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While working on the madness weapons, I started sketching a ton of weapons.

In this thread I will be modelling them, and making mods of them! Hopefully
I need ideas though. Some of the designs I don't know what to call. Is there a story behind them? Could you see them fit into the TES universe? Which ones might make a good set?
I am talking about these 2 - can you see some of them in Oblivion and how?
http://tigr3ss.deviantart.com/art/Palae ... -183900363
http://tigr3ss.deviantart.com/art/palae ... -184035089

There are also designs I already have a designation for, like possibly these madness scimitars: http://tigr3ss.deviantart.com/art/slashers-187196386 (yes I was jealous of Spiney's )

Alternate glass?? Could possibly be another texture http://tigr3ss.deviantart.com/art/green ... -186424743
http://kriscrash.dk/art/2010/nov/glass1.png

Design ideas for Adamantium weapons: http://tigr3ss.deviantart.com/art/ADAMANT-187886416 taut, deadly.
Ideas for Mithril: http://kriscrash.dk/art/2010/nov/mithrilc2.jpg http://kriscrash.dk/art/2010/nov/mithril2.png light; nimble small birds of singing. Elven.

So, I will need ideas, feedback, maybe CS help. Quest ideas? :3 I hope Ionis and InsanitySorrow can help out with textures and collision.

I will also try to collect knowledge about weapon modding, and try to answer any questions you guys have. I will post lots of progress should I remember to. Here is a WIP-mod you can play with, but the weapons will be a little buggy (you can't drop them).

Get it here: kriscrashweapons2.7z weapons are in a drawer in Aleswell's inn room. I will update the file as I go on.

I like the swords in "paleocutters 1" the best.

You know I'm here to help. With anything really, CS help, modelling help (blender), even UV unwrapping (my favourite part of modelling). I even know how to fix those collision issues we were having.

Yep, I'll help too! I can do the boring ESP work if you'd like. And, I'm trying to figure out Blender right now...

krisCrash wrote:I am talking about these 2 - can you see some of them in Oblivion and how?
http://tigr3ss.deviantart.com/art/Palae ... -183900363

This set vaguely reminds me of Dwarven. I could possibly see this set being an "Ancient Dwemer," i.e. a higher quality of Dwarven, or something of that nature?

krisCrash wrote:http://tigr3ss.deviantart.com/art/palae ... -184035089

I like the design, particularly of the short blades, but nothing comes to mind at the moment as far as a "lore" fit into Oblivion!

krisCrash wrote:There are also designs I already have a designation for, like possibly these madness scimitars: http://tigr3ss.deviantart.com/art/slashers-187196386 (yes I was jealous of Spiney's )

Oh MAN, I love those weapons, particularly the one on the far right. If the far left design was a little less curvy I'd probably go for it instead.
If you release either of them it'll become my new primary.

krisCrash wrote:Alternate glass?? Could possibly be another texture http://tigr3ss.deviantart.com/art/green ... -186424743
http://kriscrash.dk/art/2010/nov/glass1.png

Perhaps a possible design for the "secret project" weapons? Or, barring that, they'd work great as a Glass replacement set.

krisCrash wrote:Design ideas for Adamantium weapons: http://tigr3ss.deviantart.com/art/ADAMANT-187886416 taut, deadly.

FANTASTIC design, kris. I could see an Imperial Army carrying weapons of that style around. Very solid and functional weapons that mean business. I especially like the Battle Axe, Bow, and Shortsword designs. My only suggestion: I'd like to see the Warhammer's head be maybe 30-50% taller (thicker).
These look like they might be a bit simpler to create in 3D than some of your other designs--would you be interested in having me try my hand on some of them in January?

krisCrash wrote:Ideas for Mithril: http://kriscrash.dk/art/2010/nov/mithrilc2.jpg http://kriscrash.dk/art/2010/nov/mithril2.png light; nimble small birds of singing. Elven.

