Hello everyone!
I’m Sergio! Some of you might have seen me hanging out in VFXApprentice.
This is my 1st post in the Real-Time VFX page, to document my VFX findings/progress!
https://twitter.com/renatusdev
https://www.artstation.com/renatusdev
Discord: @renatusdev
Cyberslash Concept
Lets get to the point! Cyberslash. Here is my idea.
Inspiration/MainReference: https://twitter.com/jeokhwa_JH
Scene Setup
The sword was obtained from: Sword Two-Hander | 3D Weapons | Unity Asset Store
Cyberslash Slash Mesh
Problem: I always feel like I winged my final slash meshes, so I want to establish a good, consistent way. So, I spent substantial time figuring out a new workflow for developing slash models.
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Maya and Blender Lattice Deformations: These either had edged corners or the UVs where mapped purely left to right instead of left to right + inner radius to outter radius.
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Blender Curves: These work. But sometimes after extruding for specific shapes, they can have small issues requiring mesh edits around to get it to work. These work for general stuff though. In this case, I’d need to retweak the inner circle because the sword actually covers areas not covered in this mesh.
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Double Blender Curves: The idea was making two Blender curves and then bridging the edges, but the vertical edges are not linear, causing incorrect UV distortions from the sampled texture.
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Blender Curve Plugin: The best result, came from a Blender curve plugin “Add Curve: Extra Objects”. The grey mesh above an example of its interface. It has many variations. This one allowed for two paths two connect seemlessly, and the tweakable parameters gave the correct results.
This is exactly what I wanted.
Anatomy Of The FX
Now I need to establish what to start developing, and how.
Since I have my slash mesh ready, I’ll probably do the Main Slash.
How?
Either a well Hand-Painted Texture… or…
I do a 2D animation on our Slash Mesh, giving me the creative freedom to add little new extra things + the Secondary Slash.
But conceptualizing new ideas + 2D animation on a warped UV space = a knife in a gunfight.
Will I try it still?
Probably.
Until then!
Sergio.