Design Blog: Weekend Modeling Project: Mace

Now that I've graduated school and am working, I don't have the between-semester breaks anymore. I really treasured having a week or two without any real responsibilities, because that's when I could just let go and do something I wanted to do. I found that opportunity again with the Thanksgiving break, and decided to do a small four day project for myself.

While it's not a direct part of my line of work as a level designer, I found that I really enjoy 3d modeling. I don't get to spend a lot of time doing it, and I felt I needed a good refresher on the whole process. It was time I cracked open Maya and gave it a go. I've been playing a lot of Skyrim lately, and that influence my choice to model a mace (or morningstar). I found a concept on Google Images and set a few goals for myself. I wanted to practice what I already know, but also learn something new. Instead of just making a model, unwrapping it, and painting a diffuse, I decided to go a little deeper.

My goals are to create a high and low poly model of the mace, and topologize the high-poly correctly so I can import it into Zbrush. I've never used the software before, but I figure a good day of tutorials will allow me to sculpt some details into my mesh. My low-poly budget was 2000 tris, and I wanted to project normals from the high-poly onto the low. And, of course, I need to unwrap and create a diffuse map.

Here's what I have so far, I'll update as I go. I decided to casually record the time it takes for each step so in the future I have a "time to beat".