Rendering the turn around video

I made a base for the turn around video out of a plane with a circular gradient in the middle. I then made a pinkish gradient background in Photoshop for the video, so it isn't so bland. I then imported the background into 3dsmax, and combined the dagger file with the base file and then did a keyframe of the dagger spinning around in a 360 degree motion for 300 frames, with its texture, and then again without its texture.

I then opened up Adobe Premiere Pro and imported the two turn around renders into a new sequence and then rendered it again one last time. 

Texturing the dagger

I then started texturing the dagger, and as the game requires realistic textures, I used the ones from the picture I based the dagger on. I imported the picture of the dagger and the UV Map into Photoshop CS6. I then pressed CTRL+I on the UV Map layer to make it negative colours. I then used the marquee tool to isolate the parts of the dagger into the four respective parts - the pommel, handle, crossguard, and blade. I then dragged them onto the UV Map layer and lined them up with the UVs.

 I then saved the file and linked it to the model in 3dsmax and made sure that the textures lined up with the sections of the dagger using the free transform tool.

I realized once I had finished putting all of the textures into the UVs that they didn't conform to the contours of the UVs, so I used the warp tool to fit the texture onto the UV perfectly. I then made another layer for shading, and used a small brush tool at 20% opacity with linear burn on to show realistic shading to the bright parts.

UV Unwrapping the dagger

As I started the UV Unwrapping process, I realized that since my model was pretty much a quarter of a dagger, the UV Unwrapping would be pretty simple and quick. I then realized I had the break almost every edge to get it to relax without messing up completely. I added the checker pattern to the dagger and looked at the edges that would need to be broken.

A lot of edges were broken that day. I then started to separate the parts from the group, and when I had to use the planar map, I found out that my dagger never needed to be flipped to a different axis, it was always on the right one. 

I then flipped all of the UVs to match the quarter I modelled, and then snapped all of the vertices together and then moved them into the box. The UVs were very easy to fit into the box, and I had a lot of space left.

Modelling the dagger

For the modelling of the dagger, I created a plane and put the image of the dagger over it. I then used the line tool to sort of trace around half of the dagger, so I could add a symmetry modifier to mirror it sideways, then mirror it again so it had two faces. This was to make it faster and easier for me to make the dagger, instead of having to do the entire thing and risk stuffing it up.

I then used the Bevel tool on the faces to make the curved handle, pommel, crossguard, and blade. This gave the model some really nice curves without going super high poly. I then added the symmetry modifiers but had to move the edges on the inside that so that they were straight instead of curving inwards. 

I finished my model pretty quickly, thanks to the symmetry modifiers and line tool. I was ready to move onto the UV mapping.

Research

I am to create a 3D asset for a game for this assignment. After thinking about what I wanted to create for a while, I decided on creating a shield. I started the shield strong, but it had one problem after the other, so I eventually scrapped it for another medieval piece, a dagger. But what design will it be? What era? Fantasy or historically accurate? These questions flowed through my head as I searched for reference.

I eventually realized that I was liking the more realistic designs more than the fantasy designs, and I liked the medieval designed daggers. So I compiled a list of the ones that I liked.

I decided I liked the bottom one the most, so I decided I would base my design off of it. I was making this model for a Skyrim-like game, with lots of medieval-type weaponry.