I think it had to do with his name being Eggman in the Japanese versions of the old games and them just deciding to use the same name everywhere, maybe it just made things easier with any texture work that would have his name or something. I prefer Robotnik as well though.
silicongene is part of http://roboticnetwork.tumblr.com/ which now have a page that shows all their updates together yay EDIT: if you dont like clicking next page buttons and use the zoom function on your web browser I reccomend /archive http://roboticnetwork.tumblr.com/archive
I was gonna swamp you with suggestions, but I thought you meant a SCROLLING shooter. I have nothing to really add with Robotron styled things except uhh... maybe look at Neo Contra? Or Super C and Contra 3 if you want a good place to start.
Use a directional light for the sun. http://download.autodesk.com/global/docs/maya2012/en_us/index.html?url=files/Create__Lights__Directional_Light.htm,topicNumber=d28e567245 If the backsides are too dark, for example if there are nebulae or other light sources nearby, then duplicate the sun and rotate it 180 degrees and…
Last big Unity project I worked on, we imported the unique pieces then assembled them in Unity. Programmer wrote a cool tool for laying out our pieces, made it a very fast process. Here's a video of it. http://ericchadwick.com/img/robot_rising.html#themepalettes Definitely do-able without a tool, just a bit slower. I found…
I think you're under-estimating the advantage baked normal maps can have for hard-surface stuff... But if you just want those round corners but don't want to bake them, might as well just model them out and tweak the surfaces' vertex normals. http://born-robotic.com/stuff/cubenormals.jpg
I'll be there, with the rest of the Robotoki team on Thursday (13th) But it be awesome if we could get a small polycount gathering like we do during GDC.
I know you said Unreal Engine, and environment artist, but if you were willing and/or interested, I have some work on a Skyrim mod involving character modeling/rigging, as well as buildings. My email is robotnik123456789@gmail.com if you are interested.
Right now I feel like you're behind the rest of the future juniors or interns that have been showcasing their work here on polycount. You need to step it up, skill-wise and creatively. An Angel-statue is cool and all but only when put into context by an environment. You need to focus on something more interesting than that…