hay guy it has been awhile since i uploaded a weapon and i thought it was about time i released a new sword. so i played around with some ideas and came up with this sword. the texturing is much better then i have done in the past (at least i think so).
so here is the new weapon and enjoy!!
oh wait i almost forgot something, i want to put a something up for grabs so to speak. what i had in mind is i want people to make a video of them getting an epic kill using this sword. and the i will pic three people who i think got the most epic kills and make them a custom weapon,character texture, and if i get an epic enough kill i may even make a custom character. now if you win you get all three things well two if i dont get a sweet enough kill. now you get to choose the character to be textured and the type of weapon you want out of a list i will put out after the contest. each person can submit up to 10 videos.
download link:
http://ogmods.antonriehl.com/downloads. ... _count.zip
pics:
[weapon] body_count
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Black_Stormy
- Posts: 161
- Joined: Fri Mar 11, 2011 11:42 pm
Re: [weapon] body_count
It's good to see that you're actively making models, you'll improve the more you practice. Here's some constructive criticism for you.
Your UV mapping needs the most attention from you right now. The basis to a good texture is a good UV map. I'm not sure about your program, but in blender we use seams. Picture your model as a paper fold-up, and try to think where you would have to cut it to lay it out flat on a table - trying to use the least cuts possible so it's easy to color in. Those cuts are the seams in 3d modeling. By the looks of your model you're using some kind of automatic or projection unwrap. Generally, automatic things in 3d suck ballsack unless they are used for exactly what they were designed. Focus on learning to unwrap. Start with a cube, then a pyramid, then more complex primitives, and as you get more comfortable you'll be able to unwrap things easily.
That texture is very low-effort. The biggest thing I learned when modeling was that quality is not just about what you know or raw skill, it's based primarily on how much time you put into a model. You have not put enough time into that texture. Have a look at reference pictures. You will immediately see a numerous reasons why that texture needs a lot more work. Easy shortcuts for textures are things like edging (the edges of stuff gets worn) paint layers (paint gets peeled off exposing the metal underneath) and baked AO (bake the ambient occlusion in your modeling program and use the image produced as an overlay in your texture). But, the same as automatic things suck in modeling, shortcuts suck in texturing. Have a long look at a lot of references, and try to emulate them. Most of this community will give you blind praise for what you have produced, but that will get you nowhere.
This sword has the potential to look good. The model itself isn’t too bad (maybe a bit high poly) but the texture is very bland. Spend some more time on it, the only way to learn is to push yourself past your known boundaries.
If you need tips just ask!
Your UV mapping needs the most attention from you right now. The basis to a good texture is a good UV map. I'm not sure about your program, but in blender we use seams. Picture your model as a paper fold-up, and try to think where you would have to cut it to lay it out flat on a table - trying to use the least cuts possible so it's easy to color in. Those cuts are the seams in 3d modeling. By the looks of your model you're using some kind of automatic or projection unwrap. Generally, automatic things in 3d suck ballsack unless they are used for exactly what they were designed. Focus on learning to unwrap. Start with a cube, then a pyramid, then more complex primitives, and as you get more comfortable you'll be able to unwrap things easily.
That texture is very low-effort. The biggest thing I learned when modeling was that quality is not just about what you know or raw skill, it's based primarily on how much time you put into a model. You have not put enough time into that texture. Have a look at reference pictures. You will immediately see a numerous reasons why that texture needs a lot more work. Easy shortcuts for textures are things like edging (the edges of stuff gets worn) paint layers (paint gets peeled off exposing the metal underneath) and baked AO (bake the ambient occlusion in your modeling program and use the image produced as an overlay in your texture). But, the same as automatic things suck in modeling, shortcuts suck in texturing. Have a long look at a lot of references, and try to emulate them. Most of this community will give you blind praise for what you have produced, but that will get you nowhere.
This sword has the potential to look good. The model itself isn’t too bad (maybe a bit high poly) but the texture is very bland. Spend some more time on it, the only way to learn is to push yourself past your known boundaries.
If you need tips just ask!
Re: [weapon] body_count
thanks for the tips and i use cinema 4d r13 to model and paint, it breaks the model up into seams like blender but not the same way and i now that i need more work and have been looking for help so. on another note what would you do to this texture and sword to give it more flare?Black_Stormy wrote:It's good to see that you're actively making models, you'll improve the more you practice. Here's some constructive criticism for you.
