The Transition to Maya

Using Zbrush i reduce my robot's polycount and export him as an OBJ for Maya import. His plates and eyes are seperate from him. HDRI wise i look for one appropiate. I know that my robot , poster wise, i would like him  in some kind of traditional japanese dojo, so i look for a HDRI like that.

The HDRI image.

I place my robot into the scene and set up my HDRI with the temple setting. I also set up a very basic, blocky studio.

Without any other lights and just blinn materials applied, this is how my robot looks. 

I apply 3 lights, one on either side of him in front and one behind. He looks very shiny and reflective now, realistic and bright.

I begin doing more light wise and rigging the robot. I seperate the plates, rigging the main body first.

I have quite a lot of problems at this rigging stage. Most of which are highly noticeable. Parts of his body move irregularly, making his paint weights awkward and necessary to do.

And when applying the Motion capture data, his legs bend backwards and things seem 'reversed'.

I even had problems with his plates, which were separate. I had to divide the plates into individual parts and constrain them specifically to certain joints. Above you can see where the arm wasn't following...

Looking to his Human Ik the problem lies somewhere with the yellowed parts. It made no sense, and took an awful lot of time working out just what was wrong. Apparently it was linked to his position on the X,Y and Z co-ordinates.

I soon found after i moved him more in alignment with those he worked out just fine...

And even for atmospheric measure, i added a lustrous blue glow to his eyes to make him more noticeable and to 'stand out' to the darkness of the studio.