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[davdud101]

Hi, everyone. I've been doing a lot lately, stacking school among music, animation and my YouTube channel. Today (actually across 4/21 and 4/22), I whipped up a great looking robotic arm dubbed 'Roboklaw'. It is extremly reflective at this point, so you  might not see it at first against the white background. I have some animation tests I'll show within the week.

[3D Joe Wiltshire]

Liking the vicious spiky look lol, nd from what I can see those joints look pretty well modelled!

Im guessing the arm is... reticulated I think is the word, planning on animation it?

[davdud101]

Thanx for the comment, 3dJW! By 'reticulated', would you mean 'one long, undivided piece'? Cuz if that's what you mean, than I must say each of those arm things are seperated by some black (rubber, apparently) tube.
I actually animated it in a YouTube vid where I do a bit of a walkthrough:

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[Arik_the_Red]

Looks sort of like one of those tools used to grab things that get dropped in tight places... such as if I dropped my watch in a city storm drain?

[davdud101]

Arik, I wouldn't risk rusting it for the $420,000 price tag! lol
Here's a pic I made if it were a sales pitch (I might use this in a later comedy video, Apple spoof):

[Kamagoi]

I saw the video and I immediately thought of Dr. Octavius or Doctor Octopus from spiderman. Pretty cool how you show the process. I can't figure out how to use special effects, its harder than it looks.

[floyd86]

Looks nice davdud. I just saw your youtube clip.
One thing with reflections and working with background to achieve those reflections: Have you ever heard or tried HDRI shooting?
In this method you use a 100% reflective sphere (like a silver ball you put in your christmastree--> the bigger the better) and mkae photo's of it in you scene you will later composite. This way you get the best looking reflections. More about that here: http://www.pointzero.nl/dump/mirrorball_theory/

Also: try using a AO-layer in your composite: It will make you 3d objects look more realistic because of the fine shadows.

[davdud101]

@floyd86: Wow floyd, a lot going on in your reply. I'll give the HDRI shooting a try, but I need to study it a bit first. Also, what exactly does 'AO' mean, and when can I find more information about it?

@Kamagoi: My bro said the same thing. I kind of got my inspiration from Doc Ock.

[floyd86]

@davdud: AO mean Ambient Occlusion. It's a render pass which creates realistic light bounces and shadows. It will make tight places, places when normally light doesn't reach so good, darker. This will give a more realistic lighting.
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Same goes voor HDRI reflections: they will make you reflections more realistic. It the tiny details that will make you composite realistic.

[davdud101]

Man, floyd, I understand just what you're saying (now that you've explained it and I began researching it), but I don't see any way I coan render just an AO pass in Anim8or. You know how? I'll find out what I can.

[floyd86]

I have wrote a few steps down how to make an AO-render here: http://www.anim8or.com/smf/index.php?topic=2475.0

[davdud101]

Okay, I gave it a try, and it apppears to have worked! Thanks, floyd! Now, the next thing I'm wondering about.... (And I wonder a LOT), how would I apply this to a still or a video? Would I filter out white or something? Hope you can bear with me, this is my first time doing ambient occlusion, srry.

[floyd86]

Use you AO-layer in a multiply or overlay mode on top of you normal render. Maybe you will need the tweak the opacity a bit to keep the desired result.

[davdud101]

This is very hard to do. I wasn't entirley infomed nor aware of the fact... Do you have any sample pics I can use as reference?

[TheBlackHole]

It looks almost like something out of Portal.