STC#19 - July 6 - July 13 - Claymore (Sword)

[susia]

Behold the gay golden blade of frost (again) a non-entry (it took about 3h to make)



Yeah... it is really unoriginal and it kinda sucks. Well... my main idea was to do something really cheesy fantasy style sword... I wanted to push this model really far and I tried to experiment with alpha mapping the blade for starters. Hmm... the good part is that I learned alot what _not_ to do when texturing.

[Baida]

According to you that suck, according to me it doesn't

I really like your blade, did you paint all those ornements and then create a normal map from them or just use some brushes already done !?

That's very nice otherwise !

[LRS3d]

After the other great entries, mine is going to be the working mans sword!

I am here to learn better texturing skills. my game engine does not support specular maps, but it does support normal mapping. So I am keen to learn how to do them.

thanks for the links to crazy bump, I will give it a try and have a second go if I get time.

[LRS3d]

Susia
even tho a "non entry" thanks for posting, it gives us noobs (this one at least) some good ideas.

I didnt think to put a raised texture on the nobs at the end of the blade guard.

I thought maybe on the cross part, but thats as far as I got!

My historical reference for this kind of blade has it fairly plain, and that what I went with.

[wvanh]

Susia, while I'm not a giant fan of the extreme fantasy style weapons I do kinda like the exaggeratedness of your design. Howeer, considering the blade of the sword is not just a plane isn't adding transparency to it asking for backface culling issues? (I assume it is, as your renders of the blade are both top down). Also I think the general lack of variation in the metal areas takes away a lot of the accent from the elaborate patterns. Perhaps some different colors in the "gold" parts or some more stains or signs of use would really bring the whole thing to life more. Anyways, I guess I'm just rambling. My apologies.

I'm not sure whether critique in competition threads is really appropriate, if not I'll be happy to edit this post. Let me know.

[susia]

Thanks for the encouraging posts... I have a severe inferiority complex so I'm always overcritical of my work. It really bugs me and in the long run I rarely get anything done, because I don't feel my work is good enough.

All normal maps are done via the outdated Nvidia plugin. Crazybump is really good for organic bumpage... but technical stuff works with Nvidia really well. I could write a small tutorial if anyone is interested how I did it... It is really basic stuff, but maybe someone could learn some valuable information from it.

wvanh: Thanks for the critique. I don't like "high" style fantasy either. I'm mostly into utilitarian realistic designs. It does need some color variation and I can see that some orange hues in the golden parts would really look nice. It has quite a lot of normal map noise already since I wanted to make it grungy looking chaotic sword of some sort.

About the culling issues: I experimented with the alpha masks before I went with the design. It has some culling issues but they are so minor that you can see them only really really close.

[DrLenny]

First off I gather some textures that I was going use. The metal was base up some bang up metal along with some hand painted base metal that blending together. Parts of the metal with some different coloring and gave a subtle design embed into into it. I then gather some leather texture for the handle and tried to make it look like it was hand made onto it. I then preceded off to add some detail onto the blade itself by adding scratches and some rough edges etc.. and also some on the handle part. I then apply a AO map not sure if it was really needed. I then went and made a specular map and since I do not have crazybump anymore (haven't bought it yet) I went and made it in photoshop which wasn't hard. Since I don't have crazybump, I didn't really have much time to fiddle with the nvidia normal map thing and plus it didn't look good.

Overall I'm happy. I was trying to make the sword look like its been worn out and been use quite a bit. If I have some time I might do another one. Maybe something a little different. Not sure.

[funkdelic]

SUsia: your texture work is such an inspiration for me, that you coundlt even imagine! please dont be so harsh with yourself! You´re a pretty good artist and a reference for us all!

[Marlen]

Originally Posted by susia

Behold the gay golden blade of frost (again) a non-entry

What am I missing? why is this a 'non-entry'???
This would be one of my top 3 if only for being different from all the others!!

[susia]

Marlen: It can't count as an entry since it took well over 2h to make. I forgot to mention it... I'll update my post.

funkdelic: Thanks for the nice words. I Just checked out your portfolio. Inspirational work!

Nice entries everyone.