Warhammer AXE - First 3dMax Model

slipsius

Ok, so If any of you have wandered over to the technical forums, You'd see I started to learn 3d Max. We use Maya in school, and ive been using it for 2 years now, so this was a bit of a challenge. But, im starting to get the hang of it. And, well, im liking it WAY more than maya for modelling.

Anyways, heres my first high poly weapon i did in max. I think i was working on it for probably close to 8 hours (i know, LONG time, but I was learning max as i went, watching tutorials, getting help from poly counters, etc). My next step is to do a low poly model and learn the art of baking.

Here is the reference i used. A concept for an axe for the white lion in Warhammer online. A game I use to play ALOT.

http://www.mmolecule.com/ektimages/game/war/WAR_HE_Axe01.jpg



Any C&C would be extremely welcomed. (and im not sure why im getting the pixel effect. Ill have to work on that

Mark Dygert

wow that's pretty good for a first time around in max, you did that pretty fast too. Just goes to show, talent translates. Not sure how the wires look or if its prepped for Zbrush or not but I think you could get some awesome details added to it before heading off to start a diffuse.

slipsius

Small Update.....

after alot of struggles, i finally got this zBrushed and back into max. I had issues with it because in order to get the smooth lines i wanted on the blade, i needed to D it up ALOT, but then when i brought it back into max, it was too much and froze. so, instead of brining the entire thing into zBrush, i only brought the blade. since the rest looks fine and doesnt need more divisions anyways. on that note, is there a way to give more memory to max like you can in zBrush?

Anyways, im fairly happy with the lines. took a couple tries, but i did it. next up, finish the low poly and learn how to bake. I have the eat3d pillar tutorial for that. so hopefully it goes alright!

comments?

MoP

For those lines in the blade, surely it would be much easier to use a spline and a sweep modifier, or something like that, instead of ZBrushing it? They're regular smooth shapes, not organic arbitrary shapes, so it'd probably be much cleaner and more tweakable to do it in Max.

Looks good though.

If you were having memory problems you could use Decimation Master in ZBrush and drop down the polycount on the objects since most of it is flat anyway.

slipsius

I actually dont know what the sweep modifier does. Still learning all the mods, this being my first model in max, so i figured id do it in zBrush. stick to what i know.

But now im curious about the sweep mod.. lol im going to check that out for sure now. thanks for the tip MoP.

Any other tips you got for me before i start my bake?

slipsius

Ok, so after some struggles of learning to bake, this is what i got. Some troubled spots for sure. some random lines which i have no idea why they are there, because the high poly is completely flat in the areas. and you can see the lines of the low poly shaft in the bake. That being said, first attempt at baking anything, so this is all a learning experience for me. First time unwrapping in Max as well, and i find it MUCH better than maya. though, Ill admit ive never been the best at unwrapping anyways. Still trying to improve on that

slipsius

Small update. played around with a few things. smoothed some normals, which got rid of the low poly lines on the top and bottom cones. And i made sure the low poly fully encased the high poly, which got rid of the random lines here and there.

Oniram

to be quite honest it was not really necessary to take that into zbrush. with shapes as simple as that you couldve easily gone into photoshop, painted those lines, then created a normal from that using either crazybump or the nvidia normal map filter.

or you couldve even just not done a normal map at all. on a weapon like that, its just bump and spec that will really give it good looks. i tend to do my normals last when working on anything except a character. now you're forced to create your texture around the normals, instead of the other way around. its better with something like this to texture it first, then do your normals if you know that you wont be retopologizing it.

slipsius

Thanks for the tip about the lines it the blade. that would definitely make things easier and faster. but if you`re baking a high poly into a low poly, but texture it first, wont it be hard to match up colours to the different baked pieces? or would you still bake it first, disregard the normal and use the AO for reference while texturing, and THEN get a normal from crazy bump? Im trying to get a good work flow going, so any help is appreciated.

Oniram

here is my workflow

Model and unwrap mesh > bake AO > paint diffuse and bump and specular > use BUMP info for new AO > create normals based off of my bump/diffuse. apply normals, discard bump.