[DS2] Axe, Mary Safro

marysafro

I wanted to join the Polycount community for a long time, and thought this contest would be a good opportunity.

I'm going with the Crow temple theme. Didn't know what weapon to pick though. I think my final design is a mix of an axe and a mace XD Hopefully the axe category is appropriate for it. Any crits would be greatly appreciated, as I don't have much experience with weapon designs.
sketches:

design i went with in the end:


I'll post my modelling progress shots in the next couple of days. It might be a good idea to follow the Vigil artist's workflow, so I'm going to model it as cleanly and detailed as I can before throwing it into Zbrush.

ENODMI

This is seriously awesome! I think the top detail should be repeated in the base somehow. Its such a strong design, and going from it to the bottom is quite jarring. You could bring some of the same colors and values down there or maybe bring some of the details from the top
maybe like this? just an idea

marysafro

ENODMI wrote: »

This is seriously awesome! I think the top detail should be repeated in the base somehow. Its such a strong design, and going from it to the bottom is quite jarring. You could bring some of the same colors and values down there or maybe bring some of the details from the top
maybe like this? just an idea

Thanks for the overpaint, this is a great idea actually! Originally i wanted to make it look a bit like a crow's foot, but I think Darksider's weapons tend to be more decorative. Should definitely rework the pommel design.

Pixeldemon

Great silhouette and colors! Agree that a chunkier looking base would be good.

randomind

yay more crow stuff!
i would trie to get an other material inbetween the crow skulls, that could give it a more interesting contrast in color.

marysafro

..Long time no post. Anyway, thanks for the suggestions, guys Here's my basemesh I'll use for sculpting. Usually I make an in-game mesh straight away, but this time I followed the livestream tutorial and made a detail mesh to work from. Retopologising produces better normal maps anyway.
Oh, and I redid that concept too, but I'll have to post it when I get back home from uni

marysafro

Work in progress on the sculpt.

marysafro

Eh, I'll consider it finished, i guess, unless anyone has any crits There isn't much time left so I'll get to retopologising asap.

zelldweller

I was working in a crow temple axe too. I think your's is far over mine. Very nice and above all original silhouette and its nicely decorated, all the details in a good scale. Not too simple, not overelaborated. The sculpt is well-finished. Everything is going by the book.

Tonight I'll bow down and worship you instead of the gods of metal to whom I normally address my prayers.
(KIDDING, but I'll be watching you)

zelldweller

So to answer your question, yeah, I think its time you start your retopo and make a weapon worthy of the GODS OF DEATH!!!!!! It's downhill from now on.

marysafro

Thanks, zelldweller
I've been working on retopology for the last couple of days. I've been struggling keeping my axe within the budget, and even after all the reductions it's still over 2,500..which is ridiculous Arghhh.
A very first test bake, still with all the artifacts and mess. I'll work on reducing polycount further...

Pixeldemon

Looks great! I initially chose a very high-poly silhouette too; I did have to make a lot of compromises to get into the ~1500 triangle range. I'm just hoping I can get the normal maps to carry the detail I wanted.

zelldweller

Keep the part of the beaks and anihilate all those polys in the central part, like around the jewel. you kept too much polys there. The silhouete you have to hold is the front one, forget about keeping all the bumps outside that border.
Look at this. I got this model at 1700 polys but started cutting from 2500 because I had tried to hold the form on the spikes at the top, all the eyes holes in the skulls, etc. In the end I changed it for something that its almost flat. and you couldn't see the diference if you didn't examine it very close.

marysafro

Zelldweller, thanks for the advice. Your weapon looks awesome
I've cut some more geometry and got my tricount to 1984..still way too much, but I had no time to tweak this any further. From tomorrow I'll have to work on my uni projects, so I'll submit what I've done for now, even if it's over the limit and generally wrong I've learned a great deal from looking at other peoples workflows, thanks Polycount!

XRevan23

it looks good, great job

Habboi

If you can get it down to 1800 I'd say you'd be fine. I say this because a few entries so far have exceeded 1500 and the highest is 1800.