[DS2] Hammer, Impala88

Impala88

Hey guys, so i got more of my thesis done and decided i'd give a hammer a go.

[LATEST UPDATE]

Final






Here's the basic mesh base before zbrush:



And this is where i am so far:



I'm going to be adding some big skulls to the side and back of the hammer head, and possibly/probably the pommel. It'll either be core or KotD styling. The detail on the handle section is an attempt at gothic metal work.

AimBiZ

Some nice details you got going on there but I think the tiny ones on the handle might not come across well in 512 resolution, so you'd probably wanna make those bigger.

Habboi

So much for no more weapons My heart sank at first cause I thought it was a mace. Anyway the bottom suggests "Maker" so do I win anything?

Obviously make the hammer head connect to the handle a bit better.

Impala88

@AimBiZ Yeah i'm likely going to have to either take it off, bump it up or, see if i can up it a bit in photoshop if it comes out okish in the first bake.

@Habboi I had actually thought of doing a makers hammer at first, but then i always like more biological styles rather than all hard and flat, especially in zbrush.

Cheers though

here's the latest update:


still trying to keep it as a hammer, since now that i've given the hammer head a skull appearance, it could possibly be mistaken for a mace. But we'll see how things go.

Daven

this is pretty much what you've accomplished




On the "hammer" end, I think it might benefit more if you make the maxilla of the skill larger. This thing definitely has some presence, but I'm still trying to see where the ornate details are going to fit in. They look awesome, but I'm just worried about their relevance.

Impala88

Haha! thanks man.

Yeah, i've been messing around a bit with the main skull and pumping up the maxilla has made a difference. Also pushed out the frontal bone and the chin slightly.

The twiddly fancy bits i'm also still unsure about. I started off with a different idea in mind, and then i just went crazy with the skull, which then went onto the other skulls, and now they don't really fit all that well with the original swirly stuff.

Will post an update in a short while.

Impala88

Here's the latest update. removed the squiggly bits on the handle completely and replaced it with a more suitable roughed up column seen in a few other current DS weapons.

OriginLinear

That bit above the skull in the angle furthest to the left, looks like a zipper tab. Other than that I think this looks awesome.

fabian roldan

This is going to be one bad ass hammer The details on the handle looked nice, i liked them but didn`t fit the darksiders style, it was a good choice to redesign that part, you just still need to fix that in other areas too, like the details at the bottom of the skull or the forhead. Remember, the key word to follow is: chunky. Another thing that i would look at is the skulls at the sides, i`m havig trouble telling if this is a hammer or a maze, in the 2/4 and front views mostly.

Mathew O

suburbbum wrote: »

this is pretty much what you've accomplished

That's exactly what I was thinking! :P

Looks great Impala

Impala88

Always laugh at that pic, the humor just never gets old

Every update i keep pushing the skull out a bit and squashing the face slightly to give it more of a hammer feel as i too think it's merging on a mace/hammer hybrid

I've removed the zipper bit, my brother also pointed that out and given it a new matcap just to highlight the edges more.



About the swirly bits on the skulls, i kind of like them. Without them there, it'd leave it kind of bland. But then again, having a nice fade between varying colours and shades across a rounded surface also looks nice. I'll see how it looks

Daven

The handle looks much more managable now, but I think your symbols and shapes need some work. Instead of explaining it with boring words, I drew some stuff to help you out :]

Mathew O

I love it, the Pommel looks very giger-esk. What a beautiful matcap :O Do want.

Impala88

brilliant! can't believe i didn't think of doing that, was looking at the runes picture from vigil yesterday too ><. BRB!

Impala88

Download link is here for the matcap:

http://download.pixologic01.com/download.php?f=/library/matcap/erklaerbar/ok_ice_furnace.zip

It is indeed an awesome mat.

Impala88

spikey swirlies! Thanks Sub.

Impala88

hmm, i'm thinking the ones on the back are now too jagged, spiked edges, but not enough curves anymore. Will go back to it.

edit: above pic updated.

Stinkhorse

They look pretty good, but they could stand to be a bit thicker, or have some smaller ones around a larger sigil.

Daven

Those circles are bugging me too. I don't know, they just don't seem like they fit at all. Too much geometric symmetry and not enough flow, ya know?

Stinkhorse

Suburbbum is right, the circles aren't fitting. Maybe some larger/fewer rivets could take their place? Also the rings where the half meet the heads could be replaced with some larger sigils, or even some edge glows once you start texturing.

Impala88

Tbh i actually like the circles and bits on it. It makes it look like a cerimonial fantasy/gothic hammer that's been taken over by the undead.

I'm actually thinking about having the large skull be a sort of brazened gold colour along with brass and bronze for the other metal parts, with blackened wood and some slight slivery sections, and then the remaining skulls will be bone colour, with the possibility of glowing eyes or something similar. I may leave the glow off completely for this one.

However, i have flattened the ends of the rivets to give them a more hammered appearance.

Impala88

Big update:

Made the Low poly and to my suprise the bake came out better than i expected.



There are still some artifacts going on in places and a couple of seams i havn't been able to hide yet. But should be able to get onto the diffuse soon, either tonight or tomorrow maybe.

Stinkhorse

It's coming out solid!

jeebs

this looks really awesome !! one of my favorite for sure

Shmaba

Awesome sculpting. All of the skulls are of similar size and the front end gets lost because of that. I think if you just made the front skull a little larger or even extend the chin it'll stand out as the front more. As it is now the overall shape of its silhouette is sort of just blobby imo.

