[Weapon] King Sword [beta] (Updated 8/31/14)

[samjb1992]

this is a custom swords i am working on.

I would love feed back on them as they stand, they are both very similar in design but there are differences.

Download Link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vv56tiv0kos89ec/KingSword.zip
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pics:

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UPDATE List:
8/30/14:
1.new color texture: messed with the spec map a bit and the metal tint.

8/31/14:
1.remade the whole color texture
2.remade the whole spec map.

[Endoperez]

The shape is better, but personally, I'd add a sharp angle somewhere. If it's all smooth curves, it's not as interesting as if it's two smooth curves with a sharp point between.

The same is true for the textures. The lighter sword looks much better, because it looks like it's made from separate parts, and the division is where it would logically be - where the blade meets the handguard.

You should focus on editing the textures for now. Decide which materials the different parts are made from, find some pictures of those materials, and try to get it looking the same. For a metal look, you need to make those parts shiny by coloring the alpha channel (transparency part) white. If you need help with that and can't figure it out, ask.

For example, the blade is some sort of metal. Is it new, untarnished steel? Is it handforged iron with lots of black spots in it? Is it silver, or bronze, or gold?
The handle seems to have some sort of pattern in it that looks like it could be twine or string or rope.
The handguard between the handle and the blade wouldn't be made from rope, and the sword will look better if the blade and handguard look different from each other. The guard could be wood, or a different metal from the blade.
The pommel at the end should look different from the handle. If you want to keep it simple, make it the same material as the handguard.

Also, I suggest also doing the sharpened edge and the rest of the blade in slightly different colors. It will add some nice detail there.


Here's a quick edit. The original is just the image you posted. For the next two versions I painted out part of the blade, so the tip is sharper. As I said, a sharp point or two between the otherwise smooth shape adds contrast and looks nice.
The third and fourth one just added some contrast to show how you could add detail in the texture. The pommel and the handguard are different, and the cutting edge is slightly lighter than the rest of the blade.

[Corpsey]

Yeah, don't be afraid to make sharp edges to define a shape that you like. When creating a weapon especially, profile is a big part of it. For example, the blade and the quillions on this sword are kind of smooth where they connect - and that could very well be the case, but there should be some indication of maybe the metal going into the grip. This can be achieved with 2 objects in OG, even, or as simple as a hardened edge that's translated closer to the grip.

The grip doesn't have to have such a dramatic form to it. Actually there are great images for doing grips out there, but sadly the most common grips are pretty simple. Think about what would be comfortable to hold with/stab with/retrieve with. Actually your grip location in terms of where the blade is is fine, but that bulge in the middle of it makes me cringe. It would be cool to see the inside of the grip either follow the same bend from the top to the bottom OR if you like the extra curves for the pull force factor, try to get the entire inside of the grip to have a wavy look to it - as if for fingers.

[+] grip

something like this, anyways, but more sword-y

And lastly texturing.. Everyone has their own style so I personally try not to give anyone advice on where to go with texturing (so then I get to see other people's original ideas instead of repeat stuff that has been done since literally the bronze age up to last week and people still oo and awe over it). But I digress;
One of the best pieces of advice I was given was from the artist Steve Argyle - and even though he does 2D artwork, that's all texturing ends up being (Btw I recommend strongly that you watch him paint something. He's amazing). Anyways, he gives pieces of advice such as trying to imagine where things are forged and with what kinds of tools. One word in particular that stuck with me though was 'planishing'. This is the action the blacksmith uses to pound the metal into a piece of, usually, armor. This can give a simple object a lot of detail if used correctly. Other things to do while texturing are adding trim and wear. Trim lines can help fortify the appearance of a shape you're after - and are usually added as gradients. For example, you could have a dark gradient from the back of the blade to the front HOWEVER leave a small gap that has a nice sharp transition back to the blade's original luster (light grey). Wear is pretty obvious, but if you don't know about artificial weathering, maybe watch a video on it (even though most artificial weather applies to real life objects, the technique can be applied to 3D).

Another thing Overgrowth specific: Take advantage of the fact that you can use multiple objects on a weapon. This requires some UV planning while you're building the model but it can really help define some nice detail work. Overgrowth themselves use multiple objects in their designs. It helps create nice normal maps and repeated details that give an item character.

Personal thoughts:
It could use a fuller or some stylization (engraving, even a 'tip' like endoperez gave it actually), to anthropomorphise the weapon. You have the grip with some nice detail, but sadly the grip is covered by the hand for the most part (for the first sword I had ever done I also put too much emphasis on the grip). I feel though like you've done stuff in the past with better results for both modelling and texturing. The only other thing that I can think of is that the blade is really 'dull'. I mean even if it stayed as thick as it is, it should probably come to a wedge more rapidly.

My attempt:

[+] StabbyStabby

Seriously though. Steve Argyle. Watch that sh!t it's amazing and I envy his talent. In fact I have his entire collection in a folder for inspiration. Hope this was helpful...

[samjb1992]

thank you both for the feed back. this is why I posted this sword even though I was not completely done with it, feed back like this helps a tone

[samjb1992]

endo what do you think of the changes so far?

pics:

[Endoperez]

Nice!

First, you were able to do the changes to this very quickly, it used to be that it'd take you a few days to do something like this.

Second, the shape is better, the edge is clearly separated from the rest of the blade. The same is true for the texture. The edges between the different materials aren't sometimes logical - for example, it the light part in the blade represents the sharpened area, who would it extend all the way to the handguard like that? That is likely caused by the shape of your UV unwrap.

Third, the weapon isn't shiny in Overgrowth. That's relatively easy to add to it, the problem might be in specularity values (easy) or in normal map (rather technical, but still not too hard).

