Creating Realistic Sci-Fi Radio Device Using Plasticity & Blender

Introduction

My name is Yuichiro Fujita, and I'm a 3D Character Artist at a game company. I'm interested in workflow R&D for teams and new technologies and software. I can create characters in any style, from realistic to stylized.

When I was a kid, I started drawing by mimicking my favorite manga, Dragon Ball by Akira Toriyama. My love for the remake of Resident Evil on the GameCube led me to pursue studies in CG and game design at Ritsumeikan University. It was during a CG modeling class that I realized this was my passion.

Through personal projects, I constantly challenge myself and enhance my abilities on both artistic and technical sides. I have worked on projects like Street Fighter 6 at Capcom, Canceled Survival Game at Blizzard, Netflix's feature film Gundam: Requiem for Vengeance at Safehouse, and I am currently working at 1047 Games on the recently announced Splitgate 2.

Inspiration & References

When Blizzard's survival game project was canceled and I was laid off, I suddenly had a lot of free time. I decided to use this time to develop new skills, specifically by tackling a hard-surface project, which was a new area for me. Receiving a job offer from 1047 Games was a stroke of luck, and since they have some of the world's best hard-surface artists, working on a hard-surface piece was excellent preparation for joining their team.

Artistically, I drew major inspiration from Joshua Cotter's masterpiece, MR 3000 Dual Band Radio Communication Device. On the technical side, I challenged myself by trying out a hard-surface modeling software called Plasticity.

I created the concept using photobashing, drawing significant inspiration from Joshua Cotter's work.

Modeling, Retopology & Unwrapping

I started modeling using Plasticity, which is a relatively new CAD software for 3D modeling. It is well-suited for hard-surface modeling and is designed to help artists and designers create and edit shapes easily and efficiently.

I was amazed at how much faster I could work on things like buttons and details compared to polygon editing. However, I also learned that blindly working without a plan could result in data that's difficult to edit later. Compared to polygon modeling software, the initial planning phase for modeling is much more critical.

When learning a new software or technique, I always try to enjoy the process. So, when I hit a wall with Plasticity, instead of spending much time struggling and losing motivation, I just exported the model to Blender and polished it there.

In game development, retopology and precise UV unwrapping are essential for optimization, and I'm already confident in that workflow. Because of this, I didn't spend time on those aspects for this personal project. As a result, the topology remains very messy. Please don't judge me by this!

Blender's UV unwrapping features still have several limitations, so I always use Rizom UV. In particular, Rizom UV is vastly superior when it comes to creating straight-edge corners. There's a convenient bridge add-on available for less than $10, which allows you to export from Blender to RizomUV with one click.

As a new experiment, I created a Pie Menu for RizomUV using a tool called AutoHotPie.

I set up three Pie Menus triggered by combinations of the right mouse button with the Shift and Ctrl keys. This allowed me to work with a similar feeling as when I used to edit UVs in Maya, and it significantly improved my efficiency. In particular, being able to switch between modes like Face and Edge using the Pie Menu is neat.

As for the screwdriver, I modeled it entirely in Blender. I wanted to revisit polygon hard-surface modeling before joining 1047 Games. I began with primitives like cylinders and followed a traditional polygon modeling workflow – cutting shapes using Booleans for major surface changes and then cleaning up the topology afterward.

The screwdriver was UV unwrapped together with smaller models like screws.

Texturing

Even for personal projects, I make sure to keep the Substance 3D Painter scenes well-organized. This is because maintaining cleanliness eliminates confusion, allowing me to work faster.

Finding the right balance for weathering was challenging. Since the setting was for a product that was almost new, I couldn't add much weathering. However, I felt that leaving it completely clean would result in a boring piece with little visual interest. I carefully adjusted the amount of weathering to strike the right balance.

Also, whether it's plastic or rubber, there are no completely flat surfaces, so I expressed this by adding fine-grain noise to the Height Map. Normally, this would be handled in the game engine for game projects, but since I used 4K textures for pre-rendering this time, I did it in Substance 3D Painter.

It's also important to consider how industrial products are manufactured while painting the textures. By adding seam lines like in this image, you can imagine that parts were attached together during the manufacturing process, which increases the model's believability.

When painting the texture for the LED display, I made sure to add subtle spacing between the pixels and introduce variations in brightness to avoid a monotonous appearance.

Lighting

When setting up the lighting, I first carefully decided on the environment. The setting is a small workroom, with a light illuminating a radio on the desk. I also placed a scanned human model to ensure that the camera angle and light placement felt natural and there were no inconsistencies.

1. The desk lamp: I assigned an emissive material to the mesh, and it serves as the key light for the scene.

2. The fill light coming from the camera side: I brightened the areas where the shadow from the radio device had become too dark.

3. The light leaking from the adjacent room: I used a warm-toned light to create a subtle contrast between warm and cool tones.

4 & 5. I blocked some of the light from the HDR to create partially dark areas, which allowed me to control the contrast of the scene.

Keys to Creating Appealing Props

I believe it's about observing and thinking more deeply. Especially for props that can be observed in the real world, it's useful to carefully study how reflections behave when light is cast from different angles, as well as the materials and details. If you can consider why each detail exists and think about the manufacturing process, I believe you can create convincing props.

Chiro Fujita, 3D Character Artist