You already know what I think of these. I love 'em!

krisCrash wrote:So, I will need ideas, feedback, maybe CS help. Quest ideas? :3 I hope Ionis and InsanitySorrow can help out with textures and collision. I will also try to collect knowledge about weapon modding, and try to answer any questions you guys have. I will post lots of progress should I remember to. I can also post WIP-mods you can play with, but the weapons will be a little buggy (you can't drop them).
If mods are okay with it, I will sometimes be embedding images in the thread too, is that okay?

Anything I can do to help, please let me know. As you know I can do ESP building or testing, and hopefully some day some modeling too.
As we've discussed I'd love to include some or all of your new weapon designs in phase II of WEPON, or as an add-on/plugin to WEPON, but that is completely up to you

Thanks for the feedback!!! It might take me a while to reply, first, I decided to keep status of just how far I am modelling stuff .. because there is NO structure on this project yet.
Palaeocutters: ancient devices used to hurt people back in the day;

A: hatchet. Small axe like thing, but basically a short and re-weighed form of the blade design.
B: Broad claymore. Reminds me of something but I don't know what, exactly. This could be a style in its own.
C: the minimalist glass look thing. Looks spacey. But idunno.
D: Starts off same premise as the glass. I was worried the hole would make it look too light in the middle, but given the width of the ring it might just work?
E: (bad handle sorry) if this was Middle Earth, I would've said Orcish, and the same goes for A, D, F. But.. it's not. So what is it?
F: Same as A, an attempt to make an axe of the parallel curve design.
G: double dagger???
H: a delicate/crafty take on the parallel curve to make an axe.
I: sort of boring looking axe, maybe with a really ornamental texture.
J: knuckle buster??? The hilt is really MEH at the moment.
K: A sort of dagger/shortsword, not sure on the pommel end (could be sharp, could be more of a chunk).

For a lot of them, the hilts are just bent cylinders at the moment, I don't like that. One thing I'd definitely like was sort of.. knobs that go in between the fingers a little bit. I don't know a good way to align it perfectly with a hand though, not sure how to export a hand that's grabbing.

If someone desires to play with them as-is, I can make a quick mod. Also if you want to try your hand and textures or somethin'. Anyway. Back to sorting things out.

Hey if it isn't too much of a bother, could you send me the .nif files for me to play with in Blender? You know I'm a dab hand at modelling and UV unwrapping.

j31c3n wrote:I like the swords in "paleocutters 1" the best.

thanks! Those are the oldest and least consistent though.

Spiney wrote:You know I'm here to help. With anything really, CS help, modelling help (blender), even UV unwrapping (my favourite part of modelling). I even know how to fix those collision issues we were having.

Thanks, especially if you want to do UVs, that is my LEAST favourite part D:

BFG wrote:This set vaguely reminds me of Dwarven. I could possibly see this set being an "Ancient Dwemer," i.e. a higher quality of Dwarven, or something of that nature?

Well they are not a set, I feel, they all match? Feel free to point our particulars.

I like the design, particularly of the short blades, but nothing comes to mind at the moment as far as a "lore" fit into Oblivion!

Yeah... as an alternative I can just release them all as a mixed package, but I'd rather have some ideas first because it would mean something to the textures they get.

Oh MAN, I love those weapons, particularly the one on the far right. If the far left design was a little less curvy I'd probably go for it instead.
If you release either of them it'll become my new primary.

This is how far they are

got stuck a little on everything but the third (which is my fav too!)
You can have it now if you want, looks like this:

click for large image
the embossed part up the middle is ONLY done with the normal map, so that's what normal maps can do.
The texture is a plain checker until someone does better

Perhaps a possible design for the "secret project" weapons? Or, barring that, they'd work great as a Glass replacement set.

Sure, but not really what I thought we were going for? Too plain I think?

krisCrash wrote:Design ideas for Adamantium weapons: http://tigr3ss.deviantart.com/art/ADAMANT-187886416 taut, deadly.

FANTASTIC design, kris. I could see an Imperial Army carrying weapons of that style around.

Thanks! Sure, though I must admit I've been in the Drow D&D thoughts for this. Probably 'cause that's the only Adamantium I know.

