The Quarterstaff, Spear, and Polearm Project (aka, I Made A Stick)

[Uadjet]

Excellent.
About books I would prefer to strip down the number as much as possible, possibly to 2 books (normal stuff, plate steel stuff), if possible (aka the number of items is not too big and it is not too hard to read/use). Reason is when it comes down to make fixes/maintenance in the database I find it easier to perform the task and another reason is I perceived players prefer to change the mind slot (book) as less as possible. Third reason is we need a quest for each book and for me each quest have to be unique and I don't like simple copy & paste quests (so the creative effort and challenge to put in quest writing is a bit more). Aside these consideration is more a matter of "philosophy" than real technical problems.

Okay, that makes good sense. My current plan is five basic spears (1-handed, hunting/simple, boar spear, light combat, heavy combat), 3-4 quarterstaves (regular, shod, spiked, crescent-bladed?), maybe 6-8 polearms, and the 10 race-specific spears. That's... a lot. Hmm. Well, I'm trying to model the construction on the mace making book, so most of the items are made from a pool of... 13 components. Some of those components can be carved/notched/whatevered, but that could even be left out if it's too complex.

this because we hardly have polearms in game. Once they are available this may change, with settings permission, and we can assign some NPC to be a polearm trainer or crafter, etc.

Okay! I've got the skill required/trained set to Blades Making and Blacksmithing for just about everything, which should do for now. I'm not sure how that's handled in a proper crafting book, so I just added a few new columns for each transformation.

actually you can get some inspiration from the Academy already released, and we have already a full set of quest for a second academy (unreleased, yet), written by Zunna. If you are interested I can let you read them.

That would be great!

We also have a couple of inspiration, draft for 2 more academies: archery and axes, but we haven't had anyone starting the quest writing yet. Fun thing is most of special moves (archery, hammer) are ready rules side, bu we won't release them untile the whole package (which includes their own academy quest) are ready to deliver.

We still miss an idea, draft for polearms completely, so, if you have an inspiration, let us know. 

Uhhh... I'll think on it. I've got a few ideas.

[Uadjet]

Got a few screenshots to share. None are of finished items, but you can see where I'm going with them at least. Here's the Lemurian spear's butt spike:

That needs some beveling to make it look more realistic, for one thing.

Here's an incomplete Dermorian spear butt spike:



There's a lot more detail to be added, but it'll be done with a normal map I think.

[Damola]

Wow! Epic progress on that.

Haha, Damola may like to craft some nice quarterstaves! 

[Uadjet]

Got a little more work done on polearms this time. So far I've got a Fangtian Ji and a Lucerne Hammer.





The below picture is terrible, but it shows how long the top spike is.








Still works in progress, but I like the Fantian Ji a lot and the lucerne hammer just needs some proportion editing. And some not-as-cool-as-I-thought-it-would-be detail altering.

Right now I'm working on a corseque, and a halberd after that.

[Uadjet]

Okay, the corseque became a chauvre-souris.





Annoyingly, I'll have to restart that, but the pics should give you an idea of what it will look like. I have to admit that the detail on the "wings" is just a shader issue and not something I did deliberately, but it kinda works given that they're supposed to resemble bat wings!

[Uadjet]

Okay, here's the halberd head. I need to smooth out the sharp edges a bit, but that won't add too much geometry:

[Uadjet]

Oh, I should note that many of these use roughly 500 triangles, which is the triangle count standard for the middle distance level of detail. The halberd uses about 650, but paring that down won't change it too badly. So this is kinda what things will look like from, say, across the Plaza. Once you get close, you'll see more detail. A lot of that detail will be in small variations to break up monotonous cylinders and using normal maps to add detail to flat planes.

[Uadjet]

Just to give you a look at the material I"m working on for the Stonehammer spear:

[Migg]

Stonehammers get all the good stuff... Don't call it Damascus steel though, name it after the stonehammer's major city (can't recall the name atm) 

[MishkaL1138]

Excerpt from the Wikipedia page on the Stonehammer race:

StoneHammers (mainly the HammerWielder clan) founded the city of Araloth kel'Maren in the Dome around the mine called the Dark Delving. In modern times, most people call both Dark Delving or just Delving.

So, Araloth pattern, maybe?

[Migg]

Or Araloth Steel? Since Damascus is also a city.

[Uadjet]

I'd hoped to have the first of the Racial spears done by now, but adding the fine details is rather challenging for me. I'll show you what I've got so far, so you can at least see what I intend.


Here is the butt spike with decorations:




Here is the crosspiece:




And the inlay for the head of the spear:

[Damola]

Nice work, thank you Uadjet!

Really looking forward to customized quarterstaves.

[Damola]

Oh, by the way: Did you ponder about improving magical staves as well?

[Volki]

Don't know how I missed all this.

Very cool that you did all this as a beginner. Blender drove me crazy last time I tried it.

My only worry is the polycount. Are you baking the high poly assets into normal maps?