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Week 10 (28/04/25) - Final

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This was the tenth and final week, well I say week but it was only a couple days. This week I got some feedback on the adjustments that I made last week and how I could further improve the project. The feedback was: 1. That that shadows were too harsh/dark. 2. I should make the mace emission closer to that of the staff crystals. 3. I should add additional secondary lighting to the model. 4. That there were some issues with the assets used to create the background of the weapons and that I should look at having a plainer background. I agreed that the shadows were quite dark. To fix this I adjusted the post processing material that I created, I increased the size of the highlight to shadow transition and lightened the colour of the shadows slightly. I brought the emission level of the mace up by bringing up the value of the multiply, in the material editor, to a level closer to the staffs crystals. For the background, I removed the walls, platform, supports, table, and trimmings. I went ...
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Week 9 (21/04/25)

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This was the ninth week of my Stylised Egyptian Weapon project. At the beginning of the week, I asked for some feedback about my project so far and how it could be improved. A couple suggestions made were: 1. That I could look at adding verdigris to the assets with a copper material. 2. That I could add an emission to the mace head and possibly make it translucent. 3. Not to oversize the environment because it draws attention away from the assets. I hadn't thought about adding verdigris to the assets and thought it would be a cool way to add some extra detail to the Khopesh and Spear. I went back into the Substance Painter files and added a rough light blue-green layer with a dirt generator and a slope blur filter. I duplicated this layer, darkened the colour, and changed the slope blur seed, to add some variation to the verdigris. For the mace head, I added an emission to each layer, that created the material, and had a play around with the settings. Ultimately, I kept the emissio...
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Weeks 8 (14/04/25)

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This week was a relaxed week as I don't have much left to do. I put my assets together in Unreal Engine and created a small scene. I spent the majority of my time looking at various ways I could compose my scene with different ways of lighting and positioning of assets. I began working on the final presentation of my project. After creating most of the presentation, I still had a large amount of time so I decided to begin researching ways to make my assets more stylised because I believed they could still be improved. As I was researching, I came across a YouTube tutorial by Evans Bohl on how to add 'toon shading' to my scene using a post process material. I followed the tutorial and altered the settings to fit my scene. Doing this helped elevate my assets closer to the look that I wanted to have when I set out to create this project. Credit: The tutorial was created by: Evans Bohl You can find the video here:  https://youtu.be/mzydOmgN7mc?si=5RwyTADCfC6wGr1V​ You ca...
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Week 7 (07/04/25)

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This week I managed to finish quite a bit of work. I finished the Mace, by texturing it in Substance Painter, and then modelled and textured the backdrop. Here is an image of the textured Mace. For the texture of the mace, I used the metal smart material, I made, for the connectors and ends. I created another smart material of the spear shaft and put that on the shaft of the mace, adjusting the textures to fit. I then created the gold material for the trim that goes round the head of the mace. I wanted the grip of the mace to be more unique compared to the others so I decided to make it more of a leather wrap. I gave it a similar colourful (but purple) look like the other weapons, but the wear isn't as harsh and the wrap is tighter/closer together. I thought that plain stone was too boring for the head of the mace, so I gave it more of a marble look. I kept the roughness low and added multiple layers of a marble effect that were different shades. Here is an image of the backdrop pi...
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Week 6 (31/03/25)

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This was the sixth week of the Egyptian weapon project. This week I made substantial progress. I sculpted the high polys of both the Spear and Mace. I then textured the Spear. Here are the images of the sculpted high polys inside Nomad Sculpt. Here is an image of the textured spear. For the texture of the spear, I used the smart material, that I created from the staff connectors, on the connectors of the spear, adjusting it to fit the model. I created another smart material, from the grip of the staff, to use on the grip of the spear. I altered the textures and adjusted the colours to a green shade. I created a gold material for the 'legs'. For the head of the spear I created a copper material as this was one of the materials that they were made from. For the shaft, I created a wood texture with deep grooves. I put various colours in the wood, mainly greens and purples, and kept the base colour fairly matt. I received some feedback that the sandstone texture that I was using on...
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Week 5 (24/03/25)

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This was the fifth week of my Egyptian Weapon project. At the start of this week I decided to change up the way I was doing the project and to model the last two weapons together and then texture them both. This week I have modelled both the Spear and the Mace. I also made some changes to the Khopesh texture. Here is an image of the models inside of MAYA. For the spear I have tried to design it around the theme of beetles and scorpions. These bugs are commonly seen in Egypt and I thought the shapes they have could be interesting to use in a model. The spear head is similar to that of a pincer or a stinger. I added spikes to emulate the legs and a pole that would be use to push the spear head onto the shaft. I used similar grips to the staff, I added two as the spear would be wielded with two hands to thrust towards the enemy. I added a simple spike to the bottom end that would be used as another way to harm the enemy. For the mace, I used the spike from the spear on the top and the bot...
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Week 4 (17/03/25)

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This week has also gone smoothly. I have sculpted the the Khopesh inside of Nomad Sculpt, baked the information onto the low poly in Substance Painter, and then textured the model. Here is an image of the high poly in Nomad Sculpt. I sculpted the high poly in a similar way to the staff. For the pommel and the guard I added some slight wear to the edges and some small details. I created a similar, but different, wrap for the handle. I planned to make the blade a sandstone material so I added cracks coming from the chipped sections and and some deep scratches. Along the unsharpened part of the blade I made it bumpy and unpolished. For the texture I baked the information from the high poly onto the low poly, in Substance Painter. I turned the material I created for the staffs connectors into a smart material. I then used this material for the guard and the pommel, after making some adjustments for it to better fit the Khopesh. I did this for multiple reasons, the main one is continuity be...
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