Double Saber in progress - need advice to continue

[Psykotik]

I downloaded GMax yesterday and have been playing around with it for a while. Finally, I decided to make a real effort at making something, and this is what I came up with:

 

Pic 1

 

Pic 2

 

I need advice on a few things: first and foremost, any constructive critism is more than welcome.

 

Secondly, Ive browsed through the tutorials, but most things geared towards getting models into JK2 seem to focus only on character models, so if someone could explain what is needed to get a saber in game, I'd appreciate it.

 

Lastly, how many sides, in your opinions, is it good for the general cylinder of the hilt to have? Im currently using 8 sided cylinder, should I increase that number?

[Psynex]

Not a bad start. I wouldn't have modeled every ring along the shaft. That's something a good skin can portray. Because at the distance you will be viewing it in 3rd person, you won't even see the geometric detail. That's why just a skin will do the job. The steps are an intersting touch, though very heavy in the polygons. each 90 degree angle is 4 polygons, multiply that by 8 cylindrical sides. That's 32 polys per step, times the three sets you have...totals a whopping 96 polys. For a reapeated pattern. Considering you don't have much other geometry on the saber, it's still ok if you remove the bands from the shaft and just make it a cylinder. This will keep the polys down while retaining everything you have there.

You might even think about removing the 2 other buttons on the underside of the saber unless it's held where you'd view them sideways.

 

As far as the main cylinder I wouldn't go over 8 sides for a general rule.

[Psykotik]

Thanks for the advice. The two buttons are there from what I saw in my imagination, meant to activate in a sort of Darth Maul manner (where he had all the buttons, its speculated to be so he didnt accidently activate or deactivate a blade in combat). I realise they wont be seen often, if at all in game. I also just looked at the poly count, and realize I could deffinately lose the grips on the shaft (even with the pretty low detail it was just over 1500). Ive pretty much set this aside and started work on a new saber thats more Luke-inspired. I'll post pictures when its nearing completeness to hopefully get some feedback. Maybe as I get better I'll revisit this one.

 

Thanks again for the feedback.

[agentj64]

The model is good, and im not doubiting it, but some of the detail wont even be noticable, so if your low on polycount you can easilly combine many things and fake them in the texture

otherwise well done

and use detached objects for buttons, don't carve it into the mesh or youll be adding many useless faces

[Psykotik]

Bump and a question. Wll the game automatically smooth something very nicely? What I mean is, the hilt I am now working on (a Yoda hilt--I know its been done, but its relatively simply so I thought it was a good place to start) looks very blocky, and I know the game will smooth it to some extent, but just how much?

[Psykotik]

Just to give an idea of how much smoothing I'd need:

 

Pic 1

 

Pic 2

[Psynex]

You have to set up smoothing groups. You can find some quick tutorials on it. Gmax should have it in their helpfiles. It's THE technique that sets a good looking model apart from a bad looking one.