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[GUIDE]Creating a weapon from A to Z
Today i'll teach you how to make a weapon from A to Z
INTRO: Getting ready.
You'll need 3 softwares and several plugins.
-
(Any versions, 7+ preferred. Free trial .) You can use any 3D softwares to follow this tutorial tho, like Blender which is
- or or
-
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- .dds plugin or . Paint.Net natively supports .dds fomat.
- for Windows XP/Vista or for Windows 7 (Optional)
-
(Any versions, 7+ preferred. Free trial .) You can use any 3D softwares to follow this tutorial tho, like Blender which is -
or or -
________________________
- .dds plugin
or . Paint.Net natively supports .dds fomat.-
for Windows XP/Vista or for Windows 7 (Optional)1ST STEP: The Textures.
A texture (.dds) is an image file format used in the gaming industry that is wrapped around a 3D mesh
The image size of a dds must be a multiple of 4 ( 64*64, 128*128, 256*256 .. etc ).
For quality weapons renders, I recommend creating 512*512 textures.
To create a .dds texture file, simply open your image file in your favorite software and 'save as...' .dds.
You'll have a large choice of different .dds export format when doing so;
It's best to choose >> DXT3 ARGB 8 bpp | explicit alpha << this one to preserve the alpha channel (I'll detail this point later in this guide)
In this guide, we'll be using the:
It's a well-shaped and realistic weapon. It's already cleaned and resized (1024x1024) for your convenience.
Interesting to get started on low-poly modelling.
Save this image, it's going to be our future texture !
The image size of a dds must be a multiple of 4 ( 64*64, 128*128, 256*256 .. etc ).
For quality weapons renders, I recommend creating 512*512 textures.
To create a .dds texture file, simply open your image file in your favorite software and 'save as...' .dds.
You'll have a large choice of different .dds export format when doing so;
It's best to choose >> DXT3 ARGB 8 bpp | explicit alpha << this one to preserve the alpha channel (I'll detail this point later in this guide)
In this guide, we'll be using the
: It's a well-shaped and realistic weapon. It's already cleaned and resized (1024x1024) for your convenience.
Interesting to get started on low-poly modelling.
Save this image, it's going to be our future texture !
2ND STEP: Modelling.
Part A/ Getting Started.
For those who've never ever touched a 3D software, I'll quickly cover the main and most important tools we'll be using although I assume you know some "basics".
Here's 3DS Max 2012's interface, it should be quite similar to other 3D software's. I highlighted several important tools and functions
3D shapes are composed of polygons, the more polygons an object has, the more detailed it is and vice versa.
You can choose how many polygons an object have, scale/rotate/move them, etc..
You can also choose other selection modes such as Faces, Segments, etc.. but this tutorial is aimed at beginners so we'll stick to polygons/vertex edition.
Useful Shortcuts:
- W = Move Tool
- E = Rotate Tool
- R = Scale Tool
- F3 & F4 = Show Wireframe / Plain model
- Alt + W = Zoom Selected Viewport
- Ctrl + X = Expert Mode
- Ctrl + Z = Undo
- Shift + Move an object = Clone/Duplicate that object
- M = Material Editor (Texture GUI)
More shortcuts
I'm not here to teach you how to use 3D softwares in depth, a beginner teaching beginners would be quite ironic. Check >
< for in-depth basic tutorials !Part B/ Preparing our scene.
Open up your 3D software !
We're not going to create a model from scratch, we have a cool weapon image with a clear shape so we will try to make a 3D model out of this.
To do so, we'll put a plane in our scene and project the weapon image on it so we can use it as a blueprint. Use the same settings as below!
If the plane you created seems to be "invisible", try to toggle F3 and/or F4 on and off
With the plane selected, press "M" or go to Rendering>Material Editor to apply the texture to our plane. A window will pop-up
Check the little box next to diffuse, select "Bitmap" in maps and click OK.
This will open the image selection folder where you'll just have to paste our weapon image and click open !
Then, as shown below, tick the "Assign material to selection" & "Show material in viewport" boxes .. and TADA ! Our image is applied to the plane !
We're almost ready to start the big part of this tutorial =)
Part C/ Studying the weapon's shape and objects needed.
Before we start modeling, let's study our weapon shape and see what kind of objects we could use to model the weapon.
That's an important step and especially for low-poly modeling, you have to focus on the overall shape of the weapon you'll do, study it, analyze it, visualize how you'll compose the mesh, what basic shapes you'll use, imagine the wireframe, etc.
For this weapon, we should use a box for the sword part, a box for the guard, and a cylinder for the handle and that's it ! only 3 objects are enough to model this weapon.
Now that we know how this weapon's going to theoretically be created, lets switch to the practice side !