Very solid and functional weapons that mean business. I especially like the Battle Axe, Bow, and Shortsword designs. My only suggestion: I'd like to see the Warhammer's head be maybe 30-50% taller (thicker).

I'm not sure, as mentioned, the historical warhammers I looked at were quite slim, delivering blunt trauma to a small area.

These look like they might be a bit simpler to create in 3D than some of your other designs--would you be interested in having me try my hand on some of them in January?

You are welcome to use my concept art to model, but I might do them before that. Who knows? Since I have 50 things going on D:

krisCrash wrote:Ideas for Mithril: http://kriscrash.dk/art/2010/nov/mithrilc2.jpg http://kriscrash.dk/art/2010/nov/mithril2.png light; nimble small birds of singing. Elven.

You already know what I think of these. I love 'em!

Sweet. I think they have a good style going too, don't know if it matches mithril armour in style but at the moment that is fine by me.

As we've discussed I'd love to include some or all of your new weapon designs in phase II of WEPON, or as an add-on/plugin to WEPON, but that is completely up to you

Yes. What I see is that, say I make Mithril, I do this:
- An ESP where they exist as their own out-of-system items (probably daedric quality)
- A package where they would override the WEPON mithrils
- An ESP allowing both to coexist (possibly the same as the first ESP), especially by also renaming the 'high level' versions to exotic names (a la scimitar, katana, cleaver, battle bow). Possibly even have 2 colours: high level is blueish for the hilts, low levels is reddish brown to match vanilla mithril armour.

Spiney wrote:Hey if it isn't too much of a bother, could you send me the .nif files for me to play with in Blender? You know i'm a dab hand at modelling and UV unwraping.

Ok, let me give it a try. I only have 1 nif file yet, but I'll export some today and send you.

Also, since the forum made me wait to post 'till you had... I had the time to take Adamantium pictures. These are the models so far

now I have no idea how they'll be textured - ornamental or what. Also there's a bit too much to form a set yet, so can we try to pick and choose the best? Or should I just do it all and have extra axes for the heck of it?

What brilliant designs ...

If you need my help with any texturing I'd be happy to assist .

I must say, I really like how the Mithril and Adamantium weapons have evolved from that initial sketch! The Adamantium designs are very cool, I think you've gone in a good direction with those.

The coloured mithril sketches look wonderful too, out of the three blade profiles, my personal preference would be the diamond shape.

Thank you.

You should, because my textures aren't pretty see:

also that's the new longsword model by the way. After Spiney try to make sensible unwraps, though.

Yeah, those profiles.. after thinking about it and realising some weapons are stabbing related (more likely to have 2 edges), and others are for slashing (more likely to have 1 edge), that sorted out the profiles. Unless we want to use FANCY profiles, there's been some odd ones throughout history to reduce weight, or let blood out. I'll probably stick to <>, <=> and |=> if that makes sense even without the symbols aligning.

Du tegner meget flot o.o
And your modeled weapons look really great too, though I'd prefer not to run around with a chessboard :b

Mange tak!!

But then you'd have to MAKE some textures for it The chessboard I something I made because I can't put it in with NO texture (it goes a strange transparent purple), it's just waiting for someone to make a nice texture

krisCrash wrote:Mange tak!!

But then you'd have to MAKE some textures for it The chessboard I something I made because I can't put it in with NO texture (it goes a strange transparent purple), it's just waiting for someone to make a nice texture

I dunno, the chessboard textures might work for a twisted Alice in Wonderland - themed mod.

And, I'd love to go ahead and get a copy of your Scimitar, even with a chessboard texture. Where could I download?

Oh you guys the checkers are not staying!

BFG and everyone else can download what is done so far, here: http://kriscrash.dk/art/2010/dec/kriscrashweapons2.7z - includes adamantium mace, longsword, big axe and the 3rd madness scimitar. The stats are Daedric-ish but a bit lighter overall. The weapons have no collision so if you drop them or get disarmed, I don't think you'll see them again, don't know if they float or sink, but you can't grab anything without collision either. Found in an extra drawer in Aleswell Inn's room. Do feel free to make a handier ESP though.

