"Tower Defense" Sci-fi Wasp Mech
Another early university project, in which we were tasked to create a tower defense structure based on an animal or insect. Since the character/structure is designed for a tower defense game, it was essential that the mechanized animal had a visible means of defending itself & attacking enemies (with a weapon, for example). I chose a Wasp and decided to make it affixed to some sort of pedestal, akin to how wall-mounted turrets in sci-fi games. I also had the idea to make this robot wasp weaponize actual wasps by integrating nests into its design, and later on, actual swarms of waps in Unreal via the use of FX.
Early concept art, with rejected ideas in the top left.
Concept art for each individual body part of the character along with the wasp swarm FX idea quick illustrated in the top right.
Finalized design of the Wasp Mech, with a scale reference in the bottom left and an animation concept in the upper left for how it'd switch from active to inactive.
Early Production starts with the making of the High-Poly, which was made & sculpted entirely in Blender. Vertex paints are also assigned for ease of use in Substance Painter.
A low-poly retopology is made from the high-poly for the rig & animation. UVs seams are also added to make the model ready for materials.
The model is decomposed/separated so that the high-poly details can properly be baked onto the low-poly model in Substance Painter.
Once the model and animation are finished, Unreal's particle system is used to simulate the wasp swarm FX.
Final turnaround video, rendered in Unreal Engine.
Ditto, but with a wireframe filter.