Cymper Sword Skin Progress. 21/05/20 Update. Slow Progress

[FrostedMike]

Hi everyone.

My name is Michael and I play Warframe for 5-6 years and modeling for about 4 years.

I want to share my first TennoGen skin that I'm working on and get some feedback:

21/05/20 update:

Recent events in real life prevented me from taking time to work on the skin. I also got a little burned out.
From last time, I tried to work on the grip more but I'm not happy with it. The handle is not metal now but the render doesn't show it very well no matter how much I tried. I think I need to change the roughness a bit more.
Another thing that bothers me is that the handle is going to be covered most of the time and we will barely see this part of the sword anyway, so I don't think I should mess with this part that much.

10/05/20 update:

Spoiler

 

Changed the pommel according to feedback. The feedback mentioned the handle looking like it belonged to a different sword, but upon closer inspection I fegured a change in the pommel is enough. I had a few different designs and I picked the one I thought fit the most. I made it look like a smaller version of the guard with a small blade similar to the "one leaf lotus" shape in the actual blades.
I also upgraded the lighting set up for my renders. It shouldn't be too dark as it was.

 

06/05/20 update:

Spoiler

 

Got a few pictures:

With more colors:

Close up:

I feel like these are my final color. Every feedback before submiting is appriciated.

 

04/05/20 update:

Spoiler

 

Final shape and general texturs.
Now I want to change the emissive texture a bit (looks a little off and covers more space then I wanted). I'm also not 100% sure about the default colors. There are 3 shades of gray in the mix and it's hard to see the difference between them because of the lighting in the render.

 

02/05/20 update, small details:

Spoiler

 

Added some details and changed the shape slightly.

 

01/05/20 update, new design:

Spoiler

 

After feedback I got, I decided to rework the entire design and start over. The older design didn't feel "Tenno" enough, didn't even fit to Warframe in any way, shape or form. I added more curves and thinner parts so it won't be just a bulk of metal in the shape of a sword.
The render above doesn't have the small details yet. This is just the base shape.

Thank you for all the feedback. Thanks to that I saw what didn't work with the older design.

 

Old design:

Spoiler

Originally I wanted to make the skin very simple, like it's mass produced for the Tenno. Because I'm not used enough to the new version of Blender and this is my first time sculpting in this version, I ended up with a skin that looks more like a collectors item. Happy little accident that I love and willing to continue.

24/04/20, First post:

Spoiler

27/04/20 update:

Spoiler

 

Changed the shape a little to make it less "meaty".
Added color and completed most textures maps. Only missing roughness and metalics.

 

28/04/20 update:

Spoiler

 

Added roughness texture and metalic texture. I posted two renders with two different roughness textures because I think I didn't understand how it works.The spesifications say about 80% luminance for metals and about 50% for none metals, it's a number between 0 and 1 which 0 is super reflective and 1 is complete matte. Does it mean that metal parts on the roughness textures should be light gray or dark gray? It should be dark gray (left render) with my understanding about texturing, but it looks a little off compared to the right render which is made with a light gray texture.
It might be my normal map cousing problems? Something about my render set up?

 

30/04/20 update:

Spoiler

 

I'm happy with it so far. Any last feedback before I upload it?

 

 

 

 

The skin is for swords weapon.
Made using Blender and Photoshop.

I don't have a story for this skin.

Edited May 21, 2020 by FrostedMike
21/05/20 update

[Fratellino_Palevino]

Le 24/04/2020 à 13:44, FrostedMike a dit :

What I'm thinking of is that it's a hand crafted collector item.

Hand crafted with cardboard and foam ?

[FrostedMike]

12 minutes ago, Fratellino_Palevino said:

Hand crafted with cardboard and foam ?

I said I'm yet to make the roughness and metalic textures... I'm sharing a progress.

Edited April 27, 2020 by FrostedMike

[iLightning13]

I would recommend an HDRi (High Dynamic Range Image) to render your photos. It's difficult to see the form of your normal maps and the detail of your reflections with flat lighting.

Also, consider modelling and baking bumps where your emissive dots are to sink them into the material. Them floating on top isn't particularly realistic, they need an emitter point no matter how vague it is.

On 2020-04-24 at 12:44 PM, FrostedMike said:

The spesifications say about 80% luminance for metals and about 50% for none metals

This part of the specification refers to the colour map of your material. The roughness can be absolutely any value you want to match the material you want it to be. However, be careful with extremes like 0 and 1.

A metal like the pattern-welded steel you're going with would probably be around 0.2-0.4. Make sure to create a textured roughness map which varies between those values (or thereabouts, don't just take my word for it), and not just a flat colour map.

