The pommel can certainly be the hardest piece of the whole model
were putting together unless you go about it in the best way. I
spent countless hours (and many retries) trying to model this piece,
and I even cheated on it for the renders. This part of the tutorial
took me the longest to create because I wanted to try to find a
better way to make this part of the sword as well as making it much
more similar to the reference we have to work with. After much profanity
and a few tips from friends I think I found a good and easier way
to model this rather complex piece.
The first thing to do is get the splines laid out. Working in the
top viewport draw splines along the main features of the pommel
(take a glance at the pictures below). Do not worry about every
small detail like the mouth or eyes. This can be done easier later
on when it is converted to an editable mesh. Only work with a quarter
of the model, we will assume each side is symmetrical for now. Remember
to add the depth to the splines using the front viewport.
Its helpful to see what's happening when moving splines around
at this stage. Ensure your not in sub-object mode, hold shift, then
drag the splines you made next to where they are right now. A dialog
box will appear, select instance and hit ok. Apply an surface modifier
with a path topology of 2 to the instanced splines. This will show
you the end result develop as you go along. If you want to get a
bigger picture, mirror the instanced piece as an instance in both
axis. Refer to the crossguard piece with the mirroring if you don't
quite understand what I mean. Don't worry about edges not meeting
up completely, its only used to see how things are coming along.
Here's what I have modeled for the spline section, and its surfaced
instances to the left of it:
One of the hard parts is on the side of the mouth, my only tip
for that is to keep trying!
We're not aiming for complexity here. We are just molding something
simple to work with. Do not model the pointed end at the top of
the demon, it will be easier to do as an editable mesh.When your
content with the splines and basic look of the model, attach the
instanced geometry together and form one whole mesh like the one
below. Be sure that it is an editable mesh afterwards.
To get the spike at the top of the demon simply grab all the edges
at the opening of the head and extrude outward.
Select the scale tool and scale the selected faces down to nothing!
The spike is now done! Do not weld them all together as it may cause
problems when we meshmooth the whole thing.
The next task is to make holes for the horns we will be doing.
Using the top viewport and the reference picture try to find out
which polygons will need to be axed to make room for them. Here's
a picture of mine, they lined up nicely. If yours do not, adjust
the vertical rows of vertices (from side viewport) to make the horns
fit better.
Delete those polygons from each side. We must make the horns now
which will be accomplished through a loft. A loft is a 2d shape
extruded along a third axis. A shape and path are needed. For this
loft we will be using a square shape instead of a circular shape.
This is because it would be a pain to attach it to the base of the
model if we used a circular shape. If you'd like, the vertices around
the deleted polygons can be reshaped a bit to be more circular.
Now forward to the actual loft.
Grab a rectangular shape (Toolbar -> Shapes -> Rectangle
Shape) and viewing the pommel at the side, place it where the polygons
were deleted and try to make it the same size. Convert it to an
editable spline. You may have noticed that I deleted four polygons.
If you did too, you must change the rectangle shape to have more
vertices to match up with the same amount of vertices with the hole
in the pommel. We can do this in a breeze just by refining the rectangle
done the same way in previous pieces. If you deleted 4 polygons
like I did, add a vertex to each side of the current rectangle to
match it up. If you moved around the vertices on the base of the
pommel to form more of a circular shape, now would be the good time
to adjust the shape of the new splines to match up. Here's an example:
Mines a bit more of an oval because I rushed through this part.
Don't worry if yours is too because we will likely have to adjust
it again as the lofting can often turn out a bit awkward.
We've constructed the shape of the loft, we need the path next.
The horns spiral, so we will start with a helix for the path. Create
a helix shape in the front viewport, this can be found under the
same place where the rectangle shape is. Don't worry about making
it look right, just place it. The values I found best are shown
in this picture, apply them to your helix shape properties. Convert
the helix to an editable spline.
It should look similar to this now (in red):
The values set for it might need to be changed depending
on how much yours differs from mine. The spline is about half the
height (when looking at it from the front viewport) of my pommel:
With all that done we need to get the loft completed.
Select the shape for the loft then grab the loft button (Toolbar
-> Modeling -> Loft Compound Object). Under Creation Method
select Get Path and click the helix in one of the viewports. It
should look like a mess! Deselect the loft completely then select
the loft again and go to its properties and take a look under the
Deformations section.
Make your graph look like mine. Its much like a spline
so it shouldn't be of much trouble. Put the last vertex to 0. Create
a nice curve by inserting a bezier vertex from the drop down menu
and adjust it using the move tool. Your horn should look much better
now, but often its generated so it doesn't go along the path spline
(the helix). Rotate yours around so it has the right orientation.
I had to rotate mine 90 degrees in the side viewport to get it into
the right orientation, yours might be different. In doing so, some
of my vertices don't match up, but its not a big deal. Under Skin
Parameters of the loft, give it 0 Shape Steps and around 3-7 Path
Steps.
I did mine quickly over again, and this is what I
have now:
It doesn't perfectly match up with the reference but
produces something very close! If you would like to get yours perfect,
you can play around with the helix and the loft will adjust itself
accordingly.
The base of the horn may no longer match the main
piece of the pommel if it was oval-ish. Do not change the horn but
adjust the vertices around the cut holes on the main piece to match
up the horns vertices better.
Go to the loft's properties and deselect Cap Start
under Skin Parameters. We don't want the polygon generated at the
bottom of the horn to be hidden inside after we connect the two
pieces as it will cause smoothing problems. Apply any small last
changes to the loft and when your ready, convert it to an editable
mesh and attach it (Properties -> Edit Geometry -> Attach)
to the main pommel piece but make sure you don't attach it right
next to the main piece. We want some room to work with for the welding.
The next task is to get the two pieces together which
shouldn't be anything hard for you by now, but I will introduce
the target weld method which should help speed things up! You should
have matching vertices, one on each object which will connect to
the corresponding one on the other object. Enable 3D Snap and while
in vertex sub-object mode select target weld. Ensure 3D Snap is
set to vertices and not grid points (right click the icon if you
forgot how). Simply click and drag one vertex to the other to connect.
Here's an example for one of mine:
Repeat this so the horn is fully attached to the model.
If you followed my directions and kept the horn a good distance
away from the main piece, simply select all the vertices and shift
them over:
Common sense would prove to us that we need another
horn of course! This can be done rather easily. Select all the polygons
that were originally a part of the horn when it wasn't attached,
and hold shift and copy them to the other side of the model. Flip
the new horn so its orientation is correct, put it as close to the
main piece as possible, select all the vertices around the cut area
which are next to the new horn and weld them together.
Congratulations, you did it! You've modeled the whole sword top
to bottom. This part may seem incomplete, but the other details
can be effectively done through texturing, bump mapping and displacement.
If you don't want to rely on materials to make up for the rest,
by all means add in the detail through the geometry. If you decide
to do it this way, make sure you know what chamfer vertex and edge
does, as it will come in handy for adding details. Also, if your
wondering how to do lumps the horns, select every other circular
section and extrude inwards or outwards. Make sure your extrude
is set to local and not group.
If I have time in the future and this tutorial goes to good use
and people enjoy it, I will try to add more details about texturing.
Give yourself a pat on the back and take a glimpse at your masterpiece.
Head on over to the next section so I can wrap this whole thing
up! :)
FAQ/Other/Credits
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