Engraved Silver Sword - Looking for Critique

Borx25

This is a sword i'm making for a skyrim mod. Used 3dsmax, zbrush, photoshop and Quixel Suite (DDO basically)
Design is based on Dark Souls: Original Design

Highpoly:



Lowpoly with normal map and the 3 variants (dagger, sword and greatsword):


Textured:




And the first test with the in-game shader (with cubemap and without gloss map)


Self-critique:
- the perpendicular blade damage thing is too intense in the normal map atm.
- the black straps need to change.

Any critique is appreciated, thanks in advance.

3dReaper

That looks Nito.

Very nice sword, looks spot on.

Tobbo

It's looking nice. I really like the ornamental engraving. The only issue I have is with the grip. Is there a reason it is wooden? I could maybe understand a polished wooden finish, but the texture looks like it is splintered with cracks. Yet there is no bump or indication of any kind of displacement.

The dirt splattered on the grip I don't quite understand either. If you do decide to keep the dirt it should have different values than the wood and be reflected in your spec/gloss maps.

As is, it looks like you just slapped a texture on the grip. There's also a noticeable seam running up the grip due to the texture not being seamless there.

I do like the overall design and idea behind this sword! I would just like to see it be taken further!

Borx25

Thanks a lot, i'll work more on the grip.

Maxilator

Its hard to see the sharpened bit, the ground part of the blade seem to go all the way to the edge, I would recommend making it like a clear white line around the edge. Its pretty hard to describe but if you look at this picture i thing you will get what I mean.



As you can see the wear and tear that has accumulated on the blade is still there on most of it but right by the edge the wear has been sharpened away.

Borx25

Nice reference, thanks.