Your UV mapping needs the most attention from you right now. The basis to a good texture is a good UV map. I'm not sure about your program, but in blender we use seams. Picture your model as a paper fold-up, and try to think where you would have to cut it to lay it out flat on a table - trying to use the least cuts possible so it's easy to color in. Those cuts are the seams in 3d modeling. By the looks of your model you're using some kind of automatic or projection unwrap. Generally, automatic things in 3d suck ballsack unless they are used for exactly what they were designed. Focus on learning to unwrap. Start with a cube, then a pyramid, then more complex primitives, and as you get more comfortable you'll be able to unwrap things easily.
That texture is very low-effort. The biggest thing I learned when modeling was that quality is not just about what you know or raw skill, it's based primarily on how much time you put into a model. You have not put enough time into that texture. Have a look at reference pictures. You will immediately see a numerous reasons why that texture needs a lot more work. Easy shortcuts for textures are things like edging (the edges of stuff gets worn) paint layers (paint gets peeled off exposing the metal underneath) and baked AO (bake the ambient occlusion in your modeling program and use the image produced as an overlay in your texture). But, the same as automatic things suck in modeling, shortcuts suck in texturing. Have a long look at a lot of references, and try to emulate them. Most of this community will give you blind praise for what you have produced, but that will get you nowhere.
This sword has the potential to look good. The model itself isn’t too bad (maybe a bit high poly) but the texture is very bland. Spend some more time on it, the only way to learn is to push yourself past your known boundaries.
If you need tips just ask!
Re: [weapon] body_count
I wanted to ask two things. Can you use 2 of the weapon and can you modify the damage resistance of the target?
Re: [weapon] body_count
you can do what ever you want to get the kill as long as the only weapon you use is the swordCJAwesome wrote:I wanted to ask two things. Can you use 2 of the weapon and can you modify the damage resistance of the target?
Re: [weapon] body_count
hay black_stormy is this texture any better? i know it is not perfect but is it in the right direction?
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Black_Stormy
- Posts: 161
- Joined: Fri Mar 11, 2011 11:42 pm
Re: [weapon] body_count
It's a little better yeah, You've got the idea that a hilt is designed to hold, so it has some form of padding on it. The blade texture is far too noisy. A plain fill of grey would be a step up from here. In fact, the best way to start textures is to do all plain fill so you can balance the colours. Do a google images search for "sword" to see what a real blade looks like. There are generally a few different blade cross sections, (if you were to snap the blade, you would see the cross section).
Using the cross section you can do a quick approximation on where the edges are that would be exposed to wear, and overlay that on your base colour texture. (There are some fancy ways to do this but the easiest is to just get an erratic brush and give it some jitter then run along the edges).
I like to get to this stage before I even think about the texture of the metal. Sometimes a base color is better than a texture. I don't know how c4d goes for painting, but I would guess that a program designed for images would do a better job. GIMP is designed for image manipulation more than painting, but it does the trick for free. When making a texture for a sword blade I would get a nice brushed steel texture and put it over my base texture, and set it to overlay mode, maybe drop down the opacity.
It's all about subtlety. Players only glance at models and if they are acceptable, they just accept them. The trick isn't getting people to look at your model and think "wow, what a good model", it's to prevent them from thinking "that isn't a good model." A total lack of feedback is as good as praise.
I like to get to this stage before I even think about the texture of the metal. Sometimes a base color is better than a texture. I don't know how c4d goes for painting, but I would guess that a program designed for images would do a better job. GIMP is designed for image manipulation more than painting, but it does the trick for free. When making a texture for a sword blade I would get a nice brushed steel texture and put it over my base texture, and set it to overlay mode, maybe drop down the opacity.
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Black_Stormy
- Posts: 161
- Joined: Fri Mar 11, 2011 11:42 pm
Re: [weapon] body_count
Yeah that already looks a lot better. It looks like you've accentuated the ridgeline running up the blade too, looks good. You may notice that the blade kind of pops out of the hilt unexpectedly, you could try to tie it into the hilt a bit by doing something like this
Just limits the contrast between the hilt and blade a bit. Now do something to the hilt. What is it made of? How old is it? How well has it been looked after? Find some references that you can emulate. It's far too noisy at the moment, less is more.
Re: [weapon] body_count
Should the whole contest thing on the badass video of slaying bunnies be put held until the texture is improved?
Re: [weapon] body_count
Black_Stormy wrote:Yeah that already looks a lot better. It looks like you've accentuated the ridgeline running up the blade too, looks good. You may notice that the blade kind of pops out of the hilt unexpectedly, you could try to tie it into the hilt a bit by doing something like this Just limits the contrast between the hilt and blade a bit. Now do something to the hilt. What is it made of? How old is it? How well has it been looked after? Find some references that you can emulate. It's far too noisy at the moment, less is more.
is the hilt any better? and again thanks for all the help.
