to connect up SteamBot to the wheel. All it really required was a simple axle connecting it a 'housing unit' (A black torus on SteamBot). For added effect, the axle protruded from the wheel, making it look like a bolt, securing the wheel in place. Nothing like killing 2 birds with one tube.

And this was the model with the first wheel in place. Wrong colour, but looking good. That said, SteamBot would only be going round in circles with this...

The next phase was a simple case of cloning the wheels so that I had a full set of 4. The back wheels were shrunk considerably (SteamBot is front-wheel-drive you see), and most of the spokes removed, leaving just a single, larger one to hold the smaller wheel in place. SteamBot is now mobile... but looks exceptionally plain...

The Birth of 'SteamBot'

SteamBot - Older cousin of 'DiscoverBot' from last year's Animation work - was an idea hatched as I was collecting images around the Museum of Power. As the organic facial modelling of the last few weeks revealed... organic models are not a friendly thing to work with. An organic character to present the working model would be tricky to pull of... particularly as it needed to be high quality (A weak model of an attempt of a human would hinder the video more than help it). The idea of a contraption-style character also seemed appropriate... and thus the idea came forth. Another robot! DiscoverBot was quite handy last year, in its ability to be relatively easy to model and move... but have a strong professionalism about it. Another robot seemed ideal, only this time, it would be Steam-Powered! And so, SteamBot was born...

This part was by far the worst part of modelling SteamBot (No, really), and this bit alone took several hours. The central frame (Box, push the top vertices inwards slightly) was easy... but the trim was pure evil. I was hindered by the fact that Boolean and ProBoolean use up a lot of processing memory and would drastically increase the file size... and these would be better saved for the Harwoods to use for the train model (Which, to be fair, is more important!). Now trying to punch a hole in the middle of a square/cube is not even funny. Several failed attempts later and I ended up with this (Sadly, I can't even remember how I managed to do it by this point). Unfortunately, I've literally only just thought up a way to have done this with little effort. Pick 'tube' 3D shape, and set sides to 4. Viola... a square tube... just what I could have done with. Damn.

From the chaos that was the trim/frame... the rest was plain sailing. The rivets were then added to the model (A ton of spheres placed in the corners of each side)

The finished chassis was completed by cloning the entire top-section, and re-sclaing it to create what is now the bottom-section of the chassis. The final touch here was to add a pair of super-cute eyes (2 more spheres). Congratulations... it's a baby SteamBot!

Part 2 - Musuem of POW-AH

With the face now completed, it's time to take care of the second part of the module: The group project. My main role in the group is animator (Lee will also be lending his services), as it is more my niche, and for the simple reason that the Harwood twins are some of the finest 3D modellers I know. They even have nicknames regarding the sheer level of detail they create and sense of perfectionism they approach their work with... but they're a bit too 'dark' to mention on a public blog like this. Lee is pretty much the head-honcho, for the simple reason that he is just sexy. He is also in charge of presentations and sound as well as working on some animation too. Being the animator, I'm at the mercy of the Harwood's creations, and thus was pretty happy to work with anything that they felt comfortable modelling. I did have an idea lurking around, however, of a 3D character to help 'present' the working model, and to, quite frankly, help give our final product that extra edge over everyone else's. Ok, so I'm competetive...

Anyways, in week 3, we paid a visit to the Museum of Power (Alias "Museum of POW-AH"), thanks to the Harwood's car and Lee's ability to change a tyre. It was a lot smaller than I expected, and consisted of 2 large rooms (Rather than a collection of smaller). That said, there was a ton of industrial technology around, and we were able to see a lot of large machinery and steam-driven pumps up close. I took around 100+ pictures and videos (Now in the care of the Harwood twins), but below are some of the ones that caught my eye. Though we have agreed to model a Steam Train, the following pictures were ones that caught my eye, and are things that I want to incoporate in my character model.

I'm not a huge fan of steam, but I love clockwork. Maybe it was my childhood of playing with Lego and Mechanno, but I love contraptions with lots of little bits all moving eachother. The gears and weights of the clock-work model really caught my eye.

Likewise, the old-fashioned clock-face and design caught my eye. It was becoming obvious that whatever character I wanted to create, it would need to be a sort of clockwork contraption/machine.

The old style of pipes also caught my eye, and brought up an interesting idea for a steam/water pressure-powered contraption too.

This was perhaps my favourite picture. All the pressure dials on the black surface with a bronze trim. Maybe it just reminds me of my Crystal Maze days again (Crystal Maze definitely seems to be a recurring theme in this module...), but I really wanted to incorporate this in my contraption ideas too. As we left the museum, loaded with a ton of photos, I had an idea...