Pre-production
The game which the prop I chose belongs to is Chrono
Trigger, a RPG first published in 1995 by Square (now Square Enix). I chose
Chrono Trigger because it was one of my first full length RPGs I’ve ever played
and have many fond memories of it.
Initially I chose a model a different prop, a robot. I
started brainstorming and researching all the different robots in the game.
I decided to focus on one of the robots in game called Gato,
a NPC singing robot the player meets early in the game.
After a day of playing around the model and doing more
research on the different props in the game, I changed my idea and decided to
model one of the weapons in the game. The weapon that caught my interest was
the scythe used by Magus, one of the playable characters.
I found the default scythe to be too dull, so instead chose
to base my model on a fan art thumbnail I found on Google images.
Post-production
 |
| Completed Scythe Renders using Mental Rays |
The final model differs slightly to the reference picture as I have added my own personal touch to it. It is just over 1.7k poly faces which I believe to be reasonable.
Sketchfab Model
I think the Sketchfab model looks less detailed than in Maya probably because of some settings I have overlooked or not familiar with. The bump map doesn't seem to be showing from what I can tell.
Production Commentary - Development and Challenges
Modelling:
- Modelling the bending & twisting branches on scythe proved to be the most challenging part of the base model. The method I used to create the branches was by first using the EP Curve Tool to lay out a path for the branch shape, then create a cylinder primitive and extrude one of the flat faces to the path, creating a curved cylinder.
- I created the high poly model first, then the low poly by removing edges but keeping the overall silhouette.
- I found that the curves were too sharp in some areas resulting in overlapping faces, so I was forced to delete and reorganize the edge loops around those curves. This ended up causing some unintended stretching and accidental deletion of edges which ended up producing some minor problems with UVs and texturing.
- As of now this was the most complex object for me to UV unwrap. The curved branches were by far the hardest components to unwrap properly. I mostly used automatic mapping to create to UVs, cut and stitch them back together, then unfold and relax tools to adjust layout. For the branches I created the UVs using spherical mapping, then cut one of the edge loops and unfolded the UVs.
- The resulting shape of the branch UVs where the best I could manage efficiently within the time constraints due to the complex nature of the branch shape and my limited skill in UV layout as I could end up spending a whole day working on uniformly laying out a single branch.
- This was my first model that I had to properly apply diffuse, specular and normals maps so I think the result was rather messy and not how I envisioned it to be, but it was a good learning experience.
- I followed a online video tutorial for baking normal from a high poly to a low poly mesh. I found the resulting normal map didn't make much difference. The reason could either be the high poly details were too subtle to be noticed, or more likely I may have messed up the baking process somehow. I decided not to spend anymore time trying to get it working and instead move onto bump mapping.
- For bump mapping, I chose some patterns on Photoshop and painted them onto the UV map. Using CrazyBump, I generated some normals for the model to give it more texture and depth. This was my first time creating a proper bump map as well, so I think the result was just an experiment and not ideally how I hope it would turn out to be. I aimed to create bumps that could simulate the texture of tree bark, but instead I think it turned out looking like random small dents on a metallic surface (especially noticeable on the top of the scythe).
- The textures were rushed unfortunately to get the whole model done on time after spending too long on both the UVs and baking the normals. They only consist of simple colours and some subtle patterns. If time allowed I would have much preferred to have hand painted the textures.
- I have yet to grasp how to properly specular map, so all I did was use the specular map generated by CrazyBump when I was bump mapping. Not sure if it made any difference to the model. I will need to study more on this.
