3D Sword

I'm working on a project over the summer to keep my skills from getting rusty while I'm on vacation from college. I'm going into a game and art post-grad program, so my project involves making something in 3D. For my first project this summer I chose something simple, a sword. Here is my concept art for it:


I'll be posting more pictures as I go on, showing my progress from start to finish. So if you're interested in 3D stuff, you may want to keep an eye on this thread.

Hey Dynamo!

I have this absolute, boundless love for katanas, so I definitely will be keeping an eye on this thread!
I like the picture you've got right now, but just a few little comments:

The tip of the blade goes up a bit too suddenly; if you look at a real blade, it tapers off much more smoothly.

For the tsuba/hilts: are you planning to have two different swords with differing tsuba, or have the two together?
I like the design on both, my only problem here is that either the tsuba is really, really small radius-wise, or that the space you've left for the sword to pass through is too big.

I also have to say that I absolutely love that you've shown the hamon/temper line. It's one of my favorite details on katana (and proof that it's a properly made one Xd)

Great work, I'll be watching out for more!

Thanks for the critiques.

I agree with everything you said, and I would fix it if this picture was the project itself. But the only reason why I drew it in the first place was to have a sort of blueprint I could work off of for the 3D model. Any problems you see in the picture will be gone when I do the 3D model.

As for the tsuba, as you call them, (I just call them handle guards) I'm leaning more toward the black one. I simply put both of them there, along with their respected colour schemes split on either side of the handle area, so I could see how each of them worked. But as it is, I'll most likely be doing the black one.

The temper line was actually quite simple. All I did was add a pattern overlay effect onto the layer in photoshop, chose which pattern looked the best, then played around with the scale and opacity until I was happy with it. It's amazing how much you can do in photoshop with just the basic tools, let alone all the advanced stuff.

Thanks again.

Here's the start of the 3D portion:



By the way, the boxy area at the far end of the blade is where the handle is going to cover. I figured there's really no point in making it as detailed as the rest of the blade if you're not even going to see it.

I don't know why the right side of the picture is getting cut off, it's not doing that to my concept picture.

Good start, i can't wait to see the finished results.

I am a massive fan of swords and this one reminds me of the bankai state of ichigo zurumaki's Zangestu. (It's out of the anime bleach by the way)

This is looking really good, keep up the 3D word. Make sure to get the gold on the sword to look like gold and not just YELLOW

Hey Dynamo, I'm not really into 3D modeling and all that, but me and my brother used to do this together, so I might have a few ideas...actually, ideas that brought about questions.
Is this model going into a game? If so, then I would suggest you make it low-poly. Too many surfaces can slow down the game, but you knew that, right?
If it's not for a game, then is it just a showpiece that'll you'll render and save? If so, then what sort of lighting will you use?
Also, completely unrelated question, but what program do you use? 3D Max?

I'm sorry, this isn't so much a review as a bunch of questions, but I was hoping the questions might start you thinking about things you might not have thought of before. I'd love to see the hilt!

PS: in the original picture, you showed the hilt with a fancy yellow-black thingy with what looked like ribbons. If you're doing this for a game, then make the hilt low-poly and bake the texture on.

Excellent questions, Jenthura. I'm definitely going to be working in the video game field, so I know how important low polys are in regards to the engine. However, this piece is going to be a showcase item for my demo reel that I'll send out to companies to try and get them to hire me, so I want to make it look as good as I can.

I haven't decided on the lighting yet, simply because I think it's a little too early in the game to be thinking about that. If I was making a set, then yeah I'd figure out the composition, lighting, camera angles, etc. before I even start modelling. This is just one object I'm modelling, so I can put it in any position I want when setting up the lighting. To tell you the truth, lighting isn't one of my strong points when it comes to 3D modelling, so I'm planning on experimenting a lot before settling on something to render.

I'm using 3Ds Max, by the way. From what my college proffesors tell me, you can do so much more with Max than you can with Maya, although Maya is said to be more user friendly. I'll have to check out the other program and try to learn how to use it, though. In all likelyhood, it's probably going to end up being the one I have to use when I finally get hired.

Interesting fact, any one of these programs can cost thousands of dollars to purchase, and that's only for a one-year subscription. I got mine for free through a college grant thanks to my ADHD.

