Warhammer Sword

[DaveSilver]

So I found this really cool concept for a sword from Warhammer Online and thought it would be fun to make. I've spent a couple hours on it so far and have the modelling done but will likely redo some parts to either clean them up or lower the polycount.

You'll notice I made some adjustments. I added extra teeth to the creature skull and changed the sides of some of the red metal shards. My goal was to make the other side of the model slightly more interesting because based on this image it would not have very much going on.

Currently I am at 1935 Tris which is not bad but is a little high considering the original concept was for an MMO. I might do a new one entirely as a low-poly version but am unsure of what polycount I should be aiming for. I have heard that the polycount for character models in WoW is around 800 Tris and thus the weapons are probably at most in the 200 - 300 range but I feel like that is inaccurate. Does anyone have any knowledge in this area that they might be able to help me?

Anyway, tell me what you think, and have a great day.

http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/8246/swordsofar.png (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/257/swordsofar.png/)

[ZacD]

Wow was released in 2004, 7 years ago, you might want to bump up those specs for the current generation, but 200-400 sounds about right.

[DaveSilver]

I realize that WoW is way old at this point but it was the only statistic I had so I thought I would put it out there. Likely I am going to try and bring it down to 1500 before I start UVing.

[joe gracey]

I think you should model the horn on the skull. It would help balance out the sword.

[DaveSilver]

Wow Joe, I totally meant to but forgot, thank you for reminding me to do that. You are a lifesaver.

[DaveSilver]

I am now officially done UVing and it only took me about a day and a half after I finished up cutting down on Polycount and adding the finishing touches to the model so I'm pretty happy. The Model is still 1720 Tris but I spent a lot of time on optimization and am pretty happy with it as is. If anyone sees any major places I can cut down please point them out but I'm pretty sure I've covered all the biggies.

Anyway, here is the most recent version, I hope you like it.

http://i.imgur.com/6ZLrR.png

[Alex3d]

Hey, looking good! If you are going to use normal maps, you can cut down on polys in the rhino head. All those teeth could easily be mapped.

[DaveSilver]

So you think I could use the textures on the sword with a normal map for the teeth?

That's an interesting idea and would definitely save me a lot of texture space.

[cholden]

That's no sword. It's a choppa! Good for killin stuff.

[dang87]

Cool concept, should be pretty cool once textures get on it.