This part of the sword should be an easy start for anyone.
Its nothing more than a curvy cylinder with other cylinders a couple
places. Lets get started...
Above is the image displaying simply what we want
to do. The sword's grip gets thicker in the middle and has grooves
at each end (only one end in the above picture). It will look nice
and smooth in the end.
The first step is to create a cylinder in the front
view port so it is placed facing the correct direction. Match up
the cylinder so it just reaches the cross guard and the pommel by
adjusting size/width/height/location. If your somewhat confused
take a look at the picture below to get an idea. The width of the
cylinder should be as big as it can be without extending over the
thick part of the reference pictures's grip.
Turn on edged faces in the top view port (Right
click 'top' in the top view port> Edged Faces) and assign
a colored material with around 30% opacity to the cylinder to help
us work better. If you have annoying segment lines from the plane
getting in the way then select the plane, go to modify and give
it one length and one width segment instead of the default of 4.
If your having trouble seeing the reference of the sword, go ahead
and raise the opacity to 50%, we don't need a lower opacity until
we get to the splines.
Now, to see things a bit more clear, with the cylinder
we just made selected, go to its properties and make it so smooth
is not selected. While there you should also make sure cap segments
is at 1 and set height segments to 7. Sides could be taken down
around to 13 or so if you want less polygons in the long run. I
wouldn't go much further though. Roughly 17 side segments should
be sufficient for us.
Convert the cylinder into a editable mesh. Our first
task is to select the height segments running horizontally across
the grip from the top view port so it matches the reference's grip.
Get into sub-object mode and select vertex. Select the very top
row of vertices as well as the very bottom row by holding down CTRL
and drag selecting them. Grab the non-uniform scale tool and scale
the selection, restricted by X,
so it matches up with the top and bottom width of the hilt. Because
the grip is symmetrical, we should select both sides and scale them
together to ensure that our grip is as well. Next select the 2nd
top row and the 2nd bottom row and repeat, continue the process
until everything lines up. View the picture below to see what I'm
doing, the verts in the middle still need to be done on the below
picture. The reference is hidden because it is easier to see this
way.
The next task on hand is to create the ends of the
grip, which is nothing hard at all. Switch from vertex mode to polygon
mode. Select the round polygon at the very end of both sides using
the perspective viewport. It looks as if the end pieces of the grip
are identical so we can do both sides at once.
The picture shown above is the top view of an end
of the grip. All we're doing is extruding the end polygon multiple
times along with multiple bevels along the way. With the two end
polygons selected extrude the polygon to match the first outward
part of the grip so it lines up horizontally. To make the width
the same, bevel the edge. Here's a few pictures showing the first
extrude. The reference is hidden to make it easier to see. The values
I used are not entirely accurate, they are just there to show you
what is happening.
Continue on for the others. Generally after each
extrude it goes bevel out, no bevel, bevel in, no bevel, bevel out,
no bevel, and bevel in respectively. Both ends should be nicely
sculpted in the end. More detail can be added to the first extrude
if you want to make these end pieces of the grip stand out more
when we mesh smooth it.
Apply a meshsmooth of 1 iteration, or more depending
on your preference. If you think it loses too much detail (An issue
with mine I discovered at the time of writing this) select the polygons
which make up the ends of the grip (the silver part of the grip
looking at the reference) and apply a tessellate modifier to it.
Operate on polygons with 1 iteration, THEN meshsmooth. I should
warn you that it can make the grip rather polygon intensive in a
second so if you want it, think first! The next part is to add the
many gold cylindrical pieces between the ends of the grip. There
are several ways of doing this, the easiest is to create a cylinder
so it lines up like this:
The cylinder should be resting nicely in the groove
of the grip's end. Because there will be many of these, and they
are very small we can cut back on faces, drop the height/cap segments
to one if they aren't already are. The sides for the cylinder should
be anything from 4-8 for decent results with the smooth option checked.
If you are planning on rendering close ups, stay away from the lower
numbers.
Try to put the cylinder as close to the very top middle
of the grip's end piece. Select the align tool (Main
Toolbar) with the cylinder selected and click the grip from
the top view port. Make sure both objects are set to center
and check the X Position box, ensure that the other position
check boxes are empty. Click OK.
The cylinder should be lined up perfectly in the middle,
unless you are making the sword go from left to right instead of
top down, in which you would you the Y Position I believe. Go to
the Hierarchy tab and click Affect Pivot Only.
What we are trying to do is surround the end piece
with multiple cylinders. With the help of the handy align tool and
array tool (Main Toolbar) it should
be no problem at all, as well as a lesson for those who never used
it before. With the pivot highlighted on the screen, select the
align tool again and click the grip from the front view port. Select
Y-Position and hit OK. We are doing this so we can rotate copies
of the cylinder around the grip.
Switch off the pivot mode, keep the cylinder selected,
switch to the front view port, and select the array tool. Looking
at the reference picture, it seems like these cylinders are actually
bumps, but cylinders will do just as good for us. Guess how many
cylinders you would like to go around the grip then divide 360 by
that number. In the array dimensions under 1D, put the number of
cylinders you wanted to go around the grip. Then put the number
you calculated in the Incremental rotate column labeled
Z. Here's a picture example of me using 20 cylinders, (360/20 =
18, which I used for the incremental rotate) as well as the result.
I used many more for my actual sword.
There are many other ways to get this done with the
same accuracy, but this I believe is the best for the job at hand.
It's also a lesson for those who never used the Array and Align
tool. Select the cylinders and copy them to the other side and your
done. If your not happy with how many you have undo everything to
the point of the array and redo the calculations and continue on.
*Gasp*. I don't know how the grip could have taken
me this long to talk about. Our next focus will be the crossguard
using splines!
Head on over to the crossguard!
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