Well well, you didn't expect me to miss this grand opportunity

Truth is I have a personal project that means a lot to me but never did I expect something like this to pop up on Polycount. You have to be mad not to at least have a go. So I'm putting it on hold while I make an attempt at this compo.

To start things simple I've gone for the easiest design for the moment. Basically I'll see how things progress as I lack skills in both Zbrush and hand painting so this will be amusing to say the least.

Here goes:

01/03/2012

Rock is probably the hardest thing for me to make at the moment so I'm conquering my demons (and angels) by making a rock based weapon. The concept below consists of a handle made in 3DS Max and the rest is painted in Photoshop.







02/03/2012

Not much progress today. I'm going to take my time with this so that I'm not overloaded with ideas. I made a minor change today and that's the grooves at the top. I first opened them up again and tried to make a hollow section that's crossed but after finishing it I noticed the middle section would be great with some sort of fire, like a lantern but since we can't do that I went for a crystal instead. Perhaps it can be a refined crystal or something. Regardless I may need to use more colours than just the green. Maybe purple

I also made a quick head and decided that my overall idea steered more towards a mace than a hammer so I'm changing it. I guess my next task is to sort out the edgeloops for the hollow section, mess around with the idea of a central crystal, make a proper rock and make a few unique crystal spikes. After that I'll probably take it into Zbrush and just damage it up. Then I'll experiment with using the projection tools to create a skull on the upper section. Since I've hardly used ZBrush this should be fun.



03/03/2012



05/03/2012



07/03/2012

• Remade the chains to fit in with the "Maker" theme based on images found online.
• Changed the crystals to reflect original idea.
• Remade face to look better although I'm struggling to keep within the Maker theme as so little is explained about it.
• Shrunk upper section so mace head fit within green proxy area.

Overall I'm ready to start damaging it up and adding runes. Any feedback before I begin?

13/03/2012






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Finished on the 20th March 2012. - I went back and edited it slightly and I think it looks a whole lot better now. Check out the Mace Submission thread to see the final result.

Bumping because I prefer to edit my main post

I have one question, I went with a square handle because my main inspiration for this weapon is the stone hammer in the Maker ref. It looks like they went for a square handle also but the wrapping gives it a sense of roundness. Should I stick to a square handle or make it round?

Stick with square, it's more consistent with your overall design.

keep it up.

A square can be an original bet pal, but I think that a square handle could be an annoyance to the user because it makes the weapon difficult to handle. That's why we can find too much round handle weapons when we do a search for cold steel weaponry (in fact, I did not take much time searching for a square handle weapon). Summarizing, a round handle weapon could be better in terms of usability during a combat but I have to say that your weapon design is original and can be more functional with cloth on the handle. I could use it to smash some demons or angels (mainly).

Square it is. Thanks guys.

Maybe you could wrap metal bindings around the ore or put something similar to the handle on top of it to make the ore look less pasted on. I'd say wrap leather/cloth around the square handle that's currently there so it will fit in with the style and be more functional.

This is what I think of every time I read your name. What is the story behind your avatar?

Maybe you could wrap metal bindings around the ore

For a while I wasn't sure what you meant so I put it on hold while I concentrated on the handle. Eventually I experimented with shapes and without realising it I followed your advice of adding metal to the ore. I was always planning to wrap cloth around the handle but I assumed I was going to sculpt it in. I realise now I have more control in Max as I know it far better than Zbrush. Regardless when the concept (and yes, this whole process so far is one big concept since I can't draw) is finished I'll take it into Zbrush where I'll learn as I do it.

Anyway I've added a new picture above with two ideas and my thoughts, I'd appreciate peoples thoughts on this.

P.S. Yes my name came from there but it's a long story and not really meant for this thread. I'm stunned you took the time to make that picture.

I think the snake supports that connect the handle and the ore are too thin. It looks like they would break off really easily.

The face isn't looking too great. Since you have a snake coming out, why not exaggerate the mouth more? Or even just make it ONLY a mouth?

Yes I believe you're right about the face. The great thing about it is I can easily remove and replace with anything I want. I think that now I have something to work with I can start to really sort out the style more.

As for the snakes I'm getting closer and closer to going for the chains mainly because they add more visual noise to the overall silhouette.

Not sure I like the idea of having just a mouth but I think I will attempt to go for a more skull like design similar to the one on the maker hammer in the concept art.

Thanks for the advice, it helped push me in a more confident direction.

• Remade the chains to fit in with the "Maker" theme based on images found online.
• Changed the crystals to reflect original idea.
• Remade face to look better although I'm struggling to keep within the Maker theme as so little is explained about it.
• Shrunk upper section so mace head fit within green proxy area.

