[WIP] Fisherman's Dagger

bhenderson

Hello, I am aiming to model this concept in 3D, this thread is to track my process and also to revive feedback to improve on things as well as work through a standard game ready pipeline!
This is the concept I am working from created by Becca Hallstedt: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/8lZGdn

Any and all critiques and feedback welcome and appreciated!

bhenderson

I currently have the block out done.
Not sure how to approach this area, I am having troubles interpreting it in 3D. Once the green plane dipps behind the blue how thick would it be or what would be the angle. I feel as if what I have is too thin and could not realistically hold up in battle.

bhenderson

After messing around with different angles, I was able to get the shape looking nice enough to call the block out done.

Now on to getting this into Zbrush to sculpt on!

PolyHertz

You wont improve your modeling skills by using ZBrush as a crutch. Try actually finishing the model in a modeling program if improving your modeling skills is the goal.

bhenderson

PolyHertz said:

You wont improve your modeling skills by using ZBrush as a crutch. Try actually finishing the model in a modeling program if improving your modeling skills is the goal.

I may have phrased it incorrectly but I am aiming to follow a game ready pipeline and go from concept to rendered in engine model, I am trying to integrate zbrush into my pipeline and go from block out > low poly > high poly > texture > engine. 
Again I apologize if what I stated was wrong.

Cglewis

thats awesome, but there is still work to do on your low poly before you are ready to kick it over to zbrush
you are missing alot of forms like the growths on the dagger, cloth and rope as well as the dangling tooth.
Really take a look at the piece and get that low poly looking good before moving to the HP

bhenderson

Cglewis said:

thats awesome, but there is still work to do on your low poly before you are ready to kick it over to zbrush
you are missing alot of forms like the growths on the dagger, cloth and rope as well as the dangling tooth.
Really take a look at the piece and get that low poly looking good before moving to the HP

Awesome I will be sure to tackle those today! Thanks for pointing it out! I would love more feedback as I progress through this if you are around.

Ashervisalis

That chip in the blade, I would have suggested leaving that out until later in the pipeline, and either sculpted it in or used boolean. If you use the sub-d method, you'd get really great curves, and you wouldn't need to put in as many edges as you have right now. Right now, your curves look quite jagged, and using sub-d, the curves would flow beautifully. I'm not sure how well this is going to divide in ZBrush. You also need an indent in the metal where the jewel is inserted. Right now you've just got a sphere stuck right in there. It's not all one mesh, is it? For the handle thickness, search the net for specifics on how thick and wide a knife handle should be. I look forward to seeing the finished model!

bhenderson

Ashervisalis said:

That chip in the blade, I would have suggested leaving that out until later in the pipeline, and either sculpted it in or used boolean. If you use the sub-d method, you'd get really great curves, and you wouldn't need to put in as many edges as you have right now. Right now, your curves look quite jagged, and using sub-d, the curves would flow beautifully. I'm not sure how well this is going to divide in ZBrush. You also need an indent in the metal where the jewel is inserted. Right now you've just got a sphere stuck right in there. It's not all one mesh, is it? For the handle thickness, search the net for specifics on how thick and wide a knife handle should be. I look forward to seeing the finished model!

As for modeling it in sub-d. How would you recommend going about that and modeling in sub-d would I still be able to follow through a game ready pipeline? I have an indent where the jewel is, it's just not as noticeable so I will try to make it stand out more.

Ashervisalis

Yes, you can use sub-d for a game ready pipeline. Do you know how to do sub-d modeling? In Maya, you can press 3 to preview a smoothed model, and then 1 to return to the regular model which isn't smoothed. You can bevel edges (with 2 segments) in order to hold a hard edge. When you are absolutely sure you've got the shape you want, you can either smooth in your modeling program, or bring into ZBrush and smooth from there. Explaining sub-d modeling in a post on here would take... a while. It might be best to look up a tutorial on YouTube or something.

I did a mock up example of your blade. Left is the un-smoothed version, with very minimal effort and edge loops needed. It took about 3 minutes to get this result. Then, all I did was press 3, or preview smooth, in order to get the result on the right.

