drake power-ups HD

[talisa]

more progress:

part of the decorative symbol-thingy on top of the end of base


just noticed...this crossbow has lots of detailed decorative parts
what did i get myself into?

[MadGypsy]

That string looks excellent!

@decorations - it's not like you have to officially reproduce your reference image...

[talisa]

added the cylinder-thingies which hold the string at the end of both sides of the prod,
and i decided to try how a simple pushed-in line along the top would look which is common on crossbows


what do you all think of how both things look?


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EDIT:
oh almost forgot, i also added some polys to the prod to make it more smooth


EDIT2:
random idea i just got... how about i add something like this bow has on top of my bow?

instead of trying to replicate the fancy design the crossbow i use as reference has, which would be a crazy lot of work

[talisa]

just had another random idea, cuz i noticed the crossbow looked pretty block-like...

tried adding slanted edges all around the base to make it look less block-like and a bit more fancy.

looks quite nice i think, whatcha all think? good idea or not, the slanted edges?


EDIT: also just had another idea.... how about instead of that weird tribal-thingy i instead add a cool symbol there which is from one the heretic/hexen games?

[talisa]

randomness... just did a quick test in-game to see how itll look in-game

with lazy automatic UV-mapping and AO-map as texture,
placing original low-poly arrow on top, and putting it into position so it looks loaded


looks pretty cool eh?

[MadGypsy]

Looks pretty good but, the string is too thick - that is unless you intend to make a bigger bolt/arrow. The bevel looks good on the blender shot but, I can't tell it's there at all in the Quake shot. You may just be adding a bunch of polys for nothing.

I'm sure you realize this but, you are going to have to rig and animate this. You may want to mess with that before you go too far. The reason why I say this is because the current pull on your string looks like your arrow would fly like 10 feet. Of course you could make up your own physics and fake it by just having the animation be really fast - implying there is a lot of draw tension.

This is just my opinion but, I would have modeled it in a relaxed pose, added the armature and then used the armature to create the tension pose. The reason why I would have done it this way is because you really have no idea how far the prongs will have to be relaxed to get the string straight. You might even find that the prong have to be almost straight themselves just to get the string straight and that would obviously look strange.

[MadGypsy]

You can't go wrong working from reality. A crossbow maker would make a crossbow and then pull the string back.

[talisa]

@gypsy
that it barely looks like its pulled back much at all is prolly cuz of the fact you see the bow straight aligned to view.
screenshot of the bow in blender shows its pulled back almost as far as the crossbow it was based on:


well ok, maybe not as far as reference, but this was just a test, final version will be better

the string is also the same thickness as the string of crossbow i used as reference

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as i said also, this was just a 'quick export so i can show it in-game'
i know ill have to rig and animate it, and i have a tutorial on my machine how to do that.

this version of the crossbow that you see in pic is not what ill be using,
ill use version which is in relaxed pose as base and then use rigging to put it into tensed pose

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about the bevel: copy of the same model which doesnt include an arrow will be used for pick-up of the weapon
so its not at all like im adding polys for nothing and they wont be visible in-game, cuz the full model will be used as pick-up as well.
thats also why i added trigger and created the entire crossbow and not just only the part which is visible on the hud
otherwise it wouldve been pointless to even add the back of the base

also, in-game the animation for shooting is as a matter of fact insanely fast, its just 2 frames.

[talisa]

for fun tried added the heretic logo to the base instead of the thingamajig (which didnt look like anything at all)


yes, no?

[JDSTONE]

heretic logo? THIS IS QUAKE! lol it looks good so far

@mg about your shotgun arrow if you rename the crossbow the animations line up with the rocket launcher perfect so its really easy to make a hack/mod for exploding arrows and fun!

[talisa]

@JD
the 'buryza do kyanon' is, as you know, actually the hexen2 crossbow

heretic&hexen are one series, so its not strange at all to have heretic logo on it

when this crossbow is done i will also fix it up to be usable in FTEQW as replacement for the hexen2 crossbow

also, thanx for compliment


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also, made some more progress!



decided to make the groove be slightly pushed out of the base and make it wider,
and added the part which holds string in place while crossbow is loaded, based on what crossbow i linked here has.
also i made the groove be more longer cuz it was quite a bit to short

also, i decided to replace the logo i had with a more fancy looking heretic logo, based on the one found on this in-game texture



PS: pushed-out groove and such are a lot better visible with AO-map added to the model

[talisa]

decided i liked the crossbow this way and couldnt think of anything to add/change,
so i started UV-mapping all parts


so far i UV-mapped the base, trigger, the top trigger-part, and the thingies which hold the ends of string.
UV-mapped them so so that all of those parts can use a single texture together, cuz it would be overkill to have a seperate texture for the small parts.

with other models before i have made parts use different textures,
but for the crossbow it would be pointless cuz the parts are so small you wont even notice it all
if they have super-high detail and it would even look odd if the small parts have waaaaay more detailed textures then the rest

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as you can see even now those parts will have higher detail on them then the base itself.

which isnt neccesarily a bad thing at all, especially for the top trigger-part since that piece will be right up in your face on the hud
and the base itself doesnt need super-high detail since its made out of a single piece of wood

[talisa]

just continued and finished UV-mapping the other parts too

made those 3 parts share a single texture too, since they're 90% super-wide rectangles on the UV-map cuz of the shapes of the parts

so there will be 2 textures for all parts
-base, trigger and top trigger-part and the little thingies on prod share one texture
-prod, strings and heretic emblem also share a single texture


so now that UV-mapping has been done next step will be baking AO-maps and finding textures for materials and fixing them up for the parts.
and then last step will be rigging and animating

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EDIT: just realised ill need to make prod, string and the bolts be a single model cuz they'll need to be rigged as one,
meaning the bolts will need to share the same texture as the prod+string

so will need to fix it so bolts share texture with those parts, and make the emblem share texture with the rest

update: fixed it!

[talisa]

et le voila.... it has le textures


last step now is to rig and animate it


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oh and almost forgot... i also still need to make an arrow

EDIT: how about something like this for the bolt?
think it looks pretty awesome and like you could seriously kill something with it cuz of its big tip and thick shaft

its an actual medieval bolt and kinda looks a bit like the original,
at least in terms of having the fletching part at back (which most crossbow bolts dont have)

of course id make it be a magical glowing blue instead for the drake version
mebbe even something wave-y and semi-transparent and make texture be scrolling?

[Frost R17]

Going good so far. I agree that this makes the crossbow look more better than the previous one by appearance.