Conceptual Stage - Torso
In this post i'm going to talk about the initial concept of the torso, my break down ideas and the complications I face, where ultimately finalizing the model.
In our project group, we were task to model each part of the robot separately, and modeling a torso with a unique function wasn't a smooth journey for me. As I had a faint picture of how I want it to look and function, I began to scout the internet for references.
This was a pretty cool idea when I first saw these pictures. The first thing that popped in the head was Doctor Octopus from Spiderman or the assassin whiplash villain in IronMan. They both had a mechanical spine at their back that looks wicked and thought I should include it in the robot.
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| Mechanical Spine that acts like a support for a suit |
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| Some crazy looking detailed spine |
These were some of the references I took. When I saw these, it became daunting to me as to how I would model a spine this epic in the shortest amount of time. Sadly, the fact is I dont! So I probably had to simplify it and made the functions less complicated.
In due time, I modeled the initial concept of the torso and added two large pistons at the side, simply because I felt it looked too plain without it. The pistons was kind of a last thing that popped in my head and I quickly look at examples of the Terminator robot. As you can see, I attached the spine at the back, but beneath the Torso plate. I wanted the spine to be part of the body and not look like it popped out from the torso like an extra component. More so, I added a little design to the lower torso to give it a proper finish.
After modeling it, I decided to do some test. The results were pretty satisfying and I was quite happy how it looked with the spine. It makes it almost like it is a human robot.
Some other test poses
The intersection when rotating Y axis. This was a huge problem for hard surface modeling...
There is no way to avoid this as I realised human spine is anatomy placed at the back and not center of the torso. Moreover, this came into my sudden realization that some robots I had seen in games or films, where the lower torso filled with wires are used to avoid hard surface intersections. This became imminent that I had to either skin the lower torso like a human flesh or revamp the design.
After consulting our lecturer and group mates, this became our finalized concept where the pivot for every component is at the center. This would probably be the most generic way for a robot to move similarly to a spine. However, dateline is at stake and I guess we have no choice to dwell so much on certain areas. As Tosh Roc aka Sergeant Ong always says, Moving On~
After much discussion, here is our finalized concept!
In conclusion, as long it works Move On!!
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