After doing several voxel projects my love of Lego got me thinking about trying to use non-cube shaped voxels I could define complicated surfaces without having to increases the voxel density. The ED-209 robot from Robocop has been a longtime favorite of mine so I used that as my subject to to develop the Maya tools and kinds of voxel shapes I wanted to use.
Trying to figure out the density or chunkiness of voxels for a subject is one of the most important steps. I try to keep it as chunky as possible.
There is usually a single element that will define the minimal voxel density you can get away with. For this ED-209, when I decided that the guns would actually be double barreled, that defined voxel grid size for the rest of the character.
The first Maya script I made for release to the general public has the totally not catchy name: Smooth Proxy Radial Symmetry. Find it here on Highend 3D (if you’re running an ancient version of Maya):
Maya had the ability to use Smooth Proxy with bilateral axis symmetry which is good for working on objects like bodies and faces, but not so good for objects like wheel rims, flowers, or starfish that have radial symmetry. So this let you work on a simplified segment of the object and the script would have an instanced, merged, and smoothed final object that would update as you worked on the simplified poly cage.
I was definitely I thinking about my courses in developmental biology when I was using test geometry while working on the tool.
The first comic story I put together was for an anthology comic “Atomic Lead #2” compiled by Edward Pun. (Available print-on-demand here) https://indyplanet.com/atomic-lead-2
All the contributors to the 2007 comic issue were working at Sucker Punch Productions at the time.
With my experience in 3d art I felt more comfortable creating a story using digital 3d characters and environments constructed and rendered in Maya instead of doing traditional 2d art. The constraint of the issue being printed in black and white led me to try a scanning electron microscope look to the rendering. I’ve always loved the look of SEM images and wished I could have worked in a lab doing that while I was still doing molecular biology research.
The first character I settled on was a lazy/slacker stem cell, Stymie, who wouldn’t decide on what cell type he should differentiate into:
Like usual for personal projects I worked out a lot more world-building than was necessary for a six page story. The clash in Cell Culture Clash involved five groups at odds with each other at the microscopic level:
Cells: Advanced Eukaryotic cells like those in plants and animals. In the story Stymie and his friend Mac belong to this group.
Bacteria: Simpler Prokaryotic cells that were more “animalistic” than Cells. More like pets and nuisances animals to the “humanoid” cells. (unused in story)
Virus: Presented as mechanical walkers or vehicles operated by their simple DNA or RNA pilots. The act of a virus infecting cells is like a religious conversion for them.
Enzymes: Presented as small swarm of “insects” that are very particular or OCD about what they interact with. (unused in story)
Molecules: Mindless cloud entities that could be dangerous depending on the properties of their components. Like a cloud of hydrogen chloride molecules that could break down the other groups. (unused in story)
Here are the final pages for my story:
And just for fun I did an autostereogram of the Mac character. So see if you can get your crossed a bit to see him in 3d!
