The Early Stages
One of the earliest things that we decided on was to have a pillbug serve as our ball. The pillbug is interesting as it’s an unwilling participant in the goblin’s games. It will run away from the goblins and curl up when its being used as a ball or if a goblin gets too close to it, much like a real life pillbug. Here is the original concept art for the pillbug.
Trial and Error
Figuring out how to go about designing the pillbug was
challenging, mostly because it would have to have both an unfurled form and ball form. Both forms would have to transition smoothly using the same model. Initially, I tried building the body out of one connected piece but that quickly was abandoned. I decided to try making the body out of individual segments that closely followed the portions of a real pillbug.
The bending portion and making it roll up into a nice ball was the most difficult part of the whole process. It was hard to make it roll up evenly and consistently without unwanted stuff happening at the middle point where all the sections meet. Later in the process, it was tough to eliminate the hole that resulted when all the segments were balled up. Another problem was making a smooth transition from where the end of the pillbug meets the front when it’s balled up.
Eventually the Segments were perfected, leaving no gap in the middle. They also held a consistent ball shape when put all together. The Duplicate Special too in Maya was a huge help in figuring that out.
Behold! A Pillbug!
All of this resulted in the cute pillbug ball you see in the game today. I learned a lot about 3D modeling during this process and most definitely improved as a 3D artist. I’m confident that I can tackle more organic creatures in the future.
