Hey everybody,
I signed up to do a few weapons and I just completed my first one. The weapon is apparently not even in Morrowind, for some reason it was an unused asset that could only be accessed through the console. Hopefully it can be in one of Skywind quests! The weapon is called Wings of the Queen of Bats and is a double bladed battle axe, it was a fun sculpt, the only problems I ran into were getting nice baked textures and getting the poly count low enough. In the end I got the count down to 6544 tris (including the blood mask), at one point I made a lower poly version but it lost some of the topology in game. Even at that count it is still less than the Mace of Molag Bal though.
I would like to make eyes pulse but I could not get that to work, if anyone can please let me know.
Otherwise, constructive criticism is always welcome, so let me know what you think!
Link to Morrowind version
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Wings_of_the_Queen_of_Bats
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Ooh, very nice job on the axe! I was actually just thinking about this weapon, actually. A perfect place for it might be the sunken shrine of Boethiah. I remembered the place looked awesome when I first played Morrowind, but there are no interiors or loot to be had - just Boethiah's Daedric quest. If an underwater interior could be made, this might be a nice prize for explorers.
Wow, this needs to be included in Skywind! You did an amazing job.
The symbols on the original do not match up with any of the Daedric alphabet characters. There are only five of them, the right side is just a mirror of the left. I tried some versions with characters on the wings but it just did not follow the style very well, looked off to me.
My best guess is that it could be some strange form of the Dwemer alphabet, though some of the letters appear Daedric. Assuming it is Dwemer, here is my best transliteration: "SA PXY".
If Daedric, "VI GXZ" would be my estimate.
The handle would look better if it was a bit less red and more brown.
The handle is supposed to be a woven cover with leather wrapped around it, if I drop the red in the weave the leather just blends in to the point it might as well not be there. The weapon is enchanted with absorb health and the effects shader is set (and should be set to) multiple which means the red of the absorb health effect intensifies the red of the handle. I created a custom effect shader, texture, and enchantment all just to cut out the really heavy saturation that was happening with the default shader. It would be awesome if you could mask the effects shader so it only operated on parts of the weapon... now that I'm thinking about it I might be able to do just that with an alpha on the main diffuse that is not really being used for anything but a effects mask... maybe I'll look in to it.
I said "a bit more". It looks 'too' red at the moment.
got it, I think I should make it a little dirty too. I can pull the global saturation a little add some dark brown smudges
Denevir wrote:
Actually, this might be cool. Since Dawnguard added vampire lords, maybe Molag Grunda could be changed from a Winged Twilight (which are Azura's daedra - not Molag Bal's) into a female vampire lord? This way, her being Molag Bal's 'daughter' makes much more sense. Her mortal form could wield the axe, and she could transform into a vampire lord to give the player a real fight. I guess she could still be having an affair with a Frost Atronach, but even then, Daedroth would make more sense. Since those actually ARE the daedric servants of Molag Bal, you'd actually be sending the Daedroth to Molag Bal's realm of Oblivion to be tortured for eternity. I suppose not keeping it as it was would be 'lore breaking', but the original wasn't very lore friendly in the first place. So we'd be fixing a lore-unfriendly quest to be lore-friendly.
you guys know the lore, no questioning that! I know how to push and pull pixels, vertexes, CVs, and all the other 2D and 3D doohickeys (that's a technical term). So, that being said, feel free to say X is not canon and I should fix X problem to make it lore friendly... with in reason I'm not stating over.
Yup, agreed - it is ancient ;)
Wow, you did a really great job on that axe. You definitely have the technical skills. If you are still open to suggestions, I think the bat looks a little too cute to be weaponized. I would try to demon him up a little. Then maybe the symbols might not look so out of place. If nothing else, The horizontal wrinkles on the wings on the original could be good to break up the continuity of line on the blades. Anway, you might be able to make these changes with just texture, but if you have everything baked, just ignore this. For an example of a demon bat:
@Ashking Wulfharth
Ha! Thanks for the back handed compliment. So, I’m technically skilled but artistically challenged! Jerk! :-)
I do understand you though, you like the concept but you think I didn’t take it far enough. I was shooting for a more real looking bat not a demonic hell spawn version, to be honest I had not even considered it.
Since the textures ARE all baked out and compiled in some horrendously big Photoshop files (all the originals and first gen bakes are 8k) I can go back and do some painting. The thing is if you are only painting and not sculpting you can’t get some of the more dramatic detail as easily. I also don’t know if there is enough texture rez in the 2k game versions for the high level detail something like that would take. As of right now I have moved onto my next weapon and plan on coming back to each one after people have given feedback and doing some updates. Although this next one I'm going to post a WIP and get feedback to make sure it is not to far a field of being canon/lore friendly.
@HFPK you aren't autistically challenged, it's hard to just pull references and inspiration out of your diddlyhole.
@Denevir perhaps Molag Grunda is the byproduct of Molag Bal having forcey fun time with her mother, and wouldn't leave any grody implications(no offense to anyone here who might be into that junk)
@Ashking Wulfharth
@greg079
I was not offended by Ashking Wulfharth comments, I was just giving him a hard time about his wording that's all. Truthfully any feedback is welcome, and I had not thought of going rout, so all in all it is good to see another take on it.
I think the best way to Adhoc The Wings of the Queen Bat would be to write up a whole new Daedric quest line perhaps involving one of the vampire clans. For instance (just a thought) you can do a series of quest for the vampire clan Quarra or maybe a new clan in which you gather the materials to summon Molag Grunda but upon summoning she tells you to destroy the vampire clan to receive her prize or if you wish to keep the vampire clan alive you must fight off Molag Grunda's minions (winged twilight anyone?) to receive a special prize from the vampire clan. Or perhaps the Wings of Queen bat could be a on Molag Grunda when you kill her for the vampirism cure quest as sort of a double incentive. Just a thought though
It really reminds me of this sword
That's very nice, is that a game asset? specifically skyrim? if so I would like to look at the NIF files.
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/22041/?
Thanks GendunDrup
@HFPK- I wish that was the first time I got called a jerk today. It is a very good looking axe, and if you're baked, then you're done. You are right to post WIPs in the future, not because you need approval for your work, but because it is to your benefit to get advice and opinions from the community. Most of the people here are building portfolio work so it's beneficial to get peer reviewed from other artists and get opinions from enthusiasts. I can't wait to see what you're working on next!
Hi can u add red daedric runes on it? like original?
So right now I have the axe in a chest in the basement of Alvor and Sigrid's House in Riverwood for testing. I still need to tweak the textures and effect shader. I started a new character with a clean install of the game, so my guy is only lvl 1. While testing my Bow of Shadows, I shot Sigrid in the head, it didn't killer her so she ran over and grabbed the Wings of the Queen of Bats axe that I left in the chest and proceeded to kick my ass with it... stupid axe :-)
I'm really close to finishing my Bow of Shadows, once I do I will come back and finish this one. I really needed to take a step back from it before I could say it is done. As for the daedric runes... well the thing is if I put some on there they will be mirrored incorrectly round the axe head because of the way I ended up doing the final UV layout. I could put them on and say the hell with being correct and just shoot for aesthetically pleasing. I'll look at it again soon.
Sorry to necro the thread at this moment, but how is the progress on this weapon, so far?
Seeing as the guy making it was last online over 4 months ago, I'd assume this was never turned in, and probably won't be.