Ok, now I HAVE TO STOP mucking about with this fella and start some work on something else. I`ve gone as far as I can go without having the lighting style totaly sorted. The neck dosen`t even work properly and there are no rigging controls on any of it! I`ll do a big section on the rigging later, hopefully with some movies!
These pictures are well crap, but i`m not going to be working on this for awhile now so this is as far as I am right now.

Material action today! I`ve classed all the different parts of the robot together and set up a script so I can change the materials from a colour coded set, to a diffusive set, and finally to a specular/reflection set. These are the basic render layers i`m planning to use on the character. I`m getting a bit ahead of myself though as I need to work out exactly how the light rigs are going to work before I can set up the materials properly! Heres a funny colour-coded picture of the task so far! Don`t he look pretty!

Right then! Time to set up some reflectivity. Up to now i`ve only been using a diffusive material, a maya blinn with all the specular controls at 0, don`t know why I wasn`t just using a lambert, but there you go! I`ve now set a bit of reflectivity and specularity. The whole head is covered wih the same material which is why it looks a bit wierd. I`m not using a HDR map yet, just 1 area light casting raytrayed shadows and emitting photon(hard left of the face) and a point light casting no shadows up high. Theres a bounce card to the right of the face too.

Ohh baby! Check out the GI on this warrior! You can`t beat a good lighting session! I`m only playing around really, but I set up a simple box to bounce a bit of light off and try to get real soft light. I`m rendering at a gamma of 2.2 to try and achieve a more natural spread of light ranges. It`s really nice! Look here!

Here’s a quick update! The volume and shape of the face works for me from the front, the side still needs some work! I’m going to have to look at the neck hydraulics though, the range of movement on the neck is pathetic!

Hah! I had a quick 10 minute stab at the neck hydraulics and getting an effective mouth rig. Oh dear! They both suck! Rather than open in a scream, the jaw geom looks more like it`s un-attaching from the rest of the head! Rubbish!
I`ve started blocking in the tongue, and got some of the springs to work. The idea with the springs is that they look more like tendons when they strech and add a more complex motion to a simple one.

 Right, now it`s moving! The front view is starting to work. Have a look! The gob is working, it`s still very early though! Lots of the geometry is still proxy and the rig is all created using simple group nodes and is real easy to break.

OK! It`s my first entry on this fella! The first entry on the whole site! I`ve been mucking around with the model for a while, trying to get the style how I wanted it. I pretty much free-styled this model, refining it as I went.

It`s REAL early! Just trying to get volume and the basic mechanics working. I remeber warning I was going to post up everything on the frontpage. Hmm, i`m begining to regret that now! Let`s hope it improves!

The eye section is based on a beautiful old Bolex camera. Currently i`m thinking of nicking the colour scheme as well!