Machine Making Episode 7 | Frank the Floating Robot

A very sleepy robot.

This week I built a fun little floating robot. Download this model and rig on Gumroad. Here is the making of and the final animation test. 

Design and Concept

This bot started out as a simple cube. I wanted to keep everything fairly square and rigid. I really wanted to test out some new shaders I made for creating a cartoony look. 

Next Step For Toon Shaders

While I did finish this robot, and my animation test was somewhat successful, I did veer away from my initial goal for this project. I wanted use a new shader I built in cycles to create a toony look. Here was what I wanted to achieve:

This was created by EJ Hassenfratz at eyedesyn.com using cinema 4D. I wanted to replicate these shaders in Blender. This caused me to play around In Cinema 4D for far too long one weekend.

But as always I made my way back to blender and I attempted to make the same shader in Cycles. Here was my initial test. 

Now not a complete replica of the original shader, but my goal was to just get close. 

Once I started modeling the floating robot though I quickly found my way back to Blender Internal Render. I really enjoy how clean the lines are and how quick it viewport renders. 

A New Tool

My search for a nice toon shader in Cycles was coming to an end. I was about to give up hope and either learn Cinema 4D, or transition everything to the Eevee Render. Then a new product appeared on Blender Market. The Toonkit for Cycles!

For my next video I'll be trying out this product and these shaders. I'll probably do a little review video as well. 

As always thanks for reading and let me know if you have any questions.