Mjölnir, The Hammer Of Thor

SohaibTGame

Greeting Artists,
This is my model of the hammer of Thor.



Before going for further detailing, I wanted to see how it would look under textures, so I made a diffuse and rendered.


I know it turned out ugly, that's why I came to Polycount.
How can I achieve this level of realism

I'm feeling like it's all about shading, I can enhance my texture, but I don't believe it's gonna make a difference.

Any critiques, feedback, advice would be really appreciated.

Have a nice Day/Night/Afternoon of whatever it is in your region.

Thank you for you time

stevston89

Personally I don't think the image you are aiming for look realistic at all. It's just a bunch of tiled photo textures. You should be looking at stuff like this:




Also you should be getting good reference of the movie prop and really study and make sure your proportions are spot on. Here a few ref images:







Besides that look at some tutorials for hard surface modeling. Also find texturing tutorials. To really sell these things you need a good grasp on material definition. Look in to normal map/ baking workflows as well if this is to be a game ready asset. Hope this helps.

SohaibTGame

Thank you, the first one just looks AWESOME!!!

I know the reference I provided isn't "so realistic" because I didn't set an unreachable goal due to my lack of experience and knowledge.

If you can suggest an eBook about materials and textures, I'm really interested.

Thanks again

stevston89

This tutorial series is pretty good. It covers most of the bases.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVpXK76N2mM"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVpXK76N2mM[/ame]

Some good stuff in here as wellhttp://www.philipk.net/tutorials/materials/materials.html. Other than that it is mostly trial and error and a lot of observation.

Narh

You said you only applies the diffuse? Try making a Specular map (Reflection, gloss, shineyness)And a occlusion map (Adds Ambient Lighting/shadows). That will really bump the looks of thing a bit. Right now its extremely flat.

Maybe a Bump/normal map for the designs on the edges.

If you use 3dsm, I know you can assign different materials (metal, plastic, glass, mirror, ect) to parts of the model, and that will give it a "base" look the the material that was assigned.

SohaibTGame

Hello everyone,

Due to my tight schedule, the work is moving slowly.
This is what I've done so far, improved diffuse, a normal map, and a quick spec map just to see how it would look.
Original maps are 2048*2048
Diffuse

Simple NM just for the details on the sides of the hammer, gonna go for further detail that's sure



Spec


And a quick render in max(mental ray, default settings)

JedTheKrampus

It looks more like stone than like metal.

Trevor

I dont know much about the hammer of thor so I dont know if you are going for the stone or metal look. The hammer head reads like concrete. If you are going for metal then you seem to be putting to much on your diffuse. For metal I would suggest a dark diffuse with light detail and put your time into the specular. Since the hammer is worn then you could go a little further with your diffuse then light details and really push the specular but thats just my opinion.

Xendance

Agreed with above.
Darker diffuse + stronger spec + environment map = more metal look.

SohaibTGame

New Spec




Your critics?

dazzerfong

Zoom out so we could see the entire hammer, and tone down the spec map: you're washing out a lot of the detail. If toning down the spec map makes the hammer look less metallic, tone down diffuse too. Make the diffuse a bit less grungy and dirty, and instead shove more details into the specular map.

Right now, the hammer looks generic and boring. The edges are of special concern: look at the pictures above, and see how the edge has more wear and tear. That really sells the look.

The second big thing are the use of images for textures: some is fine, too much ruins the look. Work in layers of images, and make sure none of them are too obvious/cover up too much space. Remember, however, that the diffuse should only barely look like metal by itself: it's the specular that does the heavy lifting.

SohaibTGame

3DSMax is giving me the feeling that it's not even considering my specular when rendering.
do you know a decent software that I can use to preview my 3D models with their maps? that would be appreciated.

JedTheKrampus

Here you go

Luka

use marmoset. spec should be pretty even, except maybe for some scratches, and blood and dirt

redhonour

Looks like a nice start! You got the little design thingy on the side pretty accurate.

Generally, there's a lot of room for improvement. Do you have any sculpting applications available to you, like Mudbox or Zbrush? That might help you bake a better normal map since it doesn't seem to be doing a whole lot atm

Let's see your handle too! We can't help you improve what we can't see :]