Evilsbane - Fable Blades Master Sword no .1

ImsumDave

Started working on this about a week ago.


Design by Brendan Olszowy and Jefferey J Robinson
Reference images / Real Sword

I'll be posting updates as I go. Tell me where I can improve and point out if you see something blatantly wrong. Same old song and dance.

The aim for this is a mod for Syrim and rendering in Toolbag 2 with PBR textures.

LASTEST UPDATE:
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ImsumDave

some HP wires

ImsumDave

first bake / low poly test


low poly wireframe

snoop

This looks great, It's a nice take on the master sword. I know you got the design from that other website but they did a good job of somewhat redesigning it too, and you'e done a great job so far executing the actual modeling of it.

ImsumDave

Thanks snoop.

I'm having some issues with the bake, which can best be described as gradient banding. Here's a shot from marmoset of the issue.


I'm exporting the high and low poly from 3ds max as obj. The bake is from xNormal v3.18.3 with a resolution of 8192x2048.

billymcguffin

This is an inherent problem with 8 bit per channel images. You can try baking to a .tiff in xNormal, which uses 16 bit, then setting it to 8 bit mode in Photoshop and saving out as tga or whatever. This will use dithering to improve the smoothness of the gradients, but it also introduces noise into the normal map so if it's supposed to be a very smooth object that might not work so good. Generally the noise is easier to hide when you do your textures than banding, especially on somewhat damaged objects.

You can also try playing with your smoothing groups so there's less extreme of a gradient in the normals.

DireWolf

I actually quite like that vertical pattern.

ImsumDave

@DireWolf Yes, it does look interesting up close, although, at the distance it will be viewed that detail probably won't be noticeable. I'm mainly concerned with the more random distortion and banding.
Some sword blades do have subtle lines on that are a result of polishing.

@billymcguffin Thanks for the tip. I tried baking as a tiff and converting to 8-bit tga. It does help with banding and introduce noise, as you said. There is still a bit of noticeable banding around the top and bottom of the fuller. I might rework the low poly to conform more to the high poly's shape.

tiff to tga normal map

EarthQuake

You can also load the 16bit normal map in to TB2 directly, just be sure to save as PSD as 16 bit tiffs are not supported (they will only load as 8bit).

ImsumDave

Good to know for the future. I tried loading the tiff normal map in and it didn't work.

I'm focusing on getting this thing into Skyrim, Toolbag 2 and PBR textures are secondary. I usually use 8-bit uncompressed normal maps in Skyrim, dds format. As is, they are large so 16-bit maps would be absurdly large. I will stick with 8-bit maps and try to mask it as best I can with detailing and wear.

ImsumDave

First Skyrim test with base materials

billymcguffin

Are you using an ENB mod in that screenshot, or is that just vanilla skyrim?

ImsumDave

It's vanilla. Two different instances of Skyrim using two different ENB presets can look very different. I texture and define materials using vanilla shading and post-processing to hopefully maintain good aesthetics with most visual enhancing mods.

I will be releasing this as a mod when all's done.

ImsumDave

Started adding details to the normal map


Almost everything was done by overlaying normal maps in photoshop. I had to use some baking magic to get the corrugation-looking detail correct.

ImsumDave

textures and materials for Skyrim are bascially done


started tweaking textures for PBR in Toolbag 2

Monophobe

This is looking great so far but I think there's room to push it further mainly on the grip and the scabbard.

Have a close look at the difference of your leather materials and the ones in the reference photos, there's a lot more texture to the surfaces. Also look at how the gold details on the scabbard have a heavy recess around them and then bump back out but are still part of the same piece (zoom in on the Hylian crest for example), whereas yours come across as thin and almost stuck on separately.

The blade and other metal areas look really cool though I'd consider giving the pommel some tarnishing which you can see in the final reference image.

Keep it up, awesome stuff

ImsumDave

Thanks for the feedback. I'll keep it in mind.

Tobbo

This is looking really nice!

ImsumDave

Thanks Tobbo.

Here is a small update on the PBR stuff


I took Monophobe's advice and added more surface texture to the leather bits. I've made a few small changes to the metals.

At the moment, I'm using specular instead of metalness. Given that UE4 uses metalness, I think it might be the way to go when doing PBR materials. I might make the switch before I finish this thing.

Monophobe

Awesome work

The scabbard looks a lot better now and way closer to the reference images - always great to see people responding well and acting on feedback.

If you're adding this to your portfolio I'd suggest making some new renders without the huge light glares as it distracts from your work. Guessing you're using TB2 for renders which I don't have but I'm sure there must be some nicer HDR skies that will work well.

ImsumDave

Thanks, again. The sheath does look much better.

Since my last update I've switched from specular to metalness. I'm also trying to match the color variation of the bronze from the reference.

I am using TB2, however, I'd like to get it into UE4.

ImsumDave

4 months later...

I'm calling this done. I switched to metalness and made a few small changes to the materials.

I don't currently have a portfolio, however, is this render portfolio worthy? 3D is just a hobby, at least at the moment. Hence the lack of a portfolio.

EDIT: As for the Skyrim mod, I have something loaded and ready to fire, but it's not completely ready. I'm undecided whether I will finish it or not.

killnpc

looks great

ZacD

I think a portfolio presentation would need some more detailed shots/angles.

ImsumDave

A few more shots with different lighting and angles.

ImsumDave

Uploaded Evilsbane to Sketchfab. Check it out.
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