Overall I'm ready to start damaging it up and adding runes. Any feedback before I begin? If it's pure silence I'll just assume no one has any complaints :P

This is a cool idea. I think you could really push the top part of this though. I don't know how much you intend to damage it or what you still plan on doing for it, but instead of being so spherical, it would integrate better with those crystals if it had a more uneven, faceted surface. And chains are always cool, but right now it looks more like decoration than interacting with the top part. Maybe you could wrap the chain around it a bit more somehow instead of just being straight.

/facepalm, you know you're right about the sphere. I've worked on this day after day and I totally forgot about the one main idea I had at the very start. I'll definitely make it uneven and more rock like.

The chains do actually serve a purpose. Basically the demon face has an open mouth and the chain connects to the inside of that mouth. In other words, visually it's a tongue but the main point of the chain is to reinforce the rock on to the handle. I hear ya about the straightness of it. I'll mix it up and see what it looks like. The reason I stuck to a more structured shape is because I tested organic, more natural poses / shapes before and I felt it clashed with the square handle.

A lot of the detail will come from the damage. Basically going to do a logical damage pass where all the places that would normally come into contact first will be smashed up with the glorious clay tubes. After that I'm going to do a less realistic pass to add more visual damage to areas that are flat and uninteresting. One place that comes to mind is the part with the faces. I originally had a 4 sided face but the horns intersected and my polycount is WAY too high already with those chains. I'm gonna have to be real creative when it comes to the low poly mesh.

Thanks for your feedback, I appreciate a fresh set of eyes.

It's been a while. I spent the time UV mapping, baking and doing a first texture pass. It needs a lot of cleaning up but it's starting to take shape. I had to edit the design slightly to lower the triangle count. It's still got a long way to go though.

i dont know if you have finished sculpting the rock but it looks blobby and the crystals are kind of just sticking out of no where. they all so seem a bit small for the darksiders style

Thanks. I'm still a bit of a nub in the sculpting / baking department so I'll definitely rework it all. I have 12 days left to really polish it.

At the moment I'm deciding on the colour and theme as I didn't concept this like everyone else. I just went straight into the modelling so I'm designing as I go along. I update the picture above whenever I make a new change.

I'm thinking of baking in some crystals where the 3D crystals poke out so it looks like they're actually growing outwards rather than floating on the rock mesh.

Hopefully I can really push this design to the max!

Habboi i have one question, whats that site called MeshBin in wich you uploaded your model? is it a personal site ? and is it safe to upload personal works there? just curious

Yeah it's safe. In fact it was made by a fellow Polycounter:

http://www.polycount.com/forum/showt...t=unity+upload

Lovin this, the texture is looking great too, i`d just change the purple color of the gripple area for something less saturated or daker, like the one before the phase 3 in your texture progress image, keep it up

Looks good Habboi, definitely would pack a punch. I know it's probably been said but if you made the rock part a little more asymmetrical it might look a bit more wicked and organic.

I know Bobo said we could reasonably exceed the poly-budget, but twice the budget is hardly reasonable...

I'd say make the chain links bigger and fewer...with half the amount of links you would save at least 500 triangles (or if you made the links simpler, like this, with 1bit Alpha, you would have 6 tris instead of 48 per link...I used it here...).

The pommel and the transition between the shaft and the head can be made simpler, too. And remove all loops around the shaft.

Annoyingly we can't use alpha or I'd have done it like that. I'll take your advice to heart and see what I can do.

I first thought it was impossible to use Alpha, too, but Bobo said in the Q&A Threat that, while they don't use gradient-Alphas, we do have the possibility to use 1bit (punch out) Alphas in our Diffuse Map.

Originally Posted by BoBo_the_seal

Hristo: You can use on/off alpha (we do not use gradient alphas) in the Diff Channel. However, we have not used any alpha on weapons to date.

Piflik: we don’t have transparency (a value of grey in an alpha) but we do have punch out alpha (Black and White) or on/off

- BoBo

Hm I see. I misread cause I've not heard of a punch out alpha before. Sounds like an interesting challenge Thanks

Oh and thanks to the previous comments by Fabian and Dimfist, I appreciate it.

Habboi, the progress you've made on this thing is dope. Has come such a long way. Love seeing it go down like that man! I would love to see a bit more color variation between the crystals and the rock they're stuck in. maybe try some warmer tones in one of the two? Not sure if that's been said already, sorry XD

Don't worry about it. I don't expect people to troll through the comments. I look at the pretty pictures too ;)

Yeah I slept on it yesterday and at stage 9 I knew there was too much blue. Suddenly in a dream I saw the final weapon and it had green elements to it so I changed the spec and got a sense of deja vu.

Actually way back I tried a rainbow of crystals and it was like a clown weapon. Made me laugh. I'll definitely mess around with the colours. Quite often I find messing with layers gives off cool effects and it inspires new colour choices. Thanks dude.