DiscoverBot - Head

And so the construction of DiscoverBot begins! The best place to start would be the head...

Though it might have been stronger to work from a sphere; I felt that working from a cube was more advantageous. The head is an unusual shape that's pretty much half-cube, half-sphere with a few segments pushed inwards. Either way; it would be easier to round off a cube; than trying to straighten out a ball. So taking the cube; I upped the number of segments (On all axes) in order to give me more vertices to work with. It was then about sitting down and just tucking parts in; pushing segments around and created a decent shape for the head. Not bad; let's see what this looks like with a bit of MeshSmooth applied to it...

Pretty nice! Not quite as 'round' as I hoped... time to go back and push some more of then edges inwards; thus cretaing a champher; which when rounded will become more of a nice curve. Job done!

The screen was nice and easy. Take a sphere and have fun with the scale; in order to flatten areas and create a flat oval to go onto the front of DiscoverBot.

Aww! Cute! The eyes are simply a pair of spheres... nothing exceedingly 3DSMax-heavy here

Ear-port-thingies were also just a pair of compressed spheres.

Same with the antenna-port. Exceptionally simple shapes... but creating a rather cute and endearing creation!

The antenna required a little bit more work. The rest of the head will work as one; even the pupils. They will all stay in the positions they are now; and turn/pivot/move as one. The antenna, however, will need to move independently. They'll need to be able to shake and move when DiscoverBot moves (To really up the realism). This was completed with a ton of bones; all linked with a very handy 'HI Solver; under the IK Solvers menu.

The solver helps to create more realistic limbs. Basically; you can link a bone with another one; and it basically means that if either move; all the bones inbetween them will move to fit. Let me give you an example...

Here's the basic bone structure of a leg. The top is the femur; followed by the fibia/tibia, and then the ankle.

Now; if I wanted to bend the knee; I'd first have to rotate the femur into position...

And then rotate the fib/tib back round. Thus creating the knee joint. However; this is quite time-consuming and would be hell for something like an insect; which boasts several legs!

So what we do is link the femur and the ankle with an 'HI Solver'....

So now; if you move the ankle; the Fibia/Tibia will automatically bend to fit. In other words; the knee will bend. Thus; instead of moving the femur one way, the tib/fib another... the leg will automatically bend. Now... take this a step further and you have something cool with the antenna...

If you place a ton of small bones over a thin cylinder; and place a solver linking both tips... the antenna will automatically bend and curve to fit the shape. Thus; I can get a nice, realistic curve with one movement (Rather than having to tweak the bones individually). It's so nice when life is made easier, isn't it?