[Blaz Berlec]

I first thought to post this post under the topic about computer game Half-life 2 sword mods, but I thought not many people would look there, since it's primarily about that game mod and Albion's swords used for models. I hope this post is somewhat interesting and on topic, since it's picturing a real sword.

I tried myself in making a replica of sword from our National Museum, and since I don't yet have the skills to make it in steel, I first decided to image it in computer program for 3D modeling. This has been my hobby for several years now, but I mainly use it for simple projects. This is a second time I tried to make a sword - first time was years and years ago, and I tried to make a sword from Manowar's first album back cover. It came out horrible. You'll be the judge if I had more success this time.

This is a drawing of a sword from Slovenian National Museum:



Sword No. 22, T. 6:22.




I have yet to scan some black and white photos of the sword, but they're small and a bit blurry.


Some info on the sword:

Founding place: River Ljubljanica, year 1832.

Description: Double edged steel sword.

Some measurements: length = 116,1 cm, weight = 1695 g, blade length = 90,9 cm, blade length at cross = 4,9 cm, at half of blade = 3,0 cm, thickness of blade = 1,0 cm at cross - 0,7 cm at half of blade.

Blade has brass inlays on both sides – two swords side by side and two “number ones” side by side. Pommel has a small clover stamp on each side of tang below.

Date: Beginning of 15.th century

Literature: Tancik, Orožje in bojna oprema, 1971; Gotika, Premeti; Tomaž Nabergoj, Oboroženi stan srednjeveške družbe na slovenskem na osnovi materialnih virov. Primer: Meči, 2001

Ofcourse I had many more information for modeling the sword - Nabergoj's book has tons of info and I haven't seen any book that lists that much measurements. Everything is measured in all axis and thicknesses, so modeling was really a simple process. Below are some “final” pictures I made – I have discovered that making a 3D image of sword is almost as hard (if not harder) as photographing it in real world – you have to use the proper lighting and notice the reflections in steel… There is still much work to do, but it’s a good start.


Modelling the sword in Lightwave 3D, here you can see the background picture I was using for reference:




Half finished sword, still need inlays and a grip:








Nearly finished, only the material looks a bit too "plastic", and several details still bug me (like cross-section of the blade):







Some backgrounds I now proudly use for my computer desktop:






I wouldn't mind at all having this sword custom made. Anyone volunteers to do it? Sword is really interesting with its beautiful blade, elegant pierced cross and simple pommel. It’s massive (it must have weighted more than 1,8 kg when new), but I guess since most of the mass is concentrated near the hilt, it is very wieldable.

So, any comments, questions, requests? Feel free to ask.


Blaz

[David McElrea]

It was you, wasn't it?

With regards to this sword-- beautiful original and excellent graphic design on your part! I'm impressed! So you found the sword's measurements in Nabergoj's book?

[Gordon Clark]

Very Nice!

[Jean Thibodeau]

Blaz;

Great computer graphic work and good sword design: Now I will have to spend some of my sword and armour money on new software. I mostly use Photoshop and an older version of Painter: What I don't have is an affordable 3D program with user friendly tools and a reasonnable learning curve and compatible with Photoshop 7 on Mac

I have used 3D programs from the late 1980s and 1990s were the menu structure and tools seemed designed to drive you crazy: The more skill you had with freehand drawing the more the tools felt as if you were trying to draw with boxing gloves on ! ........... LOL.

I can do a good job drawing stuff with Photoshop but obviously 3D modelling combined with 2D effects has a lot of advantages in not having to redraw everything just to see it from a different angle.

Any advice on what to look at as possible 3d software ?

Also, a graphic like this should be a great way to show a custom swordmaker exactly what you are looking for when commissioning a sword. You could also use the suggestions from the swordmaker and easily modify the graphic in a continuing process. A wilder idea is that many animation programs use a realistic physics model to control motion and imputing the mass ot the elements of a sword and animating the results could give some preview of the feel in hand of the sword.

[Russ Ellis]

Nice job on the modeling, I'd buy the sword, except I'd like something a little less simple in the pommel department. Of course I realize you are just modeling what was there. What don't you like about the cross section?

[Nate C.]

Greetings all,

Blaz - Nice work! I'd be interested to know how you did the blade geometry (boolean operations, by eye, etc.). I think I'm gonna have to give that a try again. My first attempt at a Rapier wasn't pretty (at least not to me ).

Jean - Blender is a program that I play with occasionally for 3d modeling. It's free (or was when I got it) and pretty powerful. Be prepared for asteep-ish learning curve as it was written by nerds, for nerds and only makes sense to them until you've practiced a while. For a free program it's definately worth trying.

