Just a hunk, a hunk of burning love

Stop! Hammer time - MC Hammer

Every now and then things just fall into place. The meshes work the first time, the textures seem to make themselves and the model turns out a treat. Today I had one of those days. Which is good, because yesterday I had one of the other sorts of days. Yesterday was a day where nothing seemed to go right and it was my own doing.

I had been trying to finish off the latest series of sword models and at the same time attempting to make efficient use of a texture by using it for more than one mesh. I like to produce models that are constructed with performance in mind. Using a texture for multiple meshes is one way of trimming the fat.

When I create a texture for a model I make extensive use of layers. In the case of yesterday's texture I had combined the texture for swords 74 and 75. The texture had 31 layers that include the UV layouts, the textures used to construct the normal map as well as the components of the diffuse texture. The idea is to blend various layers to produce a texture with the desired qualities.

Somewhere along the way I forgot which layers to combine to make the textures I needed. So in my quest to be efficient I burnt a lot of time. And it meant that all the swords in both the 74 & 75 series had to be tested in-game again. Sword model 75 had plagued me with small problems from start to end.

I've learnt my lesson. If a texture is already complex, don't try to utilise the spare space with another complex texture. In other words, I will try not to let my drive for efficient modelling impede my progress.

But even when I'm having a bad day at the workbench I try to reach a milestone. So the end result of yesterday's effort was the completion of the combined texture and finalising the sword series 75 with the addition of the short sword and dagger.


By comparison, today was a great day at the workbench. I started by taking my own advice about planning the model before I start. In this case it was a quick concept drawing of what I wanted. And what I wanted was a big mother war hammer with the same burning ember qualities as the recent quarterstaff and club.

I had none of the difficulties with today's war hammer that I had with sword 75. No folding meshes and no restarting the model. The texture came together almost too easily and in a matter of a couple of hours I had my big smouldering war hammer. Stop! Hammer time.

The whole effect I was chasing here was a weapon that is burning at its heart. The smouldering soul of this beast can be seen through cracked and fissured surface. Flames lick the head of the hammer, which holds the core of the heat and the glowing embers die out down the handle. The hand grip, while also burnt, is not smouldering with the same intensity as the head. It leaves a trail of sparks and flame in it's wake and gives off a feint flickering light.

With a successful day behind me I am loath to fiddle with the textures too much, but my original idea was for a cracked metal texture. The texture shown in this screenshot is based on a burnt wooden beam. I shall have a play with overlaying an iron texture. But that's for another day. I've earned a day off tomorrow. The weather is fantastic this time of year and I'm going to enjoy it.

Over the next week I shall put together an axe model in the same style and then, I think, my weapon pack will be ready to assemble.