Part C/ Creating the weapon's mesh.
We're ready ! You're still there (right?)! We can now start modelling !
Handle with cylinder :
Start by drawing a cylinder in the Front view port and modify its value as shown below from the modify panel, where you can modify an object's number of segments/polygons, height, weight, etc...
Basic shapes got way too much useless polygons hence why we modify some of these values.
To make things handier and more convenient to work with, we will make the cylinder we created half-transparent.
Right-click > Object properties: Tick "See-through" box, reduce visibility to 0,5 and untick Cast/Receive Shadows.
We'll now modify that basic shape to look like the weapon's handle. Start off by doing "Alt+W" in the Top viewport to zoom in it.
With the cylinder still selected; click on the dropdown menu in the modify panel, select "Edit Poly" and click on the Vertex Selection icon to activate the polygon edition mode.
Now, using the three mighty tools (Move, Rotate, Scale), start moving the polygons to make them fit in our blueprint.
Press "Alt+W" again to zoom back to 3DS basic interface and to notice that our cylinder looks nothing like our weapon's handle shape in ,for example, our Left viewport. Using the same tools, try to reshape it to make it look realistic, just like the pictures below.
Congratulations, you finished the first part of our model ! Let's keep going with the guard part...
Guard with box:
Draw a box in the Top viewport that fits our Guard's blueprint and modify its values (Width Segments = 2)
Re-do the "half-transparency" trick for easier work around !
Now, go to modify panel > drop-down menu > edit poly > vertex selection just like you modified the handle's shape and start reshaping the guard so that it looks like below, don't forget the other viewports !
Sword with box:
Start by drawing a box in the Top viewport and modify its value as shown in the picture. Do Alt + W.
Re-do the "half-transparency" trick for easier work around !
Modifier panel > drop-down > edit poly > vertex selection (AGAIN) and re-shape our box.
Alt + W to zoom out and to notice again that our sword mesh looks nothing like a sword in the other viewports
Start by doing the sharp edges of the sword. Vertex selection activated, select all the OUTER polygons and scale them in on the Y axis.
We're almost there, our sword is sharpy but.. it doesn't look realistic at all yet. Select the INNER polygons and re-shape our overall sword shape as shown below !
Let's assemble our parts together and check it out !
Perfect ! Congratulations, you just modeled a low-polygon 3D sword !
Just a few little adjustements here and there and we're ready for texturing !
Make sure your objects are correctly place together.
Right-click one of the three object > Convert to... Editable mesh
Re-right-click it > Attach. Now click on the two other objects
All your objects are now unified in one single mesh !
I explained you how Conquer has low-polygon models standards and that its graphic engine loads much faster lower-polygon models right ? Let's check how many polygons our sword has !
Select our sword mesh > modify panel > edit poly > vertex selection > select every polygons in your scene and check back the edit poly panel...
100 polygons !!
If you didn't understand a shit of what I was talking about, you could also watch >> soon to come video tutorial here ! <<
3RD STEP: Texturing the model.
We got our 3D model and our texture, but we didn't apply it to the model yet !
Still in 3DS MAX, Press "M" or go to Render > Material Editor
With our model selected, tick the "Assign to Selection" box ( and "Show Map in viewport" if it doesn't automatically show up ).
The texture is now applied to our model .. BUT it's not mapped correctly yet !
Modify panel > Drop-down menu > UVW UNwrap
Drop the menu under "Unwrap UVW" and select "Face" selection.
Now, select EVERY single faces of our weapon ! Keep ctrl pressed for multi selection and select everything in every viewports.. even rotate the views with the top right corner tool of each viewports just to make sure every faces are selected.
Then, under the "Projection" menu, click on the planar projection icon and the Z Align icon
Then only, you can open up the UW Editor !
The texturing interface will pop-up !
At the top left corner we find back our three mighty tools: move, rotate, scale
At the top right corner, change the map to your texture map !
You guessed right, we only have to make our blueprint fit in the texture map using the tools !
Before starting, make sure that you use the polygon/vertex selection ( bottom left corner of the window ).
Then simply scale the UVW in the texture, make final tweaks, everything must fit perfectly !
Let's check if we did this right.. ( F9 will make a quick render of the viewport you're in )
It looks great, congratulations ! You just made a realistic and textured low-poly sword !
We're almost done with 3DS Max.
Time to position and scale our weapon correctly. Use the image below as a reference.
Conquer's characters handle the weapons at the junction of the two black lines, the center of each viewports.
Once placed and scaled correctly, go to File > Export > mesh.3DS ( Select .3DS as output format )
When asked to preserve (or not) texture coordinates, click yes !
We're (finally) done with 3DS MAX !