I don't know if my explanation is bad or not, so if you need clarification, just ask, and I'll write some more on the topic. I'd suggest watching some vids on Sub-D modeling though.

bhenderson

Ashervisalis said:

Yes, you can use sub-d for a game ready pipeline. Do you know how to do sub-d modeling? In Maya, you can press 3 to preview a smoothed model, and then 1 to return to the regular model which isn't smoothed. You can bevel edges (with 2 segments) in order to hold a hard edge. When you are absolutely sure you've got the shape you want, you can either smooth in your modeling program, or bring into ZBrush and smooth from there. Explaining sub-d modeling in a post on here would take... a while. It might be best to look up a tutorial on YouTube or something.

I did a mock up example of your blade. Left is the un-smoothed version, with very minimal effort and edge loops needed. It took about 3 minutes to get this result. Then, all I did was press 3, or preview smooth, in order to get the result on the right.

I don't know if my explanation is bad or not, so if you need clarification, just ask, and I'll write some more on the topic. I'd suggest watching some vids on Sub-D modeling though.

This was a major help and I have modified my blade! Thank you!

bhenderson

So I am back with Updates!
I created a pure ref board with some reference for things, It was really hard finding images of blades with cloth wrapped around the handle like the main concept, but I wasn't spending too much time looking for that specific thing. I did find images of blade handles and how wide they are which has helped!


I am taking a different approach to the blade now with some help and recommendations from @Ashervisalis thank you again. I know I could loose some edge loops along the upper part of the blade and I don't have to match the curve perfectly but I think I can spare a few loops in this case. I have the handle hidden but I am going to try a few different approaches to it and see where it takes me! Then get the rest blocked out! 

Ashervisalis

So the circular part where you've made the indent; if you're going to sub divide, or smooth, later down the road, use 8 divisions on circular parts (you've used 10 here). It makes it easier to work with the low topology, and divides nicely. I'd also suggest throwing in an edge loop between the gem indent, and the creased part of the blade. See where your crease edges are warped? I've marked it with a red arrow. You don't want that where you have a crease. If you put an extra edge loop in between here, this crease would hold nicer. You should also have another edge loop on the other side of the gem indent (my blue line), and not be terminating your edges from the indent on the very back of the blade. Don't be afraid of edge loops right now, this is your high poly. You want to get it looking as amazing as possible before you start worrying about the poly count of your low poly model.

You might want to sub-d model the indented part of the blade, and not do that in ZBrush, as I'm not sure that will work out very well. Keep it up!!!

bhenderson

@Ashervisalis Thank you a ton for the help and recommendations I think I have a good base to work from now and I have everything else modeled as well!

Now I am going to try and do some Zbrush work unless anyone has any feedback I would love to know if there is anything I am missing or should work on? The part where the handle is uneven with the blade will be fixed since it seems this is all one object in the concept but I will play with making it one object and having it separate as real blade would be and see which has the better result 

Ashervisalis

Looks cool man You might not need to worry about the connection of the handle to the blade. When you throw the cloth on top, it'll hide the fact its not connected.

bhenderson

I am running into issue when baking my mesh inside of Substance painter. I don't know if I am doing something wrong inside of Maya or what exact process I need to be doing going from Maya > Zbrush > Painter > Unreal. Any help, feedback, tutorials to reference, anything would be helpful! I can never get good bakes and that has always been pretty annoying :<

bhenderson

I am back with more updates! I figured out my baking issues apparently when I was adding detail in Zbrush my model became off centered so I had to move things around on my low and high poly. Now I am going to get the high poly of the other pieces done!

bhenderson

Working on some of the barnacles and not liking what I have so far. They are not representing what I want as far as look goes. Any help on how I may go about getting these to look a little closer to the actual thing as far as shape and readability goes? Here is my sculpt in Maya and then my reference Images. I was aiming for the two bigger pictures at the bottom but I feel as if I would get a better read if I made them similar to the biggest picture? Any feedback. I know I should carve in the center more to reflect the image on the left but I am not sure how good of a bake I would get on that or how I would go about doing retopo and still holding a lot of detail. Any help or feedback would be great!