Symmetra’s Robo Antics: An Analysis post. (Patreon)

Hey guys!

Now it’s time to begin working on Symmetra. So what is the objective of this model? Basically, make a model while preserving her robotic hand.

The task is particularly complex because I need both the arm and the figure to be merged, not to be joined.

What’s the difference between Join and Merge?

As I’m writing in my book, they are not the same at all, but the difference to not go into to much detail,  Join turns 2 meshes into 1 mesh, while Merge turns 2 or more vertices of one same mesh into one. In model building, these two things go hand in hand.

The complexity lies in how light will interact. If two meshes are not merged (as in they are separated) then lighting in SFM can get confusing around the edges because both edges have different normals. However, if they have the merged, then they have the same set of normals, which in turn, makes the lighting more uniform.

Think of it like this: imagine a plastic water bottle, put it horizontally and fill it with water. In these circumstances, the water will stay inside the bottle. Now cut the bottle in half, hold both parts together and fill it with water. Some water (or a lot) will leak out of the bottle. The original instance represents a “Merged” model and the cut-and-hold instance represents the “Joined” model, but instead of water, is light. Believe, the light can look terribly irregular.

Now, the hard part is to make the arm joint look seamless. This is going to be particularly hard because I have no idea how to make it look seamless. And even if I were, the hard parts are not done yet. There’s still one more nasty part to deal with: Rigging.

In this particular case, I can’t just Transfer Weights on the arm and call it day. I need to make a lot of adjustments in order to have it working properly. Here’s a few ideas I currently have.

• Using Daz’s armature

Daz Armature is pretty good. It has everything I need: twists, carpals, etc. The issue is however, if I were to use Daz, I would need to do a lot of adjustments, like changing finger posing, changing bone locations, adjusting the size to make it fit the whole arm and hand properly, and a few extras that I can’t think at the top of my head.

• Using the Transplant method

Quick story time: Long time ago, a commissioner wanted a bare feet Tracer model. My idea was to give her Daz feet, however, since those are feet, they should be inside the pants, not merged to the pants. So I had a small idea in how to make a feet transplant to Tracer that went more or less like this:

1.- Adjust the size of the feet.

2.- Separate the feet and Join them to Tracer.

3.- Transfer the weight from Tracer’s “Calf” bones to the feet.

4.- Remove every bone above the original feet’s calves and only leave the Foot and Toe bones.

5.- Join the armatures together. I would call it “Tracer Rig with Daz Feet bones.”

This sounds like the easiest thing to do, and as a matter of fact, it is, however, that particular edit was easy because there wasn’t too many things affected by Tracer’s rig. In this case, I would invert the models, and instead of just using Daz's Feet, I would use Symmetra's  whole arm. I’m not 100% sure of this will work, but I will try this method first because it’s the fastest one.

Why not make it just a simple bodygroup and leave people choose between regular and robotic arm?

I don't like this idea, at all. And I don't like it for just one reason: Symmetra's robotic arm is part of Symmetra's character. Having her robotic arm be replaced by a regular arm would turn her into Generic Female Model #15420. It's the same reason about alien limbs, and even Felicia's limbs: they are part of the character. That's why it's very important for me to not give her a regular hand.

Wish me the best of the luck, guys! Because if everything works, we might have some nice choco butt model :D!

Have a great week!