Make An Impressive Space Rover With Spherical Wheels in Maya

Space invider © Yuri Kozhevnikov

Hum3D Space Rover 3D Competition announced the winners in early June, and we are glad to see lots of creative space rovers created by talented artists all over the world.

Fox Renderfarm, your TPN-Accredited cloud rendering service provider, is honored to interview the third-place winner Yuri Kozhevnikov, whose artwork Space Invider was appreciated by the judges because of the fantastic atmosphere and the great design of the space rover.

Details

Here’s the interview between Yuri Kozhevnikov and Fox Renderfarm, and he talked about the making of this artwork, including how he made his Space Invider by using Maya, Blender, Substance Painter, Quixel Mixer and Photoshop.

• Yuri Kozhevnikov
• CG Artist & Senior 2D Artist at Wargaming
• From: Russia
• ArtStation: https://www.artstation.com/yura

Fox Renderfarm: Hi, Yuri! Could you give us a brief introduction about yourself?

Yuri: Hi, My name is Yuri Kozhevnikov. I am 32 years old. I was born in the old small town in the north of Russia under the name Kargopol. At the moment I live with my wife Maria and a dog named Schnapps in St. Petersburg. I work as a senior 2D artist at Wargaming.

Yuri’s battleships artworks for Wargaming

Fox Renderfarm: How do you feel about winning third place in the Space Rover Challenge?

Yuri: I was very happy to participate in this competition, even more, I'm glad that I was able to win a prize in the place. By profession, I am not a 3D modeler and therefore I am very flattered that I managed to take 3rd place in the 3D competition.

Fox Renderfarm: What inspired you to come out with the idea of making the work Space Invider?

Yuri: Nothing unusual, inspired by ArtStation and the works of other artists. I came up with the idea of round wheels from the references listed below.

References

Fox Renderfarm: How long did you take to finish the work?

Yuri: It took a little more than a month to work.

Modeling

UV mapping

texturing

Fox Renderfarm: We are all attracted by the unusual sphere wheels you designed, could you tell us how you designed such a space rover?

Yuri: The principle of the action of such a mechanism was immediately born in my head. In fact, it is an ordinary electric motor.

The spherical wheel is a rotor. Magnetic locks on the wing is a stator. Between them is a magnetic field, that's all. The rotation of the wheel in any axis gives tremendous freedom in movement and maneuverability.

Fox Renderfarm: The fantastic colors and lighting create a mysterious environment on an alien planet, could you tell us how you set the lighting and color?

Yuri: The reference was a frame from the movie Avengers: Infinity War. There was such a planet, where the stone of the soul was stored.

Lighting is very simple, an HDRI card (NoEmotion), one directional light and a little fog. I slightly changed the HDR map in Photoshop, added a planet with rings and a characteristic solar disk.

In the blender, a purple hue was added through the color correction node.

Then I made two renderings: normal and with a purple tint. The most simple processing in Photoshop. Compound 2 renders, select the rover by mask, and overlay several textures with particles.

Fox Renderfarm: Did you meet any difficulties when creating this work? And how did you solve it?

Yuri: There were minor difficulties, but they are also an interesting experience - this is the study of new software. I first worked in a blender, did visualization on the Eevee engine.

Test renders

Fox Renderfarm: Could you briefly tell us your educational and work experience along your CG journey?

Yuri: I studied everything on my own. I started about 10 years ago with Photoshop and photo manipulations. At the same time I tried in 3D, but quickly rejected this idea. Probably because I decided to study 3D with Maya. Not the easiest software for a beginner.

For a long time, I was a graphic designer. I painted logos in CorelDRAW.

Gradually, about 6 years ago, I began to include 3D in my pipeline. My first 3D program in which I could do something sane Cinema 4D. But in the end, I still mastered Maya. This is my main modeling software.

Fox Renderfarm: What do you do to enhance your professional skills?

Yuri: Workout. Just like in sports you need to train and then your skills will improve. Naturally, you need to train not only "familiar movements" but also learn new ones. On personal projects and with participation in contests, you can include new software in your workflow, learn new techniques and much more - this is my training.

New York © Yuri Kozhevnikov

Kalitinka © Yuri Kozhevnikov