Impala88

hammer skull head is now a bit bigger couldn't make it much bigger though as it'll be too big for the bounding box, already gone out of it a bit already.

Impala88

oh also something i forgot to ask, is there a way in zbrush to bake the materials onto a pre-made UV layout on a lowpoly mesh from the HD mesh? i.e. using zbrush similar to render to texture/xnormal?

Impala88

spent a few hours messing with some textures. I've got an emissive for it too, but i think it takes too much away from the model. Eyes are too big to have suitable glows. Will try and see what it looks like with a glow coming out from behind the skulls.



edit: removed red screen hue.

Habboi

Heh you and your glows. It's fine without it

Actually this is a nice colour choice but I swear this would be Angelic if not for the skulls. You know your first weapon, the axe? You had a green version early on and I liked those colours, maybe try those out? Just a suggestion.

By the way you have way too much time When I was doing my thesis I had a hard time doing anything else.

AlanSMitchell

holy crap amazing work.

BoBo_the_seal

Looking good! I think the handle needs something to break it up a bit. Some wraps would be nice. Not a lot but a few.

Also, I'd tone down the bloom for your final. Be sure to let the art shine through!

again this is looking great!

- BoBo

Impala88

thanks guys! yeah i've also been thinking about the handle, the overall look is good but it's missing some smaller details.

Also, Bobo, the colours on it atm are really nice and fit together well with the feel of the weapon as Habboi also says, but are they suitable for kingdom of the dead? i've been looking at different colour styles but nothing seems to suit the actual weapon as well as these.

Also thinking of upping the saturation a bit too. Although that could just be marmoset's render settings, ill take a look tonight.

Habboi

I find Marmoset tends to make stuff desaturated unless you really tweak it. Just keep messing with the sliders and you'll get it right. In the end I think you can get away with those colours because it looks like it came from a kingdom and the evil skulls give it an undead vibe.

Impala88

quickly modified it in photoshop, can't really do much else with it at work.

Just by upping the saturation by 20 and the hue by -15 it's looking miles better (pardon the silly vignette background mess now)

bloom still needs taking down though.

looking at the skull on the backside of the hammer on the furthest right mesh, the green/blue tint from the light actually gives it a nice contrast which otherwise wouldn't be there, so i might mess around with adding a tinge of that colour to the diffuse.

SouthpawSid

looks great. Love all the gold in the spec. Grats on a wonderful piece. Will be a strong competitor for all the hammers for sure xD

How strict are we supposed to adhere to the 1500 tri count? If it's not biggie, I may go ahead and add a few more tris to my hammer to better define the silhouette, even if it means breaking that 1500 mark.

Impala88

Cheers man. I take it colour spec's are usable? totally forgot to check but i saw other artists using them so i hope they are

Yeah im not too sure on that either. If it is a strict 1500 limit then my axe is waaaay over. managed to bring it down to 1752 recently though from 1939 lol.

Habboi

Yep we can use colour specs and submit them. It's not too strict but you can exceed it by say...200 at most I believe. Mine was at 2900 and was told that was far too much.

Impala88

Ah nice one thanks Habboi.

AimBiZ

Looking good! Those skulls came out great. Not that fond over the strong spec though. Judging from the weapon presentations at the rules page the look of it should be a bit to the matte side, but I could be a bit wrong on that.

Habboi

should be a bit to the matte side, but I could be a bit wrong on that.

Yeah that's a little confusing since in-game screenshots show weapons have a decent amount of spec. Also the rules and Bobo said we can use spec and those pics look like they were taken in flat mode.

BoBo_the_seal

Colors are good and the polycount isn't too bad.

Impala88

cool thanks Bobo

Here's me messing with some glows:

I've also adjusted the spec aswell as the colour on the diffuse. All of the colour tones are from the diffuse, Marmoset is now set to equal RGB levels for it's hue/sat/contrast adjust.

Impala88

oh forgot to mention, i'm working on some wrapping for the handle, just not had much time to do it yet while sorting out the maps.

Stinkhorse

I think the blue glow works best in this case.

Impala88

Yeah im thinking the same. Nice contrast.

I've lowered the saturation on the gold diffuse, keeping the spec the same, so i can get a more burnished gold look, rather than a really saturated orange look

Here's a test with ti on the character, rendered in marmoset.

Impala88

still a bit of a seam, behind the big skulls jaw, should be a quick fix on the diffuse and spec maps.

Stinkhorse

Hot damn, that thing looks like it would hit like a truck. Nice work Impala88.

devileater

you details are not enough

devileater

and the pure blue light seems very strange.

Di$array

look great mate. Really great!

Glad to see you are going with the blue glow, but it's a shame about the seam.

Impala88

this is pretty much finished now, except for some wrappings on the handle which i'm still working on when i get the time. I've gone with the red glow instead of the blue sinply because the blue kind of broke the style of the weapon apart, didn't really look that evil anymore.

Also spent tonight re-mapping the skulls and sorting out the textures to use up more uv space (mirroring the sides over instead of texturing 2 whole skulls). So i've gotten a few more pixels out of it.

Also altered the bolts on the skulls and around the top, updated the normals to give them a better feel, flat wasn't doing it so i've gone back to pointy/rounded tops.