PBR Katana

TheAxiom

Okay so I'm pretty new to modelling and I wanted to experiment with high to low baking and PBR material workflows.
I'm passionate about Japanese culture so I thought a simple katana would be good practice.

Here is what I have so far. This is the unfinished high poly in Marmoset without any texturing or unwrapping.



Let me know what you think so far. More screenshots to come. Thanks.
Criticism welcome.

skyline5gtr

Looks pretty good, but Katana's will have much more character to them. Specifically the guard and the bottom cap that you should try to model into the HP

fatihG_

Is there some rule that says every katana needs to be decorated?

Anyway, I think the katana looks fine, for practice.
If you are planning on making something for your portfolio it would probably better to model a higher detailed katana.

TheAxiom

Okay good idea! Thanks for the advice!
I'm planning on doing as much as I can in nDo when it comes to that kind of detail.
That way it's easy for me to bake the colour maps out to dDo or make the masks myself.

gsokol

Looks like a katana to me.

Question...should the handle be metal? I would have thought it might be wood or something, but it looks like its the same material as the blade.

More personality could be cool, like skyline5gtr suggested, just depends on how visible those details actually end up being in the long run.

TheAxiom

gsokol wrote: »

Looks like a katana to me.

Question...should the handle be metal? I would have thought it might be wood or something, but it looks like its the same material as the blade.

More personality could be cool, like skyline5gtr suggested, just depends on how visible those details actually end up being in the long run.

Thanks I haven't textured it yet so don't worry about the current materials. This is only a basic high poly base so I'm adding the detail now. I'll post screenshots tomorrow. (:

Meloncov

bb0x wrote: »

Is there some rule that says every katana needs to be decorated?

Katanas were status symbols as much as weapons, so they did almost always have at least some ornamentation.

mazerius1st

bb0x wrote: »

Is there some rule that says every katana needs to be decorated?

Anyway, I think the katana looks fine, for practice.
If you are planning on making something for your portfolio it would probably better to model a higher detailed katana.

No there is no such rule. Historically the most decorated Katanas were either family heirlooms that were never used in battle or ceremonial swords.

The Katanas used in battle had only their Tsuba decorated and that not always.

TheAxiom

It doesn't matter weather or not they were always highly decorated, I'm creating a piece of art and I should push myself to the limit and make it as aesthetically pleasing and complex as I can.

I'm just sorting out the low geometry.

TheAxiom

I've added some more detail to the high poly, but most of it I can add in nDo afterwards. I want to make it as detailed as possible.



EDIT:

theStoff

If you're going for ornate I'd probably add more engravings in the hilt model ad not just in the texture. (unless if nDo allows you to combine normal maps at which point the result would be the same). Regardless, maybe you could try bringing it in a sculpting software to add some more complex patterns.

Fingus

nDo does indeed allow you to combine normal maps. In many cases I just use nDo for details that would be much harder to model in. Most of the time it will result in a cleaner normal map too since you won't have all the extra geo that can effect the shading.