Practice caution when handling a glass sword

[WolfieMario]

Nothing too special here... I got a random inspiration and went with it. I only spent a day on it, though it would have taken much longer if I didn't know about Blender's boolean modifiers.

 

 

I know the cracking isn't realistic (you'd expect the blade, if anything, to be completely shattered, and the hilt would be more likely to only get chipped). However, I thought it would look much more appealing if I threw away realism - I mean, if you actually dropped a glass sword like that onto a marble floor, it wouldn't even look like a sword anymore :P

 

 

EDIT: I took some of tripsis's advice and made some modifications:

 

V2:

 

V3:

[Bows]

Gorgeous looking, as usual Wolfie! Keep up the great work. :) :thumbup:

[tripsis]

Cool idea :) I'm not fond of the floor though :( It doesn't scream "marble" to me and I feel like something more contrasting would have been better for this scene. The sword gets a little lost in the background.

[Pat_61]

Cool idea :) I'm not fond of the floor though :( It doesn't scream "marble" to me and I feel like something more contrasting would have been better for this scene. The sword gets a little lost in the background.

 

Thats what I was thinking...

 

My brother has made lots of stuff in blender and refuses to teach me... >.<

[tripsis]

My brother has made lots of stuff in blender and refuses to teach me... >.<

Tbh you can learn loads just from reading online tutorials or watching videos :P I took a Blender class and I learned less there than I did from finding tutorials on my own online XD

[WolfieMario]

Cool idea :) I'm not fond of the floor though :( It doesn't scream "marble" to me and I feel like something more contrasting would have been better for this scene. The sword gets a little lost in the background.

Hmm, any ideas? I'd be happy to improve it, even though that means procrastinating my Golden Gnomes entry even more :lol:. If I literally make the floor contrast more heavily (e.g. make the darkest parts practically black), then the sword would get even more lost :eek:. I had a hard time getting the sword to be both decently visible and still look almost like real glass.

 

Maybe I could get the marble to be faintly more yellowish, such as this?

The glass is faintly bluish to emphasize its crystal-like appearance. If the floor were slightly yellow like that, it may help add contrast a bit.

 

I could also add some slight imperfections into the floor, though I'm not sure if that would help the sword. What do you think?

 

My brother has made lots of stuff in blender and refuses to teach me... >.<

Tbh you can learn loads just from reading online tutorials or watching videos :P I took a Blender class and I learned less there than I did from finding tutorials on my own online XD

This.

I learned almost everything I know of Blender from watching tuts and screwing around. The only exception is a few questions that Mino-Tauros and the BlenderArtists forums answered for me. Hell, I even ended up teaching my graphics teacher and a few friends of mine the basics of it :lol:

[tripsis]

I think the main problem I have with the floor is that it looks like the cloud render in PhotoShop with filters applied. I would see marble as more like one of these textures:

 

http://i-cdn.apartmenttherapy.com/uimages/ny/3-14-marble3.jpg

[WolfieMario]

Okay, I'll try something like the above. First I did what I said in my other post:

 

I think the yellow really helped the contrast, at least.

 

And I was using Blender's "Marble" procedural texture, but yeah, basically the same thing :P

 

EDIT:

Hmm, I used a total of 8 procedural textures, and ended up with this:

 

 

Some are mapped to specularity and one is mapped to normals. I still wasn't able to replicate that DeviantArt marble texture you linked... I guess the end result is still more realistic than before, but I kinda liked the look of that stereotypical faux-marble.

[Pat_61]

My brother has made lots of stuff in blender and refuses to teach me... >.<

Tbh you can learn loads just from reading online tutorials or watching videos :P I took a Blender class and I learned less there than I did from finding tutorials on my own online XD

 

The problem is all the tutorials are old and none of the buttons match the locations of the old ones.

[WolfieMario]

My brother has made lots of stuff in blender and refuses to teach me... >.<

Tbh you can learn loads just from reading online tutorials or watching videos :P I took a Blender class and I learned less there than I did from finding tutorials on my own online XD

 

The problem is all the tutorials are old and none of the buttons match the locations of the old ones.

All tutorials are old? I beg to differ :P. Just say "Blender 2.5" instead of just "Blender".

 

All versions of the 2.5x series are almost identical and have the same shortcuts. For that matter, most versions of Blender up until 2.5 were very similar to each other as well. 2.5 involved a major rewrite of the code and re-development of the interface, which is why anything after 2.5 is so different.

 

Also, fortunately, the official Blender Wiki 2.5 Manual is nearing completion, so you can look at that as your reference-guide/cheat-sheet for help:

http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.5/Manual

 

But as I said, sticking a "2.5" in your searches will help you find everything you need :P

[tripsis]

Yeah adding onto what WolfieMario said, you just have to be more specific in your searches. I know you can find tutorials for 2.5+ because I have found and used many myself :P

 

V2 does make the sword stand out more, which is good! And I definitely like the marble in V3 the best. It looks much more realistic :)

[Jeffwilson99]

Cool, makes me think of glass swords from Morrowind. But they're green.

[WolfieMario]

I've never played Morrowind, but I've seen a video of similar glass swords in Oblivion (which I've also never played).