Actiondyne Cube - Adobe Substance Modeler

Blender render of Actiondyne Cube space station floating in a purple nebula.

So, in Adobe Substance Modeler, after tinkering with it quite a bit, I wanted to try out a cool feature called Object linking. It allows you to make copies of an object, but editing any of these linked objects affects all of them. Anyone who’s ever used something like Unity’s Prefabs would understand how useful this is for creative purposes.

3D model of Actiondyne Industries Logo

I started out by making my logo in a way that it was composed of nothing but linked objects, so anything that could be repeated and linked was. I had to have the resolution of pretty high to maintain some of the hard edges, so things didn't end up, looking kind of soft and pillow either way that they can in model, or if you don't have the resolution of high enough for hard surface kind of things.

3D model of Actiondyne Logo as a 6-sided cube.

I then made linked copies of the group containing all of this parts (Which were subgroups accordingly and yes the grouping and linking is a bit confusing to set up but don’t give up!) and put the 3D logo on 6 sides to make a cube.

Actiondyne logo along X,Y,Z axis in 3D.

Actiondyne Logo in 3D as a solid cube.

Moving one of the sides (As long as you are scoped into the correct group) lets you move all of the sides at once. Allowing you to quickly create different forms… like a 3D kaleidoscope. So I realized that building in or out from one little corner.. I could really do a lot.

Actiondyne Logo, in 3D turned into a cube shaped space station.

Carving in smaller details, and cuts resulted in those changes automatically duplicating around the whole cube. I did most of this stage in VR, but was switching back and forth between VR, and desktop modes in Adobe Substance Modeler quite a bit for this overall.

Actiondyne Logo, in 3D made into a large cube shaped space station with a lot of small details, such as lights.

I ended up coloring it in Modeler, mostly so it was easier to see the different parts, and to get a rough idea of how I wanted to add materials to everything later on. I initially wanted to try out texturing this with Substance Painter, but still have some learning to do. In the meantime, I did some renders using Blender, which i’m liking.