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Re: [weapon] body_count
Wow, I think it looks a lot better.samjb1992 wrote:Black_Stormy wrote:Yeah that already looks a lot better. It looks like you've accentuated the ridgeline running up the blade too, looks good. You may notice that the blade kind of pops out of the hilt unexpectedly, you could try to tie it into the hilt a bit by doing something like this Just limits the contrast between the hilt and blade a bit. Now do something to the hilt. What is it made of? How old is it? How well has it been looked after? Find some references that you can emulate. It's far too noisy at the moment, less is more.
is the hilt any better? and again thanks for all the help.
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Black_Stormy
- Posts: 161
- Joined: Fri Mar 11, 2011 11:42 pm
Re: [weapon] body_count
Yeah much better, the gold bit at the base of the blade really ties it to the hilt. That's not always necessary though, it's just that the blade is so bright, but now that you've also made the hilt gold lighter, it doesn't jump out so much. Congratulations, you just learned color balancing.
See how less is more? A simpler texture leaves more up to the players mind, and allows them to accept the model easier than a particularly bad noisy texture. (That's not to say that later on when you're a master you shouldn't experiment)
You could probably do some sort of design in the hilt guard there, but remember to think about what it would be made of. If it's an inset red bit like on the original, what is it made of? It's important to vary the texture when swapping materials even if they are really similar rather than just colouring the yellow texture red. Also think about how the design has been attached to the hilt, is it inset? Embedded? Embossed? Carved? Think about the borders that would be defined by these different methods of decoration. An inset creates a shadow, embedded things usually have a hard line, perhaps a bit darker or lighter than the surrounding metal.
Have a go at your hilt grip as well. It's not very well defined at the moment. Is it wood? Leather? Since the rest of the sword looks quite professionally made I would assume that the hilt grip would be very nicely wrapped in some high quality leather. This means the strips would be evenly spaced, most likely shiny (specular) and clean.
A trick I learned a while back about leather is that it's more about the form of the material than the texture itself. That is, leather has lots of little wrinkles all over but if you put that into a texture you generally get a texture that is far too busy, and horrible. You're better off defining the thick and thin parts in the leather (in this case, where the leather strips overlap would be thick and raised) and then trying to use some specular highlights to accentuate the edges. Don't worry too much about overlaying photos of leather textures, a slight grunge wash would do fine. Leather is actually pretty counter-intuitive at first but once you grasp some basic tools you can pop out convincing textures.
It's definitely on track, as always, use plenty of references!
See how less is more? A simpler texture leaves more up to the players mind, and allows them to accept the model easier than a particularly bad noisy texture. (That's not to say that later on when you're a master you shouldn't experiment)
You could probably do some sort of design in the hilt guard there, but remember to think about what it would be made of. If it's an inset red bit like on the original, what is it made of? It's important to vary the texture when swapping materials even if they are really similar rather than just colouring the yellow texture red. Also think about how the design has been attached to the hilt, is it inset? Embedded? Embossed? Carved? Think about the borders that would be defined by these different methods of decoration. An inset creates a shadow, embedded things usually have a hard line, perhaps a bit darker or lighter than the surrounding metal.
Have a go at your hilt grip as well. It's not very well defined at the moment. Is it wood? Leather? Since the rest of the sword looks quite professionally made I would assume that the hilt grip would be very nicely wrapped in some high quality leather. This means the strips would be evenly spaced, most likely shiny (specular) and clean.
A trick I learned a while back about leather is that it's more about the form of the material than the texture itself. That is, leather has lots of little wrinkles all over but if you put that into a texture you generally get a texture that is far too busy, and horrible. You're better off defining the thick and thin parts in the leather (in this case, where the leather strips overlap would be thick and raised) and then trying to use some specular highlights to accentuate the edges. Don't worry too much about overlaying photos of leather textures, a slight grunge wash would do fine. Leather is actually pretty counter-intuitive at first but once you grasp some basic tools you can pop out convincing textures.
It's definitely on track, as always, use plenty of references!
Re: [weapon] body_count
Good work both of you, that's an incredible improvement in just a few days.
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SteelRaven7
- Posts: 681
- Joined: Sat Sep 26, 2009 2:02 pm
- Location: Sweden
Re: [weapon] body_count
Wow! Just for reference:
Such a step forward!
Keep at it and that blade is going to look sick!
Such a step forward!
Keep at it and that blade is going to look sick!