1.2 Key parts of assembly

When constricting the wheel, I found a tool by navigating to the add menu Curve > circle. Navigating to Object Data Properties > Geometry > Bevel, I was able to increase the depth of the circle, creating a perfect connected tube (1.2.1). Later I used a similar tool Curve > Bezier, has the same functionality however this one is line that can be curved in any way. This allowed me to create the handles for the wheel, having symmetrical tubes that I was able to then flatten by transforming them into a mesh in Object > convert to > mesh (1.2.1).

Finishing off, I added a simple circle, filled it in, extruded it down and used the insert tool to create a new face and rescale it to a smaller size (1.2.2).

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The Head

When creating the head (1.2.3), I found that the mirror modifier helped out a lot during the making of the robot. I’ll use the creation of the robot’s head as an example. You can see that I originally worked on half of the head, setting it up until I was satisfied. From then onwards, I added a mirror modifier in the opposing axis. This allowed me to then make any final changes whilst still working on one half. After I finished the head, I made some variations (1.2.4) to see which one fits best, changing the size and depth of the eyes whilst changing the shape of the body.

This process has helped me throughout the creation of my robot since I was able to use the mirror modifier with both the arms and legs, not having to worry about incorrect positioning. And even if the mirror modifier is applied, I can always separate the two objects by pressing alt + p.

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1.3 Rigging & Armature

I began the rigging process to create an armature in a T pose for when I apply ‘automatic weights’. This feature calculates how much influence a particular bone would have on vertices based on the distance from those vertices to a particular bone. If this was done while my robot had their arms down, it will cause the arm bones to have some influence on the body.

I started with body bone and used it as the centre of the model. When configurating the armature, it’s important name each bone in an industry standard and label what side of body they are located. This will make armature configuration much easier as you can later symmetrize the rig with Blender changing the .L to .R. However, this is also very important when importing into Unity as the program will be able to locate each bone by name.

1.3.1

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1.5 Legs Development

For the leg, I followed the same process as the arm. Using the Bevel keyboard shortcut Ctrl + R, I created a similar number of segments, rearranged then positioning and resized every other segment using S + Shift + Z which resizes in both X & Y (1.5.1). I was satisfied with the result and how the leg bends (1.5.2), keeping the same theme as the arms. This form can also allow me to create interesting mechanics in the future, such as springing legs that can add a cartoon style.

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1.6 Kinematics

Kinematics were very useful when as you can move a single bone to move an entire section, such as a whole arm or leg. When you have your bone selected, I navigated to Bone Constraint Properties > Add Bone Constraint > Inverse kinematics, adding a constraint that allowed me to link everything up (1.6.1) . I selected the Chain length to 2 since there are 2 bones connected to the bone I want to move.

When creating a kinematic you need to have a minimum of 2 extra bones, a target and a pole. The pole target is a secondary target for a bone with an IK constraint. The target bone is where the chain of bones is trying to get to, and the second target (pole target in constraints), is where the chain bends to get to this target.

I cleared the parent of the targets using the keyboard shortcut Alt + p, separating the pole and target from the armature. To prevent these bones from deforming the mesh, since they’re for controlling use, I navigated to Bone properties > Deform and unselect deform.

The outcome of this process helped me to freely move the inter leg (1.6.2) and arm (1.6.3) using 1 extra bone as the controller. The movements are both very smooth and will work perfectly when animating.

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1.7 Vertex Groups & Weight Painting

Vertex Groups

I started by selecting a piece of the body that I want to configure, in this case the right arm. With the right arm selected, I navigated to Object Data Properties (1.7.1). This is where the Vertex Groups are located, a list of all the bones that are able to move your selected object.

I didn’t want any unrelated bones that could have the potential to move my right arm. This can be easily sorted by locking all the bones you require, move them to the top and remove all the bones you don’t need.

I followed this method for all the Robot’s body parts, later making the weight painting process easier as I will also now instantly see what bones I need to weight paint, whilst not having to worry about some incorrect automatic weights.

Weight Painting

Weight paint allows me to determine how much movement a bone has. This includes the determining a focus of an area (head, arms, legs) or smoother movement (such as bends).

I used the gradient tool instead of a brush because it made the process more time efficient, and due to me not needing to paint in certain areas of each mesh to fix any weight errors (fixed by removing vertex groups) (1.7). I used max strength and weight to make sure that the area I was working on was filled to the point I wanted it to be.

Weight paining is determined by colours, red meaning that the bone has full control of that location while the blue has none. Yellow has 75% control of the location and green having 50%. Yellow and green are mainly used for a smooth transition from red to blue, so they need to be in the mid point of the area you want to have smooth movement.

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1.8 Robot Animations

Planning

When planning for my robot animations, I drew a few frames in Photoshop of what is supposed to move and how. I did this for all 4 of my animations: Idle (1.8.1), walking (1.8.2), running (1.8.3) and jumping (1.8.4). These were the key animations I needed for the general functionality of the robot.

Each drawing has its own colour code that determines what action is being taken placed. The green box was drawn to display when the robot reaches their first goal of the animation, meaning it will begin to trigger a different sequence.

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A Keyframe is simply a marker of time which stores the value of a property. In other words, it’s a time stamp of the current position of your armature/specific bone. This is what allowed me to animate my robot, using my plan to help me move each bone in the correct. This resulted in blender moving the bone from point A to point B (1.8.6) (1.8.7).

This process has helped me throughout the creation of my robot since I was able to use the mirror modifier with both the arms and legs, not having to worry about incorrect positioning. And even if the mirror modifier is applied, I can always separate the two objects by pressing alt + p.

When adding a keyframe, I always selected Location, Rotation & Scale option. This means that the keyframe will remember the exact position.

To adjust the speed, I simply just extended a keyframe a few frames further or shorter, meaning the speed of the timeline traveling from point A to point B will alter. Finally, in the Action Editor I compiled all the animations into their own animations (1.8.8). This allows me to export my robot into Unity with each animation in its own package.

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