As for modelling, it seems you've sculpted it all from a solid block. This makes it quite difficult to make alterations to individual pieces without mucking up other parts, especially for hard-edged items like swords. I would suggest remodelling each component from a primitive shape. Use a cylinder for the handle, another for the pommel, a cube for the blade and another for the guard. Model them all individually, they don't HAVE to connect together physically.

Edited April 28, 2020 by iLightning13

[FrostedMike]

1 hour ago, iLightning13 said:

I would recommend an HDRi (High Dynamic Range Image) to render your photos. It's difficult to see the form of your normal maps and the detail of your reflections with flat lighting.

Also, consider modelling and baking bumps where your emissive dots are to sink them into the material. Them floating on top isn't particularly realistic, they need an emitter point no matter how vague it is.

This part of the specification refers to the colour map of your material. The roughness can be absolutely any value you want to match the material you want it to be. However, be careful with extremes like 0 and 1.

A metal like the pattern-welded steel you're going with would probably be around 0.2-0.4. Make sure to create a textured roughness map which varies between those values (or thereabouts, don't just take my word for it), and not just a flat colour map.

As for modelling, it seems you've sculpted it all from a solid block. This makes it quite difficult to make alterations to individual pieces without mucking up other parts, especially for hard-edged items like swords. I would suggest remodelling each component from a primitive shape. Use a cylinder for the handle, another for the pommel, a cube for the blade and another for the guard. Model them all individually, they don't HAVE to connect together physically.

The emissions are sinked in, probubly hard to see it because of the rendering which I will improve as you suggested. I want to sink them in a little more anyway after a second look. You mentioned a bump map. It will help but is it something that will be in the game? There is no mention about a bump map and no where to add one when uploading to the Steam Workshop.

 About the roughness map. I fixed it. I will add a few scratches and imperfections later. The map I have now is not just flat values, but it goes with the contrast of my map isn't high enough as it seems.

I messed with the lighting and roughness more and now I think my problem is the normal map. I will rebake and see.

I did model out of a solid block. I wasn't sure how to export it later so I didn't think about seperating parts. Should I have one of the parts a parent of the rest? I will remember it for my next model. I want to avoid remodeling if I can help it.

Thanks you for the help.

[iLightning13]

1 hour ago, FrostedMike said:

I did model out of a solid block. I wasn't sure how to export it later so I didn't think about seperating parts. Should I have one of the parts a parent of the rest? I will remember it for my next model. I want to avoid remodeling if I can help it.

If you're using Blender, duplicate the items, join them, then export the item (making sure to tick the "Selected Objects Only" when you go to export).

Alternatively, you could just select all of them, then export the same way. No need to parent anything to anything else (at least, I didn't get anything along those lines in feedback for my items).

[FrostedMike]

1 hour ago, iLightning13 said:

If you're using Blender, duplicate the items, join them, then export the item (making sure to tick the "Selected Objects Only" when you go to export).

Alternatively, you could just select all of them, then export the same way. No need to parent anything to anything else (at least, I didn't get anything along those lines in feedback for my items).

Got it. Will help a lot for next time.

[AnarchyChan]

i doubt it would be approved, it's too plain.

Edited April 30, 2020 by AnarchyChan

[FrostedMike]

59 minutes ago, AnarchyChan said:

i doubt it would be approved, it's too plain.

"Plain" meaning what? Shape too basic? Colors?

I tried getting a better render since I updated but with no success. I moved from Blender to Unreal Engine to check, got slightly better results but not enough. I just found out my normal map is bad and I need to bake a new one.

[lukinu_u]

Il y a 6 heures, FrostedMike a dit :

"Plain" meaning what? Shape too basic? Colors?

I tried getting a better render since I updated but with no success. I moved from Blender to Unreal Engine to check, got slightly better results but not enough. I just found out my normal map is bad and I need to bake a new one.

It might be a bit harsh but your design simply doesn't work.

Hopefully, you can improve it and make it funtionnal and interesting with a bit of time and effort, if you work in the right direction. Here are a few advices :

1. Don't focus too much on the technical issue (not working normal map, fixing material, better render for pictures, etc...). These are important to fix, but once your design is done.
2. Choose a faction, focus on this specific faction and use references from. This is one of the most important thing as it would affect every other steps, from first sketches to the materials treatment.
3. Start detailling only once you have a working general shape. A design should still be interesting without details, so it's a good indicator of whenever the shape work or don't. It also help placing the detail at the right place.
4.  Don't overdetail. Once you're deep into your work you tend to put to much details and forgot the scale of your model. Keep in mind the scale of you model to know what kind of detail you can put in and don't forget to keep some less detailled area to make contrast and have a good final result.

Here is a little example of possible changes based on what I'm saying, focusing on Tenno faction. There are plenty of possibilities and this one may not fit your vision of the design it work and blend much better within the Warframe universe.

[FrostedMike]

51 minutes ago, lukinu_u said:

It might be a bit harsh but your design simply doesn't work.

Hopefully, you can improve it and make it funtionnal and interesting with a bit of time and effort, if you work in the right direction. Here are a few advices :

1. Don't focus too much on the technical issue (not working normal map, fixing material, better render for pictures, etc...). These are important to fix, but once your design is done.
2. Choose a faction, focus on this specific faction and use references from. This is one of the most important thing as it would affect every other steps, from first sketches to the materials treatment.
3. Start detailling only once you have a working general shape. A design should still be interesting without details, so it's a good indicator of whenever the shape work or don't. It also help placing the detail at the right place.
4.  Don't overdetail. Once you're deep into your work you tend to put to much details and forgot the scale of your model. Keep in mind the scale of you model to know what kind of detail you can put in and don't forget to keep some less detailled area to make contrast and have a good final result.

Here is a little example of possible changes based on what I'm saying, focusing on Tenno faction. There are plenty of possibilities and this one may not fit your vision of the design it work and blend much better within the Warframe universe.

Thank you for the feedback.

I actually got another feedback outside the forum that was much more harsh and summed up what I did wrong ("a knife with a wallpaper stuck to it"). I have decided already to put this concept aside and start over from a few reasons. I just wanted to get more feedback before I do it so I will have a better direction.

[FrostedMike]

Reworked design.

[Vlada91]

On 2020-05-04 at 3:28 PM, FrostedMike said:

-snip-

Its best for now, but if, you continue in this direction... Then its probably going to look much better. 

[FrostedMike]

23 hours ago, Vlada91 said:

Its best for now, but if, you continue in this direction... Then its probably going to look much better. 

So you suggest I have space to improve? If so then I would like to know where and improve accordingly. I didn't commit anything yet because I wanted to get some last minute feedbacks.

[Vlada91]

1 hour ago, FrostedMike said:

So you suggest I have space to improve? If so then I would like to know where and improve accordingly. I didn't commit anything yet because I wanted to get some last minute feedbacks.

Sword handle and all around that would bee nice if in the end have that lotus logo looking mini blade add somehow... So that bee more sci fi around handle. 😏 Because handle look its like from totally different sword compared to blade part

Edited May 7, 2020 by Vlada91

[FrostedMike]

8 hours ago, Vlada91 said:

Sword handle and all around that would bee nice if in the end have that lotus logo looking mini blade add somehow... So that bee more sci fi around handle. 😏 Because handle look its like from totally different sword compared to blade part

Thank you for the feedback. Now that I look on it, the handle really does look like it doesn't belong.

[FrostedMike]

10/05/20 update.

[(PSN)Silverback73]

Nice.

I’d have energy between the blades.

Story/Lore:

The metal for this sword is a composite of Orokin Steel and Sentient Bone for use in the war, but was very rare, expensive, and time-consuming to forge.

Therefore, two thinner blades were created to save on Steel and forge time, and in a stroke of genius were sync’d with an energy-adaptive Matrix for added strength, flexibility and cutting power for use against Sentients.

Make sure to work on the grip.

Edited May 10, 2020 by (PS4)Silverback73

[FrostedMike]

16 hours ago, (PS4)Silverback73 said:

Nice.

I’d have energy between the blades.

Story/Lore:

The metal for this sword is a composite of Orokin Steel and Sentient Bone for use in the war, but was very rare, expensive, and time-consuming to forge.

Therefore, two thinner blades were created to save on Steel and forge time, and in a stroke of genius were sync’d with an energy-adaptive Matrix for added strength, flexibility and cutting power for use against Sentients.

Make sure to work on the grip.

Thank you for the feedback.

I thought about adding particle effects between the blades, but the more I thought about it the less it appealed to me. I don't think the skin need one. If this is what you mean by "energy". If it does, then it's probubly very minimal.
I do plan on changing something on the handle, mainly the colors and pattern. It also suppose to be metal, I might change it.

About the story. I don't see it as a blade that was forged efficiently, but the exact opposite. The blade smith might have tried to save materials, but defenetly didn't try to save time from the same reason: damascus pattern is made with many types of steel rather then one, saving material by taking it from many different sources and not all from one source. But creating a damascus pattern also takes more time than forging the blade from one solid block of steel.
What I see is a sword crafted to show off one's social status.

[FrostedMike]

21/05/20 update