Lightsaber Model

darthdavid · Post by **darthdavid** » 2007-04-21 08:07pm

Ok, I've been mucking around in blender and have decided to start modeling a saber. Here's what I have so far:

Now some questions:
What else should the actual model have?
Where's a good tutorial for materials and texturing in blender?
Thanks.

IRG CommandoJoe · Post by **IRG CommandoJoe** » 2007-04-21 08:31pm

The left end of the hilt looks too plain. Add some sort of cap to it. Also, maybe some more buttons or knobs should be on it.

darthdavid · Post by **darthdavid** » 2007-04-22 01:55am

I don't really like sabers with alot of controls 'cause what the fuck are you gonna use em all for, you know? There's an off and on switch and if you're being fancy a blade length knob. But I did put a knob on the end like you said, cause my saber's ass was pretty plain

.
Anyway, here's the saber with materials. Next I have to figure out textures, and I'll probably have to subdivide all those faces at some point so it's actually y'know, curved on the edges.

salm · Post by **salm** » 2007-04-22 10:23am

Before doing the textures you need to assign smoothing groups to the object. That will get rid of the facetted look the handle has.

darthdavid · Post by **darthdavid** » 2007-04-22 05:18pm

salm wrote:Before doing the textures you need to assign smoothing groups to the object. That will get rid of the facetted look the handle has.

Thanks. I was thinking I should probably smooth before texturing but I wasn't 100% sure.

salm · Post by **salm** » 2007-04-22 07:01pm

darthdavid wrote:
salm wrote:Before doing the textures you need to assign smoothing groups to the object. That will get rid of the facetted look the handle has.
Thanks. I was thinking I should probably smooth before texturing but I wasn't 100% sure.

Just to clarify. With smoothing groups i don´t mean mesh smooth (that´s the Max term i don´t know what it is in blender, perhaps subdivide? anyway, the thing that makes a mesh rounder by adding more polys) but only the smoothing groups. Smoothing groups are the thing that tells a poly what kind of surface property it´s supposed to have.

darthdavid · Post by **darthdavid** » 2007-04-22 07:09pm

Yeah I figured that. In blender it's a little Hard/Smooth toggle that can be assigned on a face by face basis.
My problem now is that I can't figure out how to make it unwrap so I can get a UV Map

.

salm · Post by **salm** » 2007-04-22 07:19pm

darthdavid wrote:Yeah I figured that. In blender it's a little Hard/Smooth toggle that can be assigned on a face by face basis.
My problem now is that I can't figure out how to make it unwrap so I can get a UV Map .

Unwrapping this shouldn´t be too hard. The cylindric main object gets a cylindrical mapping, the button as well and for the black thing i´d simply use blenders pelt mapping function.
Just go switch to uv face select mode then select all faces you want to unwrap and assign a pelt seam (alt-RMB). Then hit "u" and chose unwrap.
Give it a checkermap so you can see if there´s any stretching.
Unwrapping in Blender is great because of it´s great pelt mapper. When doing more complex objects i usually export them from Max to blender for the unwrapping. I despise the Blender navigation with a passion but the pelt mapper kicks ass.

darthdavid · Post by **darthdavid** » 2007-04-22 09:10pm

Thanks for clarifying that for me. I was doing it all stupid. Maybe I'll have it all textured by the end of the week what with school eating all my time.