How to Make Cute Gumball Machine Robot Inspired by Matt Dixon's Art in 3D

Introduction 

With over six years of hands-on experience as a self-taught digital artist, I've honed my skills across various media. My portfolio includes contributions to renowned projects like 'One Piece' and 'The Walking Dead,' as well as specialized work in 3D modeling for printing. I'm adept at creating high-quality assets for film, television, and beyond, like a freelance self-taught 3D Artist for creatures, characters, animals, hard surface, and props for film and TV series.

Driven by a passion for crafting immersive worlds, I've dedicated my career to the art of 3D modeling. Each project is an opportunity to breathe life into my creations, transforming abstract concepts into tangible realities. From the initial sketch to the final rendered image, I find immense joy in the process of shaping digital landscapes and characters. My goal is to not only create visually stunning work but also to evoke emotions and tell compelling stories through my art.

In this tutorial, I will explain to you, step by step, how you can create this robot, pose it, and create a basic animation to produce more lovely renders using Blender physics, especially if, like me, you don’t know how to rig robots using ZBrush, Maya, Substance 3D Painter, and Blender.

It’s important to mention that all of this can be done in a single program if you prefer, but this time, I will show you how I created this robot using several programs to achieve the final result. In the end, it’s important for every digital artist to learn and use multiple programs, because each one offers powerful tools that can help you throughout your creative process.

Here is the Blender scene you can get. 

Robot

The reference stage is always the most important part when starting a new project. In this case, my main reference was the robot by the great artist Matt Dixon, once I got his permission to create this work.

I completely understand the importance of finding the right art-based references. For this robot artwork, I took the time to search for a variety of old and new metal pieces, car paint, and hand-painted textures. I know how crucial these visual materials can be in the modeling, texturing, and rendering process. By using these references, you'll be able to choose the best direction to represent what you have in mind.

Hard Surface

ZBrush is one of the most amazing tools for building hard-surface parts. With DynaMesh and ZRemesher, you can create your props very quickly. The first step starts with a sphere – mask, move, dynamesh, and cut – and just like that, you have the first part ready.

By utilizing booleans and DynaMesh, you can seamlessly fabricate the remaining components as needed for this robot; the rest can be created using manual topology in Maya or Blender.

Topology Optimization in Maya

The best way to perform retopology in Maya is by using Quad Draw. Before starting the topology, it's recommended to take a screenshot of the figure and draw the possible topology on it. This often helps optimize the topology more effectively before creating it in 3D, ensuring that everything is in quads and that the model can be subdivided correctly.

To build the main body of the robot, you need to use a cylinder and a sphere. Join them together as shown in the image, and add some edges to create the eyes. This is important because when this model is subdivided, it will take on a circular shape.

Using the same body, you must extract pieces to create the other torso shapes. Then, join the pieces and maintain uniformity in the amount of topology for a consistent look.

Now we take the UVs of the model.

Substance 3D Painter

It's important to create the robot textures carefully in Substance 3D Painter based on the result that you want to show. Start by crafting a metallic base, using alphas and dirt maps, you can build a nice roughness and metallic maps. Next then apply the paint on top using masks to show wear and tear. We create two versions for this project, one with less damaged paint and another with more wear and tear.

Always try to use references to get closer to what story you need to tell with the character or props.

Blender Animation

Once your character is prepared, if you’re unfamiliar with creating a rig in Blender, there is a great and user-friendly alternative using the Parent option, especially with robotic models.

After importing your model, you need to add an empty Sphere (by pressing Shift + A), then go to Empty and select Sphere.

To build the hierarchy, select the Empty and position it on each joint of the robot. Press Shift + D to quickly duplicate the object.
Use 1 or 3 to switch to the front and side views, and 7 for the top view.

You will achieve a result as illustrated in the following image.

Now, this part is very important because you must have everything in the correct hierarchy. You should start from the outside and move inward – that is, a larger circle (as shown in the picture) will be related to everything inside it.

To do this, simply press Ctrl + P and select Object (Keep Transform). In this case, everything should be parented to the torso, which will result in a correct hierarchy, as shown in this image of the arm, demonstrating the proper order.

Now, once everything is correctly built and related, you must press Ctrl + A and select All Transforms to Deltas to set all location and rotation values to zero.

Congrats! Now you can easily pose your character for your renders.

Blender Physics

Creating physics animations in Blender can be an enjoyable experience. In this stage, I will guide you step by step, based on my current knowledge, to quickly and easily create dynamic physics simulations.

You can download all the files for this simulation from my Gumroad store to follow this stage of the tutorial step by step.

It’s recommended to follow all the steps shown in each image to achieve a good result. After that, all you need to do is keep experimenting and have fun creating more physics animations.

The first step is to add a modifier to the sphere, set the count to 30, set the X factor to 0, and then apply the modifier.

Press Tab to enter Edit Mode, right-click in the viewport, go to Separate, and choose By Loose Parts.

Select all the pieces, then at the top menu under Object, go to Transform and choose Randomize Transform.

Now you can play with the values to separate the pieces and create some turbulence in their arrangement and position. In this case, make sure to keep all the pieces inside the glass sphere so they remain contained during the animation.

Press Tab to enter Edit Mode, right-click in the viewport, go to Separate, and click on By Loose Parts.

Following the image below, you must add a Rigid Body to the spheres and then copy it to the others.

Remember to activate the Collision Margin and reduce it to 0 or 0.02 – this controls the collision force and determines whether the objects come together or stay apart.

We proceed to do the same with the other objects, but for these, you will change the option to Passive. If the object will have animation, remember to activate the Animated checkbox.

To view the result of the animation, press Play in the timeline. Once you're satisfied with the result, you can bake the simulation and then convert it to keyframe animation.

It’s recommended to watch the video available for 3D World Magazine through the QR code in the video or on my YouTube channel – benavidmark. The video will be available on October 1st on my channel.

Conclusion

Download the robot with rig and textures, ready to animate in Blender. The rig was created by Javier Lugo Hernandez. If you create a nice animation, don’t forget to share it with me on Instagram.

I’d like to start by thanking Matt Dixon for allowing me to create this robot based on his artwork.

Thanks as well to Javier Lugo Hernandez for rigging the robot, and to Octa Space, a render farm currently in Beta Tester Mode, free for Blender users.

Julio Cesar Benavides Macias, 3D Artist