I've been dabbling in 3D with blender for a long time but never really made a deliberate effort to try to improve. With 2.8 officially out, and having more time available to devote to practicing I decided to enroll in this class.
I plan to make some sort of scimitar that I may be also able to use in a game I'm working on. I put together a few reference images and the result will likely be inspired by some elements from each.
Got most of the shapes modeled, the braided wrap section of the handle should translate well to the final goal I have in mind however I have no idea at the moment how to approach this. The pattern is sort of just two bands of material repeated, so I might try to make one section and use an array modifier. Let's see how it goes!
After watching a few different approaches from various internet tutorials I arrived at what feels like a pretty decent result.
I took two separate 1/4 donut sections and made a single ">" shaped piece, added an array modifier and tweaked the shape until both sections could tuck into each other and the spacing looked okay in between sections.
Once I was happy with that, I added a Lattice modifier to shape the array to fit the shape of the handle and sort of hide itself in the end of the handle.
I may revisit the braid and make it two or three times wider as it might give a more chunky low poly feel but for now I like where it's at.
silentheart00 Thanks! I really enjoy the problems solving aspects of modeling.
@ghujelk Great to have you onboard! Liking the look of it so far, so keep at it.
I think I'm just about ready for the Sunday deadline, tweaked a few verts here and there. Made some additional handle wraps, the thicker crisscross one (bottom right) was done much the same as the first one I did. The tighter single wrap was done using the screw modifier to make the majority of the wrap and then I manually created the tapers on the ends.
I made a second guard piece based on a flame icon I found in some stock photos and with just a material on it it's hard to see the layers but with texturing I think it will pop nicely.
I also added some damage to a copy of the blade, the first guard and the pommel. I don't know if there's a term for it but something about adding those imperfections to those smooth surfaces felt terrible haha but I can't argue with the sense of character and story they add to the model. Guess I'll have to make one of each and see how I feel once they are done!
Homework Week 1 Submission
I think I'll make an additional blade variant during the texturing portion but I like all the elements I've modeled so far. I tried to use as many techniques from the treasure chest course as I could remember, linked object data and sticking duplicated objects to face normals is pretty cool!
@ghujelk Your sword turned out beautifully! Honestly one of my favorites. I'm a sucker for the complex curvature of the blade, stylized dents, the weaved grip, and the variants. All of it is an excellent showcase.
The insight you've shared along the way is invaluable too. It's easy to mark this one an A+. Can't wait to see what you do with texturing + shading!
Thanks for the positive feedback everyone!
This was my first attempt at texturing anything beyond solid colors for each element, trying to follow along with what was shown in the livestream. A lot of the colors feel a bit too muddy to me right now and I think I'd like to attempt to use more saturated or vibrant colors. I will look up some references for pristine and weathered hand painted items for inspiration before texturing the next set of handles and the damaged blade and guard.
Admittedly, I didn't really go into this with a clear idea of what I was trying to achieve. I do really like how the handle wrap turned out however!
@ghujelk I think it's a good start. Using more saturated and brighter or darker color for appropriate places in your next, more detailed pass will make everything pop. Good job so far!
@ghujelk Excellent progress so far! The only thing I'd like to see more of is edge highlighting and crevice darkening:
Brightening the edges will accentuate the shapes and serve as additional detail. Also you can add stray light strokes to represent subtle scratches. I also darkened in between the leather grip segments to add a little dimension + wear and tear.
Edge and crevice detection will also be a key player in the material next week.
@drgnclw Thank you for the encouragement!
@theluthier Ah, that makes it a lot clearer how much that bit of additional lighting and darkening really gives the impression of depth, thank you! I'll be sure to add edge highlighting to my next texturing passes!
otowa Thanks! Although I haven't directly posted in your homework thread, I've really enjoyed following along with your Katana project! The saya especially is looking awesome!
I took a step back from texturing and modeled and beat up a second blade, to sort of clear my head and mentally organize what and how I want to really texture my official homework submission. I noticed that in a few other homework threads, a UV grid textured version of the meshes was shown so I'm including one as well.
I went off to Artstation and SketchFab to collect references of some models and textures that I'd like my textures to strive towards.
I dropped them all into PureRef and I'll use them as reference for my next attempt at texturing where I think I'd like to try restricting my color pallet slightly, increasing the saturation and value of the colors, and definitely incorporating edge highlighting!
Okay, so after a bit of hunting around for references and a trip to a couple color palette generators online, I textured one of the damaged blade pieces. I found that adding a generated cloud texture to my brush helped a bit when adding dirt and discoloration. I also added some edge highlighting as suggested by Kent, and some drawn in scratches here and there. I think I need to dull the edge highlighting underneath the bigger dents a little bit, but overall I much more like where this is at. Now I just need to achieve the same level of texturing on all the other pieces!
I feel like I finished texturing at least all the dented and worn bits that I modeled, I really like how the larger blade turned out. Because I placed everything on one texture map I tried to make the guard and handle colors sort of halfway between the two blade colors and I'm okay with it but I wish I had some stronger fundamental knowledge of color theory to better approach these choices.
My goal for the Sunday deadline is to also texture a non worn version of each blade, the flame shaped guard, and the other handle wraps.