This is another one of my ongoing projects next to the goblet for the Skyrim-Morrowind Project and I was just posting it up for some crit. and suggestions along with a bit of help. I just wanted you to take a look at the spikes and tell me what you think about them in general and their placement. Also the handle is only half finished so don’t even worry about that. On the top of the ball I am thinking about adding a cylinder to act as a base or ring and then mounting a spike that is twice or three times the length of the other spikes to give the mace a more original feeling. Then texturing is another thing altogether. I want to give the ball a rigid design like texture and then just regular metal textures for just about everything else.
I’m posting a render pic now and a .blend file for all of you curious peoples to play around with and tell me what the noobie is doing wrong. Enjoy.
Is it important to have four sided spikes? Otherwise it would be quite easy to select vertices evenly spaced over an icosphere and just scale them out.
You are completely right, then I could just seperate them to add the two seperate textures that I am going to use. You are a great man and I’m a retard for not thinking of something so simple. Any other ideas to make the mace vary a bit more and make it original?
Ok…
Bump maps - greyscale images that store height value. I think lighter was higher, not sure.
Normal maps - RGB images that store information about the angle.
Both, when applied, create an illusion of geometry. Widely used, esp. in video games (along with paralax mapping, however that has its own issues, play F.E.A.R to get a glimpse of it). http://feeblemind.tuxfamily.org/dotclear/index.php/2005/08/23/43-tutorial-blender-and-normal-maps
Here is a tutorial that I’ve found quite useful. I’m making my normal maps this way and so far there have been little to no issues
You might want to add specular and other maps in order to make it look worn out though
For example, if you map some rust to it, and make the material reflective, you might want to map the reflection/specularity so that the rust is less reflective/stuff like that… Good luck
So much to do. Especially with finishing my other projects. But this tutorial will also help me make a near perfect map for the ice for the goblets. I would really prefer to doing that then just downloading them and what not. thanks a lot for the tut. I really hope it helps.
You may also want to have a look at the nodes tutorials - they are really good for bump mapping and the such. There is a rather long drawn method, but in the long term once you get the hang of it, you will save countless hours.
Great mesh by the way, my method is keep on board the texturing side of this prior to modelling anything.
Yeah, I can really get into nodes. I just need to find a way to update my drivers after finding out which ones are really affecting blender so I can see the lines that connect the nodes so I’m not just cutting randomly and guessing ;).
Maybe you could look into how maces were actually produced in former times to give you a clue on how to make your model a bit more interesting. As far as I see, the ball that holds the spikes was built out of two half-spheres that were put together. That way the spikes could be mounted from the inside of those half spheres. In effect that means that you see a seam in the sphere. Also the spikes would probably (at least for an ancient mace) not sit perfectly on the ball and they would have beveled edges, because they are not sharp as knifes - they are more about crushing than about cutting. Another interesting area to model would be where the club meets the ball. Again there would maybe not be a perfect match (so not simply a cylinder that is put inside a uv-sphere.
After googling pictures of maces I found that sometimes the craftsmen put ornaments on the balls, this could be achieved by normal-maps.
Hope my comments are of any help to you, I’m fairly new to the 3D world, so take it with a pinch of salt,
Sloane
I really like your suggestions and I never thought of it that way. Among with the tons of other things I have to do I will fit in reading about the process of making maces which will definately help my mace turn out to be a lot more interesting and prettier to the eye than it is now. I’m still waiting to go full blown into the mace project right now though because I am still dealing with some texturing issues with my goblet seeing as I am still pretty new to blender and what not. :0
Thank you for your comment and your help man. I really do appreciate it.
