For this personal project, I explored futuristic design and realistic PBR texturing entirely in Blender, while also testing a Blender–Houdini pipeline for advanced simulations. I simulated the beating heart asset in both applications to hone cross‑software workflows and ensure consistent physics behavior. In order to enhance the atmosphere, I used a commercially available fog‑plane add‑on in Blender, integrating volumetric layering for depth and mood. This piece demonstrates my ability to combine high‑fidelity texturing, procedural simulation, and external tools into a cohesive, production‑ready scene.
Inspired by a 2D art prompt of a robotic girl generated with Midjourney AI, I translated her look into a detailed 3D model using Blender and ZBrush’s modeling and sculpting tools, then crafted a suite of procedural, corroded-metal materials in Substance Painter to emphasize distinct surface textures. For animation, I started with a Mixamo rig, refining the skin weights and control hierarchy to match her unique proportions. In Blender’s NLA Editor, I blended hand-keyed poses with imported mocap data, adjusting strip blend modes and timing to layer fluid, anime-inspired gestures seamlessly over natural motion while minimizing manual keyframing. Rigging the model’s intricate inner components proved challenging when neither Maya nor Blender’s auto-weight tools handled the nested geometry reliably, so I first rigged and weight-painted a simplified proxy mesh, then transferred those weights via volume-preserving skinning to the final high-density model, ensuring clean deformations and stable performance across its complex structure.
Texturing the PBR in substance painter demanding a clear uv topology and UV layout. Therefore hard surface modeling with low polycount are the key components for the robot body.
I created a stylized PBR material with a futuristic sci-fi aesthetic by leveraging mask workflows in Substance Painter. After verifying even UV distribution with the tile visualization, I imported the mesh with its UV map and applied a dirt generator to randomize corroded areas. I then multiplied a grunge map to enhance the border noise details and used the Blur and Slope Blur filters to sharpen edges, simulating peeling paint and a weathered oil-washed effect.
I optimized the workflow by saving the group layer as a smart material in Substance Painter—complete with a hand-painted black mask and adjustable parameters—so I can quickly customize effects on each component. When creating the heart material, I faced a different challenge: unlike the robotic parts’ metal textures, the muscle requires an intricate, grid-like background grunge. Rather than hunting for the perfect texture set, I used Adobe 3D Sampler to convert a copyright-free 2D heart image generated by Midjourney into seamless PBR maps. I cropped and edge-blurred the image with 3D Sampler’s built-in tools to produce tunable normal and roughness maps, then imported those into Substance Painter and layered in alpha maps derived from black-and-white vein references to achieve realistic veins and fatty details.
The original reference for the texture map and the mapped heart.
I evaluated the corrosion effect at both macro and micro scales, ensuring it reads clearly from a full-body view while revealing intricate detail up close. To maintain a balanced palette, I intensified corrosion contrast in select areas, applying finer, subtler weathering on brighter surfaces and deeper, more pronounced etching in the darker regions. This stratified detailing creates visual harmony and depth across the model.
For the neon light, addition emissive maps are added to the preset. The edges are extracted using a curvature generator and multiplied by a grunged dust mask and blur mask to simulate a stained cover.
I created a realistic “heartbeat” effect in Houdini by using the Vellum solver to apply internal pressure to the heart mesh. Because each segment of the heart was imported as its own Vellum group, they naturally repel and collide under pressure, mimicking organic expansion. I then used a Fuse node to weld the segments back together—simultaneously stitching their edges—to produce a cohesive, sewn-together structure that pulses convincingly with each simulated beat.