I've sent the meshes to Spiney as well, he said he wanted to play with UVs, so those in that .7z file will not be 'fixed' any further until he says go. This is just to say that if anyone starts making textures for them now, they probably can't be used later, sorry. We're not that far along (except the madness scimitar, that's kinda final).

I wish to align the dagger so that the index finger comes through the notch. But it doesn't appear 0,0,0 is really the centre of the hand either. I don't really know a good method for sorting this out yet. Also is it too small?

Wow... I haven't read everything in this thread, mostly been looking at the pictures, and I'm stunned... You make this look sooo easy.
And I can barely make a box in Blender...

Anyway, keep up the work, everything I've seen this far looks very promising!

All these are reaaally cool.

Is there a possibility of the Sheogorath Face-Mace becoming reality?

Hah, love the sound of that, Sheogorath Face-Mace.

A query for you Kris. As you know a lot about .dds textures, is it possible to have rectangle textures. As a rectangle sized texture would let me be able to have the entire shaft and head of you large double headed axe in one piece.

Also what dimensions would they be if possible.

Forgive me for butting in, but if I recall correctly (Kris can confirm if I'm right or not) it is possible as long as the dimensions follow the pattern 32/64/128/256/512/1024/ and so on.

So you can have 512x1024 or 512x2048 as an example.

KalleFlaxx wrote:Wow... I haven't read everything in this thread, mostly been looking at the pictures, and I'm stunned... You make this look sooo easy.
And I can barely make a box in Blender...

Anyway, keep up the work, everything I've seen this far looks very promising!

Well it is kind of easy for me by now, heh. Sometimes I need to sort out EXACTLY how something would work in 3D though, 2D cheats so much. Boxes? Everything starts with a box! And cylinders. That's the sort of things I make stuff from.

Thank you!

Argonanza wrote:All these are reaaally cool.

Is there a possibility of the Sheogorath Face-Mace becoming reality?

Hah, love the sound of that, Sheogorath Face-Mace.

I doubt it, 'cause of ALL the other things I want to do and I didn't like it much, I suppose.

Spiney wrote:A query for you Kris. As you know a lot about .dds textures, is it possible to have rectangle textures. As a rectangle sized texture would let me be able to have the entire shaft and head of you large double headed axe in one piece.

Also what dimensions would they be if possible.

You know, I have been meaning to test that
*does so*
it works! As long as you do your UVs accordingly - remember they will be squished (I can set my app to display them as a rectangle though). Tested with a 256x1024 map for the long scimitar, and it shows up fine as long as it is otherwise correct. The normals DID look inverted (bumps become holes), so I will have to look at what did that. Probably not related - in any case, it's a matter of small editing.

I actually made the V cut on the axe to make it easier to unwrap.. also since it's most likely better to unfold the shaft completely. So use that if you want, or don't. (I don't know if the rudimentary unwraps I did showed up)

Ionis the Bear wrote:Forgive me for butting in, but if I recall correctly (Kris can confirm if I'm right or not) it is possible as long as the dimensions follow the pattern 32/64/128/256/512/1024/ and so on.

So you can have 512x1024 or 512x2048 as an example.

You have brought shame to my family I cannot forgive!!!
Well, it worked. I even saw some vanilla textures OUTSIDE those dimensions. I don't recommend it, reason being mipmaps.

Mipmaps are basically stored smaller versions of the texture, which your graphics card will grab when the texture is further away and doesn't need as high resolution. Or it can generate them itself??? But it's easier for it to work with numbers that are many times divisible by 2. So it can just half down the size. Actually I don't think it can make mips on the fly, since some modded textures look odd and grainy at a distance, and I think it's caused by lack of mipmaps. So, mipmaps save your GPU trouble! Also, they are a reason to have even resolution density on the unwrap, so the distance reduction is like, uniform.

