how to make the robot

How to create the robot

First, draw a design of the front and side of the robot and load it onto the computer using a scanner. You must then save these designs as two files. The reason we are doing this is so we can use the drawing as an outline.

Next open the program “3D studio max (3Dsm)”. You have to create two planes, one for the front of the robot and one for the side.

Using material editor, insert the side view in one plan and the front view in the other. Set both of the planes as shown.

Create a box and use object properties to make it transparent. After this, using editable poly, shape it into the outline of the head. 

Now create a helix and make it resemble a spring, this will be the robot’s neck. Using the editable spline tool you can make the helix thicker as so.   

Create another box and again make it transparent. Then line it up as so. This will create the body of the robot.   

Using editable poly, shape the box into the outline of the torso, I used the line tool and selected both ends of the box to get the most accurate shape.

 Now create several rectangles using the spline tool and place them on top of one another to make the retractor.

     

Create yet another box and edit the poly to make it into an isosceles triangle shape pyramid and place them on both sides of the robot to make the beginning of the legs.

   

Place two rectangular boxes on the ends of each triangle.

Create a box and place it at the end of one of the new rectangular boxes.

 

  Shape the new box into a pyramid and clone it onto the other side (Note; do not use instance) Use the clone tool.

 

Note; these are the first wheels I modelled but they were changed later on as they looked as if they would not work. 

Create a box and place it on the outline of the jetpack and then model it.

  

Create another box and place it underneath as shown on the picture. Model it to the outline.

 Create a box and place it on the torso where the door it located. Use the rotate tool to line it up with the torso.

Create a cylinder and place it on top of the robot’s head to create the antenna.

Edit the poly to shape it into the outline of the antenna.

Create a cylinder and edit the poly to make it into a barrel shape, this will form part of the arms. Use the bevel tool to make a wire like pattern. Clone 5 more and line them up.

 Using the donut tool make a bagel shape. Add a shell to this and place it inbetween two of the barrels, increase the outer amount till it fills the gap and then clone it for the other barrels. These are the supports to hold the arms in place.

  

Edit the ends of the bottom barrels until you get a shape as shown, this will be the fore-arms of the robot. Also clone the bagel shape supports and edit them to fit on the end of the fore-arms.

This was my first attempt to make the hand and claws. I had to change them later because the hand wouldn’t work and the claw didn’t look very strong. To create the hand I had to look at the Joan of Arc tutorial which was very helpful.    

This was the first attempt at the visor; I really struggled to get it to look like a visor so I finally had to change it.

  Now using the line tool, connect the bottom polygon located in the centre of the face to create a box inside. Then, using the polygon tool, select the box and extrude the box inward to create the mouth. 

Now you need to create the hole in the torso. To do this you have to create a cylinder and place it in the centre of the torso. Select the torso and click on the Boolean tool and select pick operation B, click on the cylinder. By doing this you create a dip in the shape of the cylinder. 

  

Now you create the triangle pattern by creating a box and editing the poly to make it a pyramid. You use the Boolean tool again to make the hole.

  Here is a picture of the robot body with the holes, although these are not necessary.

This picture shows screws inserted into the holes. I had to get rid of these because they were taking up too many polygons.

 I then chose to fill the holes with half circles instead. The reason I did this was because the screws had too many polygons, 1 screw was about 30,000 and they were small and hard to notice.

Using the box tool create a small flat square and flip it to make the bottom of the pelvis.

Create a cube with four segments as shown. This is going to make the hand.

Chamfer the top edges as shown, this is to create the separation of the fingers.

Pulled down the vertices of the triangles as shown

Using the cut and turn edges tool, create a division as shown

Extrude the bottom twice as shown to create the palm

Play around with the palm to make it more palm shaped and then pull the top out to make the fingers

Using cut and turn create the divisions

Use cut and turn tool to make division in the middle of the fingers

Take a look at your own hand and play around until it looks like this. After extrude the side to create the thumb

Extrude the top and use the line tool to shape thumb

Place the new hand on the robot

Delete the old claw and using four cylinders and four boxes create one as shown

Create a large cylinder and place two smaller ones on the ends of it the make the hydraulics. Then clone it 3 times and place them on the arms

Create a sphere and clone it 3 times and place them in the arms as shown 

Start adding detail

Minimise the parts of the arms to make the spheres appear

Add more detail

Create a sphere and modify it to fit in the mouth to create the speaker

Bevel the polygons as shown

 Add more detail

Create a sphere and place it on the face of the robot

Modify it until it look like this

This is where I started making the track. Here is my first attempt

Here it is the start piece I used

 Here is the second attempt to make the tracks

To make the tracks, create a cylinder and modify it till it looks like this and clone it 3 times

Create a cylinder with 30 segments

Using the vertices tool pull out certain parts until it looks like this. After delete the faces on both sides and then cap the edges. Cap the edges and then smooth it. Clone it and place it on the other side

 

Create a shape that looks like this and place a pyramid in the middle of it

Clone it and place it around the wheels as shown. After clone it

Here are the tracks I made

Modify the legs until the tracks fit perfectly. Now the robot is finished