1. We will start by cutting the image with the sword. We will not use
it very much but we can use it as a reference for the bigger details.
So, open the image using Photoshop or another image editing software. I
am using the same an old Photoshop CS3 but its the same thing 
. So, select the sword like I did :
2. Now make a new file with the same size as your selected area. To see the size of the selected area you can switch to the “Info” tab. By the way, you will have a different size but doesn’t matter, the steps are the same . So, in my case, I will make a new file 241 x 708, you will use your own dimension .
3. Drag your selected area to the new file and then save it. To save it, go to File > Save For Web & Devices and then press the save button.
4. From this step we will move to 3DS Max. For this project I am using only 2 viewports in 3DS Max but you can use 4. If you want to change to 2 viewports, just click on the small “+” from the left upper corner of each viewport , then go to > “Configure Viewports” and in the “Layout” tab pick your desired display.
5. In the “Front” viewport, we will make a plane. The dimension of the plane will be the same as the dimension of the blueprint. In my case the plane will be 708(H) x 241 (W). For the “Lenght Segs” and “Width Segs” use 1. I have disabled to grid in 3DS Max. You can do this by pressing the “G” button on your keyboard:
6. Click on the “Material Editor” and pick a material slot. Then click on that little square/box from the “Diffuse” slot then choose “Bitmap” and open the blueprint (the image with the sword)
7. Now drag the material on the plane and be sure to click on the “Show Shaded Material In Viewport” button to display the texture in viewport :
8. Before modeling, we need to be sure that the plane will not move. To lock it in place, select the plane > right click > Object Properties. In the general tab check the “Freeze” box but you also need to uncheck the “Show Frozen in Gray” box. Then press OK
9. Lets start to model. We will model the sword from the bottom to the top. At the bottom of the sword there is something that looks like a nut. We will start by making a cylinder with these values :
Radius : 18.0
Height : 15.0
Height Segments : 1
Cap Segments : 1
Sides : 6
And uncheck the “Smooth” box
10. Do this in the Front viewport : Select the cylinder, hold the Shift button and use the “Y” axis to create a clone/copy of it. Just drag it using the “Y” axis. A small window will appear and you need to choose “object” :
11. Hide the copy that we have made because we will work a little bit on the first cylinder. To hide it you need to select it > right click > Hide selection. Then select the first cylinder that we have made earlier. Convert the cylinder into an editable poly and delete the top and the bottom polygon :
12. After deleting the polygons you need to select the top and the bottom edges like in the image :
13. Now connect them using the same values as me. To modify the parameters of the “Connect” tool, you need to click on that small squared button near the “Connect”.
14. Select the vertices from each corner, the top and the bottom.
15. keep the vertices selected and open the “Soft Selection” tab. Check the “Use Soft Selection” box and use this values :
Falