Concept
As a 3D Modeler, I have always been fascinated by complex hard-surface model in film. As a result, I wanted to do something that resemble those hard-surface model I loved. Originally, I have no idea what to create in Rhino since I'm not very familiar with the interface as I've been working in Maya for years. As I was talking to my friend Kenny, he sent an image of a helix shape object wondering how I would create it. I then went and create it inside Rhino, and which I decide to test it with just a cube surface population and see how it would look. After a while of staring at it, the shape reminded me of Shockwave's Driller in Transformer: Dark of the Moon, a worm-like robotic organism. Even though the overall shape resemble an organic organism, it's composition and armor are made of very intricate hard-surface details, so I feel like this can be a good start for my project.
Technique
To start off, I create a helix curve with three or four rings. Since the tool create a uniform helix, I have to use the Taper tool, which I have no idea how to use, and somehow get it looking the way I wanted with a taper end. Afterward, I add in a simple circle curve at one end, and proceed to use Rail Sweep to create the basic helix shape with thickness. After finishing the base surface, I began to plan how to approach creating the armor exterior of the concept, and began to experimenting with different cube and cyclinder boolean union together. After a few tries, I got to the result I looking for creating the basic surface population object made of mainly box and a five-sides pyramid. Even though it is hard-surface, I don't want everything to be perfect ninety degree angle because that's too unrealistic, so I chamfer up some edges. The pyramid is meant to be sort of the spikes to make the shape seem more threatening. Finally, I populate the shape on the surface using Grasshopper, and experimenting with different U and V values. In this case, I am aware that my U value will be very high to compensate for the long shapes of the surface, I didn't want to have too much stretching.
Materials
Since I do not have quick access to Keyshot, I decided to do basic materials available inside Rhino. At first I try having a metal shader on, since I assume the outside armor is most likely made of some kind of metal. The metal shader does not work out in the end, since the reflection is just too much, so I switched to a paint shader instead. My reasoning was that even though the the material is metal, it is likely that it's not raw metal, therefore it would have a coating of paints or some sort on the outside that would hide some of its metallic properties. Beside, the paint shader gave me a perfect mix of reflection while preserving the details which I couldn't with the metallic shader. For the color, I went with a slightly maroon color that is not very saturate since red represent danger which can be fitting with the concept.
All in all, this was a fun project to start off my learning experience using Rhino, and that the way things work in Rhino is drastically different than that of Maya, and I'll just have to get used to it.
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