Cheers,

[Blaz Berlec]

Uh, lots of questions. So, first things first.

David McElrea - no, I don't do any game modding. And my computer is a bit too slow for that game anyway.

All the measurements I needed were in Nabergoj's book. The only things missing are perhaps balance point of the sword and COP - but these cannot be measured exactly on a blade without a grip. Geometrically looking I had all the measurements I could wish. Almost. More cross sections with better drawings would help. Best thing is, the book describes 26 swords from our National Museum with such detail, so this is surely not the last project.


Jean Thibodeau - sorry, I can't give you much advice about 3D software. Most of the programs seem confusing to me. Sure, full of options and functions, but very though to learn. I've been using Lightwave 3D almost since the day it came to PC from Amiga. It was much simpler back then, and it grew slowly, so I kind of understand it. But I'm a bit rusty, because I don't use it regularly.

I agree, such images would be a great tool for a sword designer or a smith - you can visualise all the details and proportions, before you begin your work. Not that Peter Johnsson needs that - his drawings are really accurate.

Oh, and I don't think that physics models from 3D imaging programs are accurate enough to draw any conclusions from their calculation. Well, they should find the center of gravity and calculate mass pretty accurately. Unfortunately, Lightwave has no such tool.



Russ Ellis and Nate C. - about cross section:

Well, I made a quick render to show the problems:




(No blade was harmed during the taking of these pictures)

Drawn cross sections are from the drawing in a book. As you can see, they look pretty rounded and ill-defined. But the images of the sword show quite crisp cross section - well defined double fullers in upper part and sharp "ridge" in lower.

Here are two photos of the sword - unfortunately one is a photocopy and other is a bad print in a book, so they're not the best.








Therefore I made the cross sections much crisper than the drawings. Unfortunately, I have very little knowledge or information about sword cross-sections. I can't remember if I even saw an actual drawing of a cross section in great detail! Hm... Bummer...

Nate C. - I made the rough geometry of the blade by tapering the trapezoid, shaping it to sword profile and then subtracting the fullers with boolean. I'd rather do it with splines, but Lightwave handles them very badly. I'd like to try the Alias Maya just for this reason - spline solids and booleans...

[Joel Whitmore]

Very nice work Blaz. I am impressed with Lightwave's renderer. The sword is a nice one too. If I remember correctly, Raven Armoury had a pic of a very similar sword at one time on it's gallery page, which I think is taken down now. I use Softimage XSI and there are some very steep price discounts if you are a student or teacher. The spline tools are excellent, the polygon tools are great and the mental ray renderer is top notch.


Joel

[Alexi Goranov]

[Blaz Berlec]

[Jean Thibodeau]

Blaz;

No problem with not being able to advise me with software purchases, ease of use etc......

These are getting easier to use as "real" artists / users are starting to influence how the tools are designed: The tools are getting more user friendly all the time and the cost less astronomical.

As to using a 3d animation programs to evaluate the dynamics of the blade: This might be possible with existing tools, but I was just thinking out loud about what might be possible in a few years.

There might be "Gaming" potential if someone could figure out a control system that could approach the spirit of real sword fighting with some form of realistic feedback to the game users hands.

But this is getting too far away from your post subject: This is good stuff for sword design and all sorts of possible artwork, graphic novels, comic books and special effects in films.

Again great work, and the more often you use any "good" software the more you can do with it: Sometimes much more than what even the makers imagined, as the variables can be almost infinite.

[Blaz Berlec]

Sorry for resurrecting this really old thread, but I just had to add this picture.



It was taken in Slovenian National Museum in 2007 at the closure of Western Martial Arts workshop, and I had the privilege of holding this sword again last year. Still a beauty, even from close up.

[Joe Fults]

Now getting to do that with the original is very cool!

[Darrin Hughes]

I don't think you need to apologise, except for making people jealous that is a beautiful sword. Just out of interest, how close do you feel that you got with your 3D recreations, now that you've had the chance to spend some time with the original?

D.

[Eric Bergman]

Awesome blade. That sword would make a pretty cool custom order. Seriously though. More Console and PC games should look at historical examples instead of fantasy fluff.

[Luka Borscak]

I like the combination of double fullers and diamond profile in the upper part. I would love to see that sword reproduced by a good maker, either custom or production. What would it be, fullered XVIIIa or what?

[Chad Arnow]

[Eric Bergman]

[Tim Ormsby]

If anyone is interested in a decent 3D program that is cheap to purchase ($25US), try out Milkshape 3D. The learning curve isn't too bad and there are decent tutorials in the helpfiles and on their forums. It's the program that I do all my modding for Medieval 2 Total war

http://chumbalum.swissquake.ch/

[Chad Arnow]