Qworkshop3 Tutorials

WeaponModeling: Making a simple weapon Part 2 by AshRain

Before we start with the model we are first going to draw the swords outlines on graphic paper. I made a front and a side view here.

A side view is a bit pointless for a simple model like this sword but for more complex models it's a great help. You might even need a top view of the model. Furthermore you might want to use a ruler for longer straight lines (which I didn't in this case).

The way I'm going to construct this model will be with a combination of cylinders and self-made faces.

First I will zoom the grid of the front view until I get a grid with about the same size as my graphic paper. We will start by making the handle of the sword by making a cylinder and changing it a bit. When we look at the handle of the sword we can see that we need some stacks to make it.

I enlarged the handle in the following picture to display the number of stacks.

As you can see I only need five stacks. Of course you could add more stacks to give it a more round look as it is quite angular now. But we are making a low polygon model here. And besides, a good skin around it an you won't notice that it's not round when you play with your model ingame (covered in tutorial 4).

So we will need a cylinder with 5 stacks. Most handles consist out of only 5 slices (like the Q3 weapons) but those aren't intended to look round. Five sliced cylinders look very crude when you really look at them. However we can use any number here. Lower = less polygons, higher = better looks. Just depends on what you want.
I will use seven slices here to leave the polys low while getting that round look.

So now I will create a cylinder with 5 stacks and 7 slices. Try to align it with the grid. So make it 2 squares wide. Just as in the drawing.
As you can see the top and bottom of the cylinder are not covered. You can look right inside it. Or even though it if you have Draw backfaces disabled. So we need to do something about that first. Change the top view to bottom and select Face(F6). Close the bottom. Make sure that all your faces face the right way. Now you would have something that look likes this.

We don't need to cover up the top of the cylinder cause the hilt will be attached there. Now we will start forming the cylinder into the handle. I will be using Scale for most of this. The cylinder I made fits is 2 squares wide as in the drawing. But it should be only one square wide when viewed from the left or right. So I will select the entire cylinder in the left view and scale it till it fits in one square. The width in the front view should still be two when you are done with this. Now I will edit the entire cylinder with the use of the scale and move command until it fits the drawing I made. You can use the grid as an easy reference. Tip: When you want to move or scale over just one axis disable the other axes by using the X, Y and Z buttons. This will save time and frustration.
When you are done it could look like this.

I didn't used the axis fields to scale here. While this provides better control over the scaling of the model it's also more time-consuming(which I don't have much =). And besides, real weapons are never exactly symmetrical.

Before we continue on the hilt we are going to learn about Groups first. Click on the second tab to go to the group options. You can see a text area which displays a name like Cylinder01 or a higher number if you started over a couple of times. Go back to Model tab and draw a box somewhere in the screen. Then return to Groups again. As you can see a second name saying Box01(or higher) has appeared. Below this are five buttons and a textfield. The first button is Select. Make sure Box01 is selected in the list and then press the select button a couple of times. This toggles the selection of the box you just made on and of. The box is a group. And so is the cylinder we made at the start. MilkShape automatically groups new shapes you make. Ofcourse we can also make our own groups. This can be done with the help of the regroup button. First select both the box and the cylinder. You can do this by going back to the Model tab and select them both. Or easier, you simply select Box01 press the small select button so that it's selected, select Cylinder01 in the list and press the select button. With both selected press regroup.

The result of this action is quite clear. Both the Cylinder01 and the Box01 group have disappeared and are replaced with a single group called Regroup01. Toggling select proves that the box and the cylinder now belong to the same group. But of course we don't need the box for the model. So select the box in one of the views and delete it. You must switch back to the Model tab to do this. You can't use the delete on the Groups tab for this cause this delete removes whatever group is selected in the list. Note that this delete removes a group no matter if it's selected or not. Regroup01 is a bad name for our swordhandle. So we fill in 'handle' in the textfield and then press the rename button. With the hide button you can toggle a group out of your views. This might come in handy when you want to edit a different group and an other group is in the way. Keep in mind though that a hidden group isn't really gone. So when you want to create new faces in a hidden group this will not work. We will ignore the Smoothing options.

Why do you need to group? It is quite important for the skin you are going to apply later. But we will get to that in a different tutorial. It also allows for easier editing of the model. It's kind of hard to give a clear example of this but you will notice the difference when you try some things for yourself.

Now we will start on our hilt. As you can see in the drawing it is a square piece of the sword. No round parts on it. So now I'm going to use a different approach. I will fist set out the outline of the model with vertices(F5). The grid provides good reference of where the vertices should be placed. Do not place them directly above the handle. Keep at least a square of room between.
You can use CTRL+G to align the vertices to the grid. For the vertices that are not on the grid you can use the move command. To put a vertex in the exact center of the square you can select the move command and type 0.5 in the X and the Y field. Press move and voila. Vertex in the middle. Use this for accurate placement of the vertices.

The result could look like this.

Now we will connect the vertices with triangles using Face(F6). This will look like this.

Now we have a outline of the hilt. Select the entire hilt with select faces. Then press CTRL+D. This will duplicate the selection. Duplication will not work when you only have vertices selected. Move the duplicate a bit to the back in the top view. Now go to the Groups tab and make sure that both pieces of the hilt are in one group called hilt. You can hide the handle if you like if it obscures some of your views. We don't need it yet.

As you can see the duplicate is facing the same way as the original. But it should face the other way. Select the duplicate and use the Mirror Front <> Back option in the Vertex menu. It should now be facing the right way.

The only thing left to do is to connect the two pieces together. Leave the parts where the blade and the handle are going to be open.

The handle can now be connected to the hilt. This is why I left some space between the hilt and the handle. It's easier to make faces then. This is how I connected the both.

As you can see it's not straight as in my drawdesign. I decided that this looked this better, more round. This will happen often. When you are busy with your model you change something that is not in the drawing you originally made. This does not matter. The drawing is just a base. If you think that your model looks better a different way just do it. There are things that you don't know how they look until you modeled them. So experiment by moving and scaling parts. You might have a better model(or a worse one =P).

Last up is the blade

You can either use a cylinder for this or draw a outline with vertices. Remember that a blade is not flat but is a bit oval. So the best thing to do here is to use a cylinder.
For the point of the cylinder just scale the top of the cylinder so small that all the vertices are at the same place. When two or more vertices occupy the same place MilkShape automatically connects them together.

Give it a try! Make a cylinder, shape it the right way and then connect it to the rest of the sword. You might need some extra vertices to make the connection look nice. Don't forget that the two points of the hilt need to be placed against the sword.

Last tips: If you need a vertex somewhere but there is already a face there, just delete the face and reface the entire part with the new vertex included. And don't forget to use CTRL+G and the move and scale axisfields for accurate placing.

This was my result.

It doesn't look very classy, but it's a low polygon weapon remember? 216 in this case. If you can do with less with better results. You are a natural =)

Next tutorial we will apply a skin to this sword.
Thanks for watching.

AshRain