Still in 3DS MAX, Press "M" or go to Render > Material Editor
With our model selected, tick the "Assign to Selection" box ( and "Show Map in viewport" if it doesn't automatically show up ).
The texture is now applied to our model .. BUT it's not mapped correctly yet !
Modify panel > Drop-down menu > UVW UNwrap
Drop the menu under "Unwrap UVW" and select "Face" selection.
Now, select EVERY single faces of our weapon ! Keep ctrl pressed for multi selection and select everything in every viewports.. even rotate the views with the top right corner tool of each viewports just to make sure every faces are selected.
Then, under the "Projection" menu, click on the planar projection icon and the Z Align icon
Then only, you can open up the UW Editor !
The texturing interface will pop-up !
At the top left corner we find back our three mighty tools: move, rotate, scale
At the top right corner, change the map to your texture map !
You guessed right, we only have to make our blueprint fit in the texture map using the tools !
Before starting, make sure that you use the polygon/vertex selection ( bottom left corner of the window ).
Then simply scale the UVW in the texture, make final tweaks, everything must fit perfectly !
Let's check if we did this right.. ( F9 will make a quick render of the viewport you're in )
It looks great, congratulations ! You just made a realistic and textured low-poly sword !
We're almost done with 3DS Max.
Time to position and scale our weapon correctly. Use the image below as a reference.
Conquer's characters handle the weapons at the junction of the two black lines, the center of each viewports.
Once placed and scaled correctly, go to File > Export > mesh.3DS ( Select .3DS as output format )
When asked to preserve (or not) texture coordinates, click yes !
We're (finally) done with 3DS MAX !
4TH STEP: In-game render.
Create a new folder in your desktop.
Inside it, put our weapon image and the .C3 mesh file we just converted.
Open your favorite software: Photoshop / Gimp / Paint.Net
Open our weapon image in it and go to File > Save as ... > "texture.dds" (do select ".dds" in format selection) and save in our new folder. Make sure the .dds format you're using is the same as in the picture. Once saved, close the picture !
Inventory and Map Icons using the Alpha Channel:
Make a copy of the .dds file we made and open this copy in Photoshop
We'll isolate the weapon and delete the rest for our convenience.
Go to Select > Color Range. Click any white part of the image, and use the same settings as below before clicking OK.
What it does is that it selects every white parts of the picture, in other word, everything BUT the sword
. Simply hit Delete on your keyboard or use the delete tool. We now have a clean selection of our weapon !With the outer selection still active, right-click on the picture and select "Invert Selection" so only our weapon will be selected.
Right-click it again, select "Free Transform" and rotate it to 40-50° as shown below. Scale it if needed.
We re-re-right-click our weapon, re-select Invert selection to select everything BUT the weapon.
We then go to the "Channels" panel and double-click the white square next to "Alpha channel"
This window will pop-up. Make sure the settings are the same as mine, do NOT modify the color or anything.
Now, we just have to use the "Paint Bucket" tool or the "Brush" tool or whatever you want and simply fill in all the transparent space, which is easy because our weapon isn't selected, so it will be clean.
Everything showed in red here will be totally transparent in-game !
One last tweak. I highly recommend to use 64x64 as a size for icons.
Go to Image > Image Size and modify the value to 64x64.
Once you're done, go to File > Save as... > Inventory.dds and save in your folder.
Let's go for the map drop icon now !
Simply make a copy of the Inventory.dds file we just created and rename it Map.dds .
Open Map.dds in Photoshop and using the Crop Tool, do something like below, extend the upper and bottom borders of the image then press enter.
Now, go to Image > Image size and replace the value that changed to 64 so our file size is 64x64 again, then press OK.
We now have a very nice 3D-like perspective effect ! Go to File > Save as... > Map.dds and save in your folder again.
Congratulations ! We have everything: A texture, a mesh and icons which means.. we're ready to add our weapon in-game !
DONE
Here we are.
My english is not the best,but I did my best to make it clear enough for everybody, hoping it's understandable and will help anybody willing to start making 3D artworks to get the bases.
Thanks for reading,
Hope this helps.
Credits :
-
: Mentor, Sensei, Dreamer.. the most skilled artist I've met so far. He really motivated and inspired me to keep up making art and progressing. I can't thank him enough.-
: Best gfx buddy I met ! Pretty cool, talented, and head-burned dude, also terribly modest ! Keep going !-
: Made me discovering the world of edits and mods in Conquer Online, thanks to him I discovered Photoshop and that changed my life.- All the others I've edited with.. 2slam, Boijay, Edward, IDivideByZero, Virus.. etc
- All of you here in Epvpers that keeps supporting me and I really appreciate it.
Have a good day !
)
