Kilij

[Retro-Cow]

I've taken a break from gun modeling and have started a HL2 mod. Here is a Kilij, a Turkish scimitar.

758 Triangles

[retardedmonkey]

Looks good, but I have some questions..hehe. on the pointed part of the blade, there is an edge that goes to another edge...and creates an n-gon while there is an unconnected edge right next to it. Hopefully you will look at the picture and notice it, instead of relying to heavily on my poor explanation. If you dont see it tho, I can circle it fer ya. But just weld that so you dont have that ngon...cuz it doesnt have to be there

Also...just a thought but wouldnt it be smarter to reduce that little end piece on the handle and add the polys gained to smoothing the blade more? Because it seems more polys were spent on the handle, which is covered by the hand, then on the blade which will be seen.

Other then that Its lookin sweet, get it textured now

[Retro-Cow]

Is it gone? If not I will probably need you to circle it lol.

[Retro-Cow]

OK so i ran into some problems.
This was my first attempts at normal mapping. I followed the Easy Spec & Normals tutorial here:
http://www.game-artist.net/forums/showthread.php?t=189
I kind of guessed on how to apply the texture in 3DS Max. (If someone could tell me the correct way that would be nice)

Here is the model with 2 Omni Lights. I don't know if the Normals and stuff are working or not.


Here is the model with a skylight.


I am pretty sure thats not supposed to happen. Can someone describe to me a little bit more about Normal maps and what i did wrong?

[retardedmonkey]

Yeah its gone...the point I was talking about. I still feel like more detail should be in the blade....but thats up to you.

Could you post the normal and maybe a screen grab of your cage...cuz I still struggle with the cage, so maybe you're having the same problems I was having.

[Retro-Cow]

Didn't do anything with normals in 3DS Max. I only did the Bump maps and stuff in Photoshop.

[retardedmonkey]

There is really no detail at all to the normal map...when I use the photoshop plug in I usually try to make a firm diffuse map before I go onto working on the normal map. Then I can use the layers from that to piece together the normal map, and then go into adding more details into the normal map...such as grooves. Oh yeah can you display the textured blade in your viewport and then give us a screengrab?

The only thing is with this blade, its supposed to be shiny right?

Maybe you dont even really need to have any sort of normal mapping on the blade...hmm...maybe someone else can help me out on how to do that...

Weigh my advice carefully because I am still a noob in this area...just have a few normal mapped models in my pocket. So hopefully someone with more experience can step in and school us all

[Talon]

If you're making the normal map in Photoshop, I'd agree with retardedmonkey and make the diffuse first. Then you'll know where to add detail and possibly recycle parts of the diffuse.

[Retro-Cow]

Here is the screen of the viewport with no lights in the scene.
I did do a diffuse. I followed the tut exactly EXCEPT for the multiple layers, and the tut didn't specify how to apply the textures so i just guessed.

[decs]

Well if its a normal map you might want to add it as Normal Bump -> Bitmap under bump and not just Bitmap.