Stylized Pirate Sword (PBR)
polycounter lvl 12
I've been trying out making some stylized models lately (mostly a few handpainted weapons that I never posted as they just weren't up to snuff IMO). Anyways I figured I'd try making a stylized asset utilizing sculpts and PBR as that is closer to what I usually do (somewhat realistic weaponry and vehicles).
So I decided to base the model on a concept by the ever so popular Artyom Vlaskin and here is my progress so far:
The polycount lies at 3855 tris (for each sword) and it's using a set of 512*1024 textures. The render is from Toolbag 2.
I've still got a bunch of stuff to do like adding more grunge and wear but overall I'm liking where it's going. So far I've mostly worked on the blade but the other parts will get some love soon as well. I'll probably end up resculpting the skulls teeth to be more pronounced as the texture resolution wasn't quite high enough to capture details that small.
I haven't done much stylized work before so any critique and comments regarding that would be appreciated (any and all other critique would of course also be appreciated).
I look forward to hear what you think!
So I decided to base the model on a concept by the ever so popular Artyom Vlaskin and here is my progress so far:
The polycount lies at 3855 tris (for each sword) and it's using a set of 512*1024 textures. The render is from Toolbag 2.
I've still got a bunch of stuff to do like adding more grunge and wear but overall I'm liking where it's going. So far I've mostly worked on the blade but the other parts will get some love soon as well. I'll probably end up resculpting the skulls teeth to be more pronounced as the texture resolution wasn't quite high enough to capture details that small.
I haven't done much stylized work before so any critique and comments regarding that would be appreciated (any and all other critique would of course also be appreciated).
I look forward to hear what you think!
Replies
Changes since last time:
- Added more wear and dirt
- Improved material definition and detail (I added some subtle photo detail overlays)
- Improved the blood a bit
- And some other small improvements not worth mentioning here
To do:
- Rebake the maps as I found a few baking problems (and the skulls mouth was too subtle)
- Make the blood spread consistently to the other UV islands of the blade.
- Improve the blood with smaller clots/bubbles and other detailing and potentially improving the overall shape.
Some feedback on this piece would be great as I, again, haven't made a lot of stylized models before.
Changes:
- Remade the blood and everything about it
- Fixed a few baking problems (like the skulls mouth)
- Tweaked the materials a little
- Finished up most of the stuff I still had left
I am pretty satisfied with how the model looks right now and unsure what to do to improve it further so some feedback on that front would be awesome and very much appreciated. Failing that I'll just call the model done and move on.
- The spec (or reflectivity or whatever in PBR) on the model looks the same everywhere. The blood looks the same as the metal that looks the same as the gold (?) handle. Try and define the materials some more.
- I think that unless this sword was thrust threw the gut of an opponent, the blood would not cover the entire front of the sword. This looks like more of a cleaving type weapon IMO
- Aside from the blood the sword is too clean. Do a grunge pass and dirty it up a little. Change the look of the metal from one place to another.
It looks really good, just needs a few tweaks I think.
Yeah, you're right, I should probably tone down some of the blood on the backside of the sword. I wanted it to look like it could have been used used for maybe dismembering a characters head or arm so there wouldn't be as much blood on those sides.
Adding a lot more grunge would be great idea. I did make a dirt layer already but I realize now that it's way too small and subtle. So tomorrow I'll try to add a lot more bigger grunge to it which will hopefully help to break up some of the flat faces on the sword. I'll try to add some dried blood in some of the crevices close to the wet blood as well. Thanks a lot! I'm confident that I'll make the model really shine tomorrow when I implement your feedback.
If you want to make it look ugly, im sure thats the way to go : P
Alpha masks for those holes?
Look at what his intentions are. There is no strict mobile limitation or something, and for a third person model with that complex hilt thats totally in budget.
Why strip away and make the model look simply worse, just to reduce a simple counter in numbers, something that in this case is only written letters on a piece of paper somewhere, and only if he decides to write them.
Yeah, I think you're right. I'll just skip adding the dried blood as it would indeed flake right off.
I've got to agree with Shrike. I am making the model with PBR in mind so it would most likely not be used in a mobile/low fidelity game to begin with. Besides this model is just for my portfolio so I think it's more important that I make it as beautiful as I possibly can. The blade is also very thick so alpha mapping the holes was never an option in my mind, though I do see that it could have been a logical choice for a much thinner, more realistically proportioned sword.
That said there are a few optimizations that could be done while barely removing any details saving about 500 triangles. I did find most of that geometry in the basket. So it looks like I'll end up rebaking this again.
I am curious though, where do you think the blade needs more smoothing? I modeled this thing but can barely find any of the edges myself.
Thanks a lot for the feedback, everyone! It helps me out a lot.