Areas of Research

In this post i'll show you the research that I have done so far and am going to continue to do throughout the project. I find that doing all the research at the beginning and then leaving it would be pointless, as you'll always look up new links and videos for help in certain areas your work. But for now this'll give you an idea of how and where I started.

First thing to do was to decide what reference I could research, with the obvious choice being robots and mechs in games. However I expanded this to general robotics, as I feel this will give me a bigger field of scope for my current project and for future works.

I quickly made lists on the online software Evernote, where I store a lot of my useful links, info and notes that I find from around the web. Heres one example of robotics found in games. I aim to do this with other areas as well:

So from this I decided to start off with robots and mechs found in games, but also in real life. At the basic level of research I wanted to look at images and appearances in real life and media, compiling a visual library of them until eventually I could draw out the images not needed and bring a focused group of them together. For the current project, where im looking at robotics in 4 main areas currently: Animal Based Robots, Human Enhancements, Mechs and Robots. From there I further split each category into films, games, real life and TV. Examples of these are shown below.

Robots from Games, which has a rich variety of designs and shapes.

Mechs from Games, again although not as many as robots, still quite a few to choose from.

Mechs From Real life, which have far less to choose from, showing how difficult they are to create.

Robots from films, again another area with lots to choose from.

Animal based robots from games, a fair few to select from, but they provided a few interesting shapes to the palette.

So far from just this selection I have gained a fair bit of insight into the world of robots, all areas showing casing different levels of design and function. This image database is far from finished, as their are still areas that need to be explored, titles I may of missed, and areas of research I haven't added in yet (Such as toys and art from the internet.) But as well as helping me with this project, it will be a fantastic resource to explore in future use.

For general research I decided to start off with realistic robots as they will be key to my own designs. To this end I looked up robotics companies, and found a great selection of up to date modern ones to choose from. Below are a couple of examples of this.

The Japanese Company Suidobashi Heavy Industries, showcasing their recent creation Kuratas in 2012. This robot was built purely for the fun of making it, and is heavily inspired by robot based Anime shows. 

Boston Dynamics, founded in 1992 Waltham Massachusetts, America. One of the largest leading robotics companies in the world, they have produced robots such as LS3, Atlas and Petman. They take inspiration from both the human and animal form.

These websites have given me a good insight into the various types of robots out there, how they were made and what they can do. It also shows that they are built for purpose, staying true to form and function, rather than robots found in video games, which are made to look cool and fantastical.

I've also read into gaming articles and found websites that give me the basic info that I need for my work. Since my FYP project interlinks with my Contemporary studies paper 'How does Implementing mechanical components affect function and design for robots in games', I've been able to find a lot of good articles that can be used for both areas. Below are a few examples of this:

Gamasutra is a great website with articles on current work from industry professionals and companies, as well as info on the latest games and game tech. 

HowstuffWorks is a website that explains, well, how stuff works. In this article it talks about the robots today, what their made from, how they work, and what jobs they were created for.

Also game websites such as the website for Hawekn, an online mech FPS. These give me useful info on their designs and functions, how they can be customized, specs, and further ideas for my work.

Also through general research i've found some good websites that will help me with the artistic look I want to go for. One example is bulldozer vfx, a website that makes their robotic designs look incredibly realistic and detailed. I'll be making sure to use this one for my future work.

A general look at the websites work.

A mech creation, very handy for the work that I am doing. 

So far I feel that all of this research has been incredibly handy to my work. Its given me an insight into hundreds of designs, and has also forced me to consider real life science and design when thinking about how to go about making my own robot. Although I have yet to compiled some of this information properly, brief readings of it tell me that I'll be design and model robots with a greater understanding once this project is over.

For my last point, I tend to save most of my useful links and the odd gem on the Evernote software. In addition I have also started a library of  useful terms for my contempoary studies paper, which has come very handy in relating to my FYP work, as shown below:

So for now this post concludes the amount of research that I have done to date. Not all of it is on here, but as I stated at the beginning enough to give you a rough grounding in how i'm going about it. For any goo discovery's related to my artwork i'll be posting them in other posts as I go along. 

However, for the next blog entry I aim to show more pre-production work and further development of the robot's concept.