Finally... it could be a lot more detailed. Details are the difference between an "ok" work, and something that makes people go "AWESOME!". It took me a long time to understand how to do details properly, and in fact I don't think I'm very good with them yet. It will take several tries to get the hang of it, and you always learn with every new model, so spending too much time trying to perfect one or two specific things will end up holding you back. I mean, I've only released a handful of models for OG in what, 6 years?

[akazi]

Way better then before.

[samjb1992]

endo, i have two questions,

1. i forget how specularity works for different parts of a weapon in go, meaning how do I add more spec to the blade but not to the handle as much?

2. for detail wise what direction would you take? like a pattern or something on the blade or engraving to the handle?

[samjb1992]

endo, i also wanted to thank you for all your advice on all the projects i have done for OG, I would not have improved so much in this time spans without advice like yours.

I also have to say that now that I use student version of 3D-Coat modeling and UV-Unwraping has become much easier.

[Endoperez]

endo, i have two questions,

1. i forget how specularity works for different parts of a weapon in go, meaning how do I add more spec to the blade but not to the handle as much?

2. for detail wise what direction would you take? like a pattern or something on the blade or engraving to the handle?

1) Specularity map is usually a black-and-white image where white is 1.0 or super reflective, and black is 0.0 or not reflective at all. This is read using the UV map just like any other texture. Metal is usually quite shiny. Wood, leather etc. have very little shine, so they're quite dark spec map, often very near to black.

Overgrowth reads spec map from the alpha channel of the diffuse texture. Alpha channel is normally used for transparency. It's best to make the spec map separately, and then combine it with the diffuse. I don't know what you have, but in Photoshop and Gimp (at least) you can copy the black-and-white specularity map, then open the "Channels" panel (showing Red, Green, Blue and Alpha channels) where you can just paste the spec map into the correct slot.


2) I'm not good with details. Look at painters, designers, concept artists and see what they do. Corpsey could probably give you more help there. Have you checked Steve Argyle yet? Or ever heard of Feng Zhu? Or just looked at images on art galleries, museums, or deviantart, tumblr? Look at real swords and real things, and how people decorate those.

It is hard. Coming up with a good design is hard work and requires lots of practice. You can keep at it and try out different things or look at something that already exists, and use that as a reference. Even if you don't add any engravings or decorations, it's a good idea to look at something that shows you how different materials would look like. For example:

[+] sword

http://art-of-swords.tumblr.com/post/91 ... 00-culture

Also, 3D Coat? Cool. I haven't used it myself, but I understand it's great for unwrapping, texturing and retopo.

[samjb1992]

endo, how does the shine of the sharp part of the blade look?

pic:

[Endoperez]

It's better. You can put in some details to the specularity map. For example, scrathes affect shine, edges might be shinier, etc.

However, more important than that is the fact that the overall look more resembles stone than metal right now. I'm not quite sure why. I suggest looking at the textures of the ready-made Overgrowth weapons, and seeing how they do metal colors, sharp edges, and specularity map.

[samjb1992]

I suggest looking at the textures of the ready-made Overgrowth weapons, and seeing how they do metal colors, sharp edges, and specularity map.

i have tried to look at them but when i open them the alpha layer is fused to it so everything is a shadowy blue or brown color. any ideas why that is happening?

[Corpsey]

Try to think of a couple things:

The era it comes from (Provided a link to human eras, but it could be any era of any universe)
The tribe it comes from (tribe/group of people, aka humans, lizardmen, comic book superhero, overgrowth species etc)
How it's going to be used (War specific, Converted for war, War and domestic, Domestic specific, Hunting, Hunting and war, Ceremony, etc)
How new is it? (Brand new, used in battle, 1000 years old and has been sitting under dirt, etc)

Then think of how these can change the appearance of the object.
Era? Well this one is kind of obvious, depending on the era will depend on what it's made of and how much material and how strong of a compound that material ends up having.
Tribe? Could hint at what inscriptions or symbols appear on it. Especially language but also things like symbols of pride and honor, and manufacture insignias (OG has a manufacturer insignia on the dog's broad sword )
How it's going to be used? Are you planning on going to your hut and chopping carrots with your sword, or will it only be used in battle? Things like this can change, for example, how it's sheathed.
How new is it? I use this question to specifically determine how shiny and dirty an object is.

The last thing is just 'What history does it have?' where you could trace it's origins back to the atoms that created it to the miner that collected it, to the blacksmith that processed and refined the ore into it, to the wielder that commissioned it to be built, to the person he gifted it to, to the champion that killed him and took it for his own. Etc.

It may sound in depth but if you give something a really simple backstory, you'll find that it's a lot easier to decide what gets placed on it. For example, a wealthy kingdom may have a really happy educated blacksmith that decides he's going to adorn it with an engraving. Whereas a poor kingdom may have had really poor tools to fashion anything beyond something very utilitarian and efficient (like a spear or a dagger) with very rough grooved tool marks everywhere.

If you're trying to fit something into OG*, I'd say look at what they've done for their weapons so far... they're kind of early medieval / really late bronze age / with their own twist of having really 'beefy' blades and sometimes quite organic shapes and textures. Almost cartoonish.

*Although because these are mods they don't necessarily have to fit into the OG universe... like I made a claymore mod and I'm pretty sure that the tribes of overgrowth wouldn't have had the exact same ideas as 15th century Scottish Celt's.

So really to that end it all really depends on where you want the sword to originate.

To your most recent question: What program are you editing images with? I may be able to provide a video tutorial.

[Endoperez]

Disable alpha /transp. to see diffuse colors. Separate alpha, or show transport. Channel some way, to see secularity.