Pomegranate Dagger
polycounter lvl 6
Hey guys, a week or two back I completed a dagger, just re-rendered it and thought I'd share it here. Tried to get it as close as possible to the reference, some highlights and shadows might be off but if the render and ref are positioned side-by-side and you have to think which is real, (even for a second), I'd take that as mission accomplished.
The dagger is highly decorated and is of Indian and Ottoman origins--it was captured by the Russians in 1828 at Varna during the Greek War of Independence. The pistol grip style hilt is Mughal with the stone set in an Ottoman style. The hilt and scabbard mount are made out of jade, the flowers are represented with rubies and the leaves with emeralds.
First time using subsurface scattering and all the refraction options in Marmoset so it was a fun experience.
The main beauty renders have a mid-poly model which comes in at around 200,000 verts/380,000 tris with 3 4K texture sets. Also have a low poly/game ready model with 1 texture set and is around 5,800 verts/11,000 tris.
You can find the references along with more info on the dagger here: http://runjeetsingh.com/inventory/71/bejewelled_dagger
Reference:
Almost all the renders are vertical so instead of flooding the entire page I'll just leave an Artstation link with all the renders: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/1nkVnK Or I can post them in a spoiler section--do spoiler tags work here?
Feedback/critique would be highly appreciated.
The dagger is highly decorated and is of Indian and Ottoman origins--it was captured by the Russians in 1828 at Varna during the Greek War of Independence. The pistol grip style hilt is Mughal with the stone set in an Ottoman style. The hilt and scabbard mount are made out of jade, the flowers are represented with rubies and the leaves with emeralds.
First time using subsurface scattering and all the refraction options in Marmoset so it was a fun experience.
The main beauty renders have a mid-poly model which comes in at around 200,000 verts/380,000 tris with 3 4K texture sets. Also have a low poly/game ready model with 1 texture set and is around 5,800 verts/11,000 tris.
You can find the references along with more info on the dagger here: http://runjeetsingh.com/inventory/71/bejewelled_dagger
Reference:
Almost all the renders are vertical so instead of flooding the entire page I'll just leave an Artstation link with all the renders: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/1nkVnK Or I can post them in a spoiler section--do spoiler tags work here?
Feedback/critique would be highly appreciated.
Replies
My workflow is pretty standard--Blender for modeling, sculpting, and unwrapping, Substance Painter for texturing, and Marmoset Toolbag for rendering and baking.
As for tips...
It was my first time making gems and before I had started texturing I was wondering how would it work out. I thought about having internal geometry to get that depth and deep "galaxy" look but dropped that idea. Painting on strands and other cracks on the diffuse along with Marmosets refraction options gave a good result.
I tend to rebuild the lighting for every camera angle. For this I used the default Smashed Windows sky. Balancing out the light and dark really gives the object depth and makes it more dynamic. In the Post Effects there are options to apply a color to the contrast, hue, etc., these are great. You get different looks and can experiment very quickly.
In Blender to get the gold leafs to really hug the hilt I used the Shrinkwrap modifier and then Solidify to extrude it along the normal. Gems were hand placed--that was just hard labor.