Walkman WM-99 R

Prop Breakdown

Najah Benothman

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Najah Benothman

Senior 3D Artist

Introduction

Hello! My name is Najah Benothman and I’m a 3D Artist at Eidos Montreal.

Goals and Inspiration

As my portfolio shows, I’m quite fond of vintage stuff that brings me back so many memories. Reminiscences aside, I also love the design of electronic equipment from the ’80s and ’90s. The usage of the materials and the creativity in the shapes and design were so inspiring. In this article, I’ll try to bring some tips on how I realized my Sony Walkman.

Softwares

Since I’m a Maya user for years, I stick to that one. I decided to produce also my first portfolio’s piece with Substance Painter. My previous ones were done with the help of the Quixel Suite 2, which got old and way less user-friendly than Substance Painter. And of course, for the rendering, the good old Marmoset Toolbag with the raytracing enabled!

 

References

For this one, I decided to create my own Walkman by using a lot of references. I used as the main reference the Walkman WM-55 R (it’s also the one used in Metal Gear Solid 5) and I’ve decided to custom it a bit by taking a few elements here and there. For that, I had to gather a lot of pictures on my board. I had to dive into a lot of models from the 80s when those devices were popular but also the ones during the 90s.

But those references weren’t only for the shapes and functionalities of those devices. I also gathered a lot of pictures of those to identify the materials used and how they have reacted through time.

And a lot of them are totally damaged and dirty. It’s really important to obtain as much as possible that kind of reference to better understand and picture how those kinds of devices would look like if you find them nowadays in an old attic or a garage sale.

Here’s a look at my reference board.

refboard

Modeling

I started with a simple blockout for the Walkman and the audiotape. The goal at first was to obtain the right dimensions. Once this was done, I had to start the cutting of my model in order to separate the different elements of the Walkman. Basically, i just worked the way it could be manufactured in a factory. It results in many parts, like a manufacturing mold. From there, I started to dive into more detail on each piece since they were perfectly separated. This is why it’s really important to obtain the right dimensions at first, otherwise, once you are too far in the modeling part, it could be a pain to do any changes.

I’m used to working with a low poly process at first. Once I did my first pass of details, I put my low poly aside in a Layer called simply “Low Poly” and I’ll use a copy of this one to make a High Poly.
On this part, I’ll just increase some loops here and there and eventually proceed to the second layer of details manually if they are meant to be baked onto the low poly.

I’m trying to keep my low poly as low as possible, but I tend to not sacrifice too much on the shapes. I rely a lot on my high poly version to bring those refine edges, but still, I learned to not be not that selfish with my low poly models. When you need to put a bit more, do it.
You may be able to save some vertices somewhere else also.

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UVing

This is a pretty simple part. Since the Walkman has a kind of a “boxed shape”, I simply unfolded the front and back parts with the standard UV tools from Maya. I did a few cuts here and there in order to isolate some specific parts (such as the batteries area). Nothing fancy there. To pack everything I used the Layout UV from Maya. As I said, nothing fancy, but it works well.

 

Baking

For this part, I used Marmoset Toolbag which is, in my opinion, the best tool so far to do a clean bake and to have a lot of control. Tweaking a cage in real-time has never been that simple.

Texturing

For this one, I wanted to avoid doing a clean version of the Walkman.

I didn’t want to produce something that just left the factory. I wanted instead of something that survived decades in an old attic.

Or something that you can eventually find nowadays in garage sales for cheap, because it’s so damaged, but still functional though. I wanted to be able to feel it when I stare at it. I wanted it rough, almost palpable. But not to the point that it’s completely destroyed and totally rust. It had to be more subtle. Just natural wear and dirt from his intense usage during his young days and the damages of time who damaged it naturally. That was my initial intention and tons of images and references were mandatory for that. A keen eye as well, but references before all.

To start efficiently, I quickly defined the main materials and set them on my model. Plastic, glass, metal, brushed aluminum. Once that was done, I could focus on the wear and tear and dirt.

But I was well aware that damages and dirt wouldn’t be enough to give to this Walkman a unique touch. Stickers and brandings were also one of my main focuses. It helped a lot to give a nice feeling of usage and to fill some empty areas without trouble.

Stickers from the factory or additional ones are great to give personality to a simple shape like that. I tried to not abuse of them because it could reach a certain point that it doesn’t make any sense.

For the interior of the Walkman, I did almost all the details with the help of Painter. For example, the pattern used on the audiotapes and inside the Walkman was done with the “Brick Generator” from Painter! It may sound silly, but it works!

I also used tons of custom alphas made on Photoshop to help me here and there for creating certain specific shapes and my logos/details.

When it comes to details, I naturally thought about hairs. We all lose our hair, even our animals and they spread everywhere.
That’s why I put a bit of lost hair inside the Walkman. To do so, simple use of the “Anisotropic” will work totally fine if you play with the scale and his options below.

That can be also used to create scratches that you can see on the boxes of the audiotapes by just using them with the roughness.

The “Crease” and “Crystals” could work also. Those two are really interesting when you have to create folded or wrinkled paper. Combined with a “Warp”, “Bevel” and/or a “Blur”, you will be able to achieve interesting results. It’s even greatest if you “Multiply” them with a “Grunge Map” and tweak them a bit in order to obtain a result that looks even more natural!

For the global dirtiness and damages, It is mainly a lot of combinations of grunge with additional handpaint on it. Blur Slope and the Sharpen were really useful as well when used with care. I used a lot the brushes that are within Substance Painter and they worked fine. It was really important for me to put some additional touch that doesn’t feel “generated”.

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Lighting

I wanted to do many shots that bring different moods. To do so, I just set up a simple “Directional Light” that cast shadow and an “Omni Light” that brings a colorful mood. This one will help me a lot to change the global mood by changing his color. I also used some “Sky Point Lights” to give some “Rim Lighting” here and there in order to give a nice “studio” touch. Even if I wanted it to be realistic, I’m not losing in mind that it’s also to be showcased and I wanted it to be a bit “elegant” despite all.

Rendering

It’s mainly by playing with the options of my main camera. Once I enabled the Raytracing and adjusted a bit his settings, I started to play with the sharpen, distortion (chromatic aberration), and exposure. I wanted my render to have strong contrast and to be sharp.

najah-benothman-mood03

Conclusion

In order to make it more…attractive. I added also a bit of storytelling with tons of audiotape cases and a custom booklet. Since this Walkman is a fictive one, I decided to create a little storytelling by doing many colors variation of this one. I simply called them “We Love Colors” and used them in a few renders.  It was a nice final touch and it brought more content than simply displaying the props alone!

In the end, it was a great exercise for me. I’ll still continue to promote those old vintage devices for my next works!

Thank you for the reading and for your interest in my work!

Najah.