Gamma fun eh? 
That looks really good. Any chance of a close-up of the hilt/handle?
the image is still very dark.
Hi,
Here is the raw model fresh out of ZBrush.
I’m going to be using the Lightwave displacement technique on a production shot shortly, which will help me get my head around it a little better as well, and then I’ll post the results with an explanation of the steps I used. 
I just noticed that the teeth on the crossbar didn’t render on one side. Strange…
Hi Dewey I love your art¡¡¡ Is just elegant and very well done all the details¡¡¡
Congratulations and thanks alot for the help¡¡
Andreseloy
Thanks Dewey! 
As a LightWave user, I am gratefully awaiting further information from you. It saves me setting my hair on fire in frustration… 
I am eagerly awaiting a step-by-step on the techniques, and I am sure as hell not alone in that. 
Dewey
I made some tests with displacement like you described it in lightwave and it works well except the seams. One question concerning the animation I have:
Normally I use messiah animate for rigging and animate characters. I then bake out the animation of messiah with point oven pro from mark wilson (a messiah plugin), which will generate an *.mdd file for the motion.
In Lightwave I have now to load this mdd file for my character and I have to set the subdivision order in lightwave to last, otherwise my mesh explode. But for the displacement I have to set the subdivision order to first, otherwise there is no displacement. So animation and displacement won’t get together. It can’t be true!!
Any suggestions?
Fritz
Arn
The problem with the seams can be fixed if you do the following:
While in ZBrush, before exporting your model and after you have assigned UV mapping, draw your model on the canvas and leave it in Edit mode. Next go to Tool>Texture>Uv Check. This should expose any seams on your model right in ZBrush. Next, Tool>Texture>Fix Seam.
It’s easy to miss because the button at the bottom doesn’t become active unless you have used Uv Check first. Oddly, I have to do this every time because even after fixing the tool and saving it, the next time I open it and check the seams, there is a gap again. Is this a bug? Only the Lords of ZBrush know.
In my current project, this is as far as I’ve gotten:
ZBrush
This is the second model I’ve created in ZBrush. This is for real. I need him for a shot we are working on. The body will not be detailed because my guys wear clothes and shoes. His right arm will be artificial so that explains that.
Lightwave before and after displacement:
It’s not perfect, but It’s better than no displacement. I’ll likely model and texture everything first before I tackle the issues in Lightwave. It’s not my normal workflow, but we are expecting Lightwave 8 any day now, so I will hold off trouble shooting the Lightwave stuff until then.
Arn, I also use Point Oven and The Beaver Project to transfer animation and objects between Lightwave and MAYA. I use MAYA just to run the SyFlex cloth simulator. And the displacement order will prove to be an issue for me as well. You may try to attempt the same technique with the Normal Displacement plugin. Let me know how that goes.
Here is what I’ve discovered thus far, the first one is kinda dumb:
-
Whatever the tutorials or the manual say about increasing local resolution on a mesh, don’t do it. An innocent little dialogue will tell you to go to subdivision level 1 in order for it to work and then 3 hours later – DOH! – you realize that you can no longer import your base mesh because the number or vertices has changed.
-
I’ve notice better detail with 8 bit grayscale targa files than the 16 bit tiffs converted to RGB in photoshop. I know this sounds crazy, but I’m not sure if the problem is with the fact that I’m using an RGB image in the bump channel, of if Lightwave simply doesn’t like the 16 bit image.
-
There are no easily quantifiable rules to follow as every model I’ve imported into Lightwave for displacement required very different settings for the displacment to work at all.
We’ll see what happens in Lightwave 8.
Dewey thanks very much for this answer. It is great to see how people like you try to do the best out of a package an give this information to others. Concerning the displacement you said that you use as well maya. Why you don’t render the displacement in maya mental ray. If I am right, MR supports the micropoly displacement or the subpixel displacement. I really don’t have the money to buy maya but maybe another render engine for lightwave. I try air with lightman1.1, but I have no succes with this combination until know. It’s really not easy to texture an object with theese tools out of lightwave.
I hope, that maybe the next version ot messiah studio will bring the micropoly displacement in it’s render engine.
All the best.
Fritz
Dewey
I think I found a solution for the deformation problem.
When I set the subdivision Order in lightwave to after bones, then the object deforms as keyed in messiah and the displacement map is also rendered onto the object in lightwave.
Best regards.
Fritz
What I do is generate both a positive and negative displacment maps in ZBrush at 4K resolution using GUV mapping. I can’t seem to keep my Lightwave UV mapping, maybe someone could explain that to me.
This is because of Lightwave’s OBJ exporter. It doesn’t export texture coordinates.
My solution has been to use external packages that can import LWO and export OBJ with texture coordinates. The program I’m using is called Ultimate Unwrap3D which is $40, but there might be some free packages that can do this as well.
What I’d like to see is a rudimentary UV editor or at least viewer in ZBrush. It’s tedious and frustrating now to even see how the UV mapping is like by having to convert to a texture and then filling the texture to the canvas.
By the way, check out this Lightwave plugin for normal displacement: http://lynx.aspect-design.de/plugins/normal_displace_info.htm. It works about 100x faster than Lightwave’s crappy normal displacement modifier and it also gives more accurate results than using deformation->bump displacement after applying the bump map in the surface editor.
Yayyy! Stormbringer escapes from the Lords of Chaos and is seeking another master to control 
I prefer the later images - they show more detail, but subtly, while still maintaining the intended appearance of the sword.
Was your version based on anyone’s designs or simply from your reading of the books? I am thinking of Rodney Matthew and Michael Whelan’s work specifically…
like the model very nice…and love the books…so you got a fanboy postie…heh heh.
custom_junky_mail
A little tip for ZBRUSH/LIGHTWAVE workflow
LW can export an .obj with the UV coordinates*:
- create 1 or more UV map
- open Surface Editor
- assign UV(s) to 1 (or more) channel (color, bump… what U want)
- Export in OBJ
Sorry for my English
Enjoy !
IOIX
I like the whole saga of the Eternal Champion. Perhaps I prefer Corum (first three books) and Dorian Hawkmoon to the more savage Elric of Melniboné part. I like your work a lot, yet I cannot see Stormbringer like this. Bizarre…I cannot see how it looks like in my imagination. Anyways: this is a superb job, and a frightening sword.
I was wondering about the need to make a + and - displacement map in ZB for LW. As one is technically the opposite of the other wouldnt the “invert” tab in LW’s image editor panel work the same.
Clone Instance and then invert. I think that could be more efficient memory wise as DM’s can be quite large files.
Great classic intepretation of Stormbringer. It sort of reminds me of the Frank Brunner version. Good show.
Too black? Stormbringer? :rolleyes: That’s sort of like saying atoms are too small. 
Does Moorcock ever describe the runes as glowing? Maybe some scene based lighting in the runes could let you make the blade as black as needed, but still make it not appear “too dark”
Glad to find another fantasy fan of Elric’s saga!!!
Nice sword my friend.Pheraps one day I will send a thread dedicated to this grear dark artifact.Hope you’ll come to see it.
Greetings from MattHHH
This thread is from seven years – and two ZBC versions – ago. I don’t think those images are available anywhere anymore.