I hope that all made sense, I don't know a lot about it yet!!

Here's a little theme post about textures NORMAL MAPS

We know from mathematics that a plane has a normal vector standing perpendicular to its surface. The same is true for polygons, being tiny little triangular planes, but their normal vector can actually be edited. This doesn't change the physical location of the polygon, but it appears to have a different angle to the light. (Light is the key here.)

First of all, you can edit the normals of a polygon to be an average of its neighbours (unified normals), making them smooth together more, or you can give them different normals and the edge between them appears.

As far as I know, Blender only does unified normals and you must physically 'split' an edge to get the sharp snap. Now THIS IS PROBABLY GOOD 'cause I think Oblivion splits the edge any way. So I'm starting to use this method in places.

Now, unified normals do NOT work very well across sharp bends, for instance, the edge of a sword it just goes lumpy. Remember that normals control the shading, how the surface reacts to light. If normals try to average over a sharp bend, it causes errors, so avoid that by splitting the edge or the normals.

So a polygon has 3 normals, one for each corner. That's fine.

I've modelled that scimitar, and I would like it to be more detailed, like have an embossed plate running up the centre of the blade, but it takes a lot of polygons. The plate won't stick out alot, so I could probably paint it on, but if I paint high lights to bring out the edge, they wont react to the light in the game and the illusion will break, it WILL look flat and painted on.

Now, we put a normal map onto the polygon. Every pixel on the normal map texture has its own normal vector. Before, the sword had 260 normals set in the vertices normal vectors, now it has as many as there are pixels in the map. YAY. The normal map fakes a ton of little surface changes and can make the embossed bump so the light plays along the edge correctly no matter how it is facing. The normal data is stored like this:

the Red channel displays the detail as if lit from the side but in reality it has the X component value of the normal vector. The Green channel is lit from above (y component), and the Blue channel represents the Z component, perpendicular to the page. It is VERY important that the blue channel is fairly BRIGHT, because it means the normals are pointing OUT of the object. If they are dark, they point in, the polygons are 'facing their back' to the light and will become black. This is what gains the normal map its tell tale blueish look, the base for it is generally 255,255,128 RGB.

This is why if you import an object with no textures it'll look black in some views - its normals are all ZERO.

Something else I learned while working on the Madness weapons is that.. a normal map shouldn't be too grainy. It tends to go grainy if we just use a normal map filter on the texture, but a normal map works best if it has larger areas to change, smoother transitions.

The above normal map I edited a bit myself, first I had to round the notches in the edge of the sword, I just painted them channel by channel (use the filter with "normalize only" setting after, it'll clean up your job). Then I had to make the raised platform, which I did by making a black background and the detail I wanted raised in white, ran the filter, and that basically gave me the plate running up the centre. Result in-game: http://kriscrash.dk/art/2010/dec/scim3game.jpg

I don't know a good way to 'bake' a normal map base to edit on yet, maybe if some of you are into zbrush sculpting it could be used.

Oh! I forgot to say, the Oblivion normal maps "blahblah_n.dds" also contain specular map, I guess I'll get to that when I make one.

Has anyone made a weapon mod for the Greenies? They could have a custom made "Banhammer"

I love the scimitar design.
Though I'd make the base a little thinner

Absence due to school and whatnot, but now I have time to work again.
In the time, I made a female dwarven cuirass

since that is missing
but I can't make skinned stuff export right, so meh :[

HatofMadness wrote:Has anyone made a weapon mod for the Greenies? They could have a custom made "Banhammer"

Always wanted to make banhammers, but how do they look???

Generalno1 wrote:I love the scimitar design.
Though I'd make the base a little thinner

Hmm, that could be! I'll consider it for future designs, since that will really make it a new design.

krisCrash wrote:

HatofMadness wrote:Has anyone made a weapon mod for the Greenies? They could have a custom made "Banhammer"

Always wanted to make banhammers, but how do they look???

Now that you mention it... Really. What does a banhammer look like?

Just Googled it, and maybe they look something like this? Except it should be 2-handed.