Overview
Second Project of the class GSND 6530: 3D Asset Creation Principles. This project is to create and design an Ancient Magical Artifact that contains at least one glowing part, to be displayed in a virtual museum built in Unreal Engine. This project brings us through the development cycle from start to finish of creating such a model, from research and concept art to basic modeling and UV mapping and finally texturing.
For this project I decided to create a magical sword that will be used in a future game I am planning to develop. One of the themes of the game is Astral, so this sword was designed with a starry theme. In game, the sword is planned on evolving over time, so multiple models will be created after this project to flesh out the project.
Time Taken: 30+ Hours
Skills
Blender, ZBrush, Substance Painter, Unreal Engine, PureRef, 3d Modeling, Texturing, Retopolization, Rendering
Concept and Sketch
First, we sketched out the concept to build the model off of in Photoshop, using PureRef to build a collection of references. We researched about our ideas to build this sketch, keeping in mind how it would be used in its world.
For my design, I incorporated a star and moon design, with stars on the blade with an aquarius constellation engraved onto the blade.
Base Model
From the initial sketch, I created a base model that formed the overall shape of the sword. During this step, I also refined the design to better fit the use of the weapon, considering aspects such as how the sword will be swung, as well as any lore aspects related to the sword.
The swords hilt was adjusted to be able to be swung more like a straight sword as indicated by its blade structure, and moon shaped orbs were placed on the hilt to reinforce the astral themes of the weapon.
Detailing
The Next step was to add details to the model by creating a high poly model in Zbrush. This was done by importing the base model into Zbrush and increasing the poly count so that detailed brush work could be done on the model. From this process I added in various details that were present in the initial sketch but were skipped out on for the base model, including the etched design on the blade and moons, and detailing on the handle. Basic textures for the various materials were also added here, such as a stone facade and leather wrinkles on the handle.
Baking and Texturing
Next, both a High Poly and low poly version of the model was exported from Zbrush and then the low poly model was UV unwrapped in Blender. Then, I exploded both high and low poly meshes and exported them to substance painter to bake the high poly model into the low poly model. This created an initial texture with the details from ZBrush onto a game engine ready mesh.
I then used substance painter to enhance the materials of the mesh, adding smart materials for stone and leather onto the corresponding parts of the mesh. I also added an emission map to be able to control the glow of the etched pattern on the blade in engine.
Renders