By the way, I'm going with a black hilt and the black handle guard design, as you will see in the following pictures. There's not going to be any gold on it. What you see in the concept art is merely a comparisson between the two designs.

Anyway, on to the pictures!




My next task is to unwrap the sword for texturing. When that's done I'm going to save it as an obj. file and export it into a program called Mudbox. This program lets me make normal maps by painted the textures I want right onto the object. I'll assume most of you don't know what a normal map is. How do I explain it... A normal map is a texture that you apply to an object that makes it appear to have three dimensional textures by affecting the light that bounces off of it. In reality, the textures are still 2D. If you were to look at them at a certain angle you will see that the surface is still flat. Most designers use this to make objects look appealling, while at the same time keeping their polys low for game engine processing.

Here's something fun to try out. For those of you who own Elder Scrolls Oblivion, Fallout 3, or any other high-graphic game, go find a surface with a lot of detail on it, like the stone walls in Oblivion or the piles of rubble in Fallout 3. Place yourself so your eyesight is parallel with the surface you want to look at. You'll see that it's actually flat, and it's how the light bounces off of the textures that makes it look 3D in the first place. Very little geometry actually goes into these things, it's the texture the designers slap on top that makes them jump out at you.

I just recently I came to terms with the fact that I'm addicted to video games, so that's why I have been putting this off for so many weeks. Hopefully I'll be able to cut back on the video games and spend more time doing constructive things, if my will power stays strong.

Due to unforeseen circumstances, (I had to mow 2 lawns today) I wasn't able to work on this as long as I had hoped. But, I did manage to unwrap everything and get started on the texturing. For those of you who don't know, unwrapping is when you take a 3D object, and basically take all its surfaces and flatten them out onto a 2D plane, which you can then save out as a .jpg and draw over in photoshop. When you're done with photoshop, you save it as another file, preferably another .jpg since they take very little memory space, then apply it to the 3D object as a texture. This process is called texturing, and is probably more time consuming than actually building the 3D object itself, in my opinion anyway.

Anyway, I finished the normal map for the metal piece at the butt of the handle. I used a program called Mudbox to do it.

Mudbox:


3Ds Max (the modelling program I'm using to make the sword):


For those of you who are interested, remember what I said about normal maps in my last post? Well, here's a visual example of what I was talking about:


As you can see, if you look at it straight on it looks 3D, but if you look at it from the side it's actually flat. Normal maps don't affect the actual geometry of an object, instead they affect how the light bounces off it to give it the illusion of being 3D. Normal maps are used in almost everything, simply because they take less processing power to render than if you created the actual geometry of the object itself. Neat trick, eh?

So cool! I don't know a thing about 3D, but this is awesome looking.

I can't wait to see the finished product. I wonder, though, will you do anything with it when it's done? Put it in a picture? Make it into a wallpaper? I'm curious.

Great job!

-Dreamy115

Well, I have to make it look good since it's going into my demo reel, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. I'm probably just going to do something simple though, like putting it on a rotating pedistle and make a quicktime movie of it spinning around so you can see all sides.

Is there a common name for this 'normal map' thing? Because I just call it 'baking' a texture on. at least, that's what I used to call it.
You were doing as a showpiece, so why bother with Mudbox at all? Why not make it has high-poly and a high-quality and as good-looking as you can? After all, you intend to show it around to get hired, right? XD
Lol, I remember some sword I worked on that was just a simple sprite, invisible when you weren't looking at it from a right angle.

EDIT: If you're doing a movie, don't just do a rotation! Pan over the sword at different angles and zoom sizes...and don't forget some cool music, that'll get you hired, Cha-ching!

I'm using normal maps for several reasons. 1: I'm going to be working in video games so I need to practice with it since I'm going to be using it a lot. 2: It'll reduce processing speed and make putting on the other textures easier. 3: It's much easier and takes less time than if I did it in 3Ds Max.

But thanks for your opinions.

(P.S. Nice sig by the way. I used to watch Ask a ninja, too. It was so funny.)

I love the details.I think it is a great 3D project.

Awesome! I am fond of drawing swords especially katanas (even I can't really draw that nice). Well, what software are you using in making your 3D sword? Is it very easy to make one? Or you really have the skill in order to have a 3D sword? Ok, I see. Just leave me a message. I will try to make one. Hehehehe.

Anyways, the texture is nice. Not so rough and not so "slidy". One thing is for sure, IT IS AWESOME>