Ahsoka Tano lightsaber WIP

[CaptainCrazy]

Well i've always liked the style of Ahsoka's hilt, i haven't really seen it in detail before although it does seem to, for the front part, resemble Anakin's hilt, well some features anyway.

 

So i figured, since it's Sunday and i'm bored, i'd model Ahsoka's hilt.  Not sure if i'll bother to texture it though as i mainly made it for personal reasons and i doubt anybody will be using it.  Although it's a pretty easy model to UVW unwrap really so the experience would be beneficial i guess.

 

The other reason that i chose to model this and not an easier one like Obi-Wan's hilt it because the front of this hilt is, in my opinion, kinda tricky to do with as low poly as possible.  If i choose to use it in a game i shall probably re-do it and take more time with it xD

 

 

 

[AshuraDX]

that's looknig pretty nice so far , I guess this was subdivided for  a more beatiful render ?

[CaptainCrazy]

that's looknig pretty nice so far , I guess this was subdivided for  a more beatiful render ?

 

Yes i set up multi-sub objects/materials to represent differently coloured parts.  As i said i may texture it over a few days or so, but i haven't decided yet.

[ChalklYne]

Lets get a vert count or tri count if you dont mind.. Im always interested in that

[CaptainCrazy]

Lets get a vert count or tri count if you dont mind.. Im always interested in that

 

 

Sure!  It's about 8k vertices but that's mainly because i wanted the arc at the front to look smoothly curved and since it's not for a game i figured why not?  Could have probably done it with 5k but then the arc wouldn't look so smooth and i haven't gone over it and looked at edges i don't even need.

[ChalklYne]

oh i didnt read the not for a game part. badass dude! i want to do a high res grievous one day

[CaptainCrazy]

oh i didnt read the not for a game part. badass dude! i want to do a high res grievous one day

 

I don't really like to work with meshsmooth because it kinda makes you stray from the whole point of making low poly models lol.

 

In your opinion, what vert count do you think this sort of thing should be then for a game like this?

[ChalklYne]

not sure... lemme freestyle one and see. give me 10 minutes

[CaptainCrazy]

Okay

[ChalklYne]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

proportions are off... and probably could have gave it a bit more detail here n there but as a rough draft to just give myself an idea, id say maybe under 1000 tris? As  this one is like 678... about 360 verts

[CaptainCrazy]

Looks like something for a Kingdom Hearts game lol.

 

I see what you mean but can JA seriously not handle anything better or is the menu model different from the in-game?

[ChalklYne]

I coulda def spent more verts on it. About 1000 verts shoulda turned out good. Problem is, people play MP and scream FPS. So if you'd imagine everyone on the screen, maybe 10-12 people at once, all being base jka character models, with jka base weapons in a jka map... it won't suffer... you start getting custom playermodels, which like everyone uses, then even one custom character model would almost double the entire character vert count. now imagine that x12. then imagine the custom weapon being 2000+ verts... x12.. in a custom map with crazy brushwork and shaders... after a while it just kills the engine not peoples pc's but the engine itself.  sorry for all the mispelling and sporadicness im cooking. but yeah you know who is like killer at vert estimates and usage? @@AshuraDX   he'll chip in when he reads this he taught me everything about saving verts. So we try to make the most out of the least. things can be faked with proper texturing as well. plus, with things such as sabers... theyre soooo small ingame its just hard to really tell if its high or low poly if done right

[AshuraDX]

the ingame hilt models are the same as shown in the menu

 

I jsut checked a default hilt :

saber_1

Verts : 249

Tris : 234

 

but heck I made some higher detail hilts , and soem jsut crappily mdoeled hilts with high vertcounts but I'd say 1.5 k verts si the absolute max for a hilt

the ingame hilt models are the same as shown in the menu

 

I jsut checked a default hilt :

saber_1

Verts : 249

Tris : 234

 

but heck I made some higher detail hilts , and soem jsut crappily mdoeled hilts with high vertcounts but I'd say 1.5 k verts is the absolute max you should aim for when making a hilt

[CaptainCrazy]

Yeh i know all about retopology and such when it comes to textures xD

 

But cool yeh i look forward to the input, i guess this game is old-ish, it's a year younger than the HL2 Source Engine so i guess the limits are almost the same.  However this engine seems to suffer in regards to things like phong shading and such.  Is it even possible to get great results from this game when the Source Engine isn't much older?  I'd have thought that the results would be at least a bit better.

 

I guess i'll try to make a lower poly version then xD

[minilogoguy18]

The main thing people tend to not think about when making weapons is that they'll never be seen as closely in game as they are in a 3d modeling program so they go overboard with detail. I'd definitely keep it under 500 vertex's, an 8 sided cylinder would be my max for the base starting point, let the textures do most of the work when it comes to detail.

[katanamaru]

Yeah details are good for screenshots, but when the hilt is in the character's hand you really only see the pommel and emitter.

 

I'd say put more work in the size, and way it is held in the hand. I've downloaded some really great looking hilts only to delete them because they were held in terrible ways.

Also if you are doing sabers for characters that use the backhand styles don't forget to make a backhand version too.

[minilogoguy18]

^Yeah, that's even a problem with the base hilts, the right hand is holding them in the middle where it should be more towards the top so that when both hands are holding it half the left hand isn't off the end of the hilt holding nothing. It's an easy fix though, especially if there is no *parent tag, just move it down in the Y axis and re-export. Not using a tag_parent (*parent) makes it so that 0,0,0 in global space will be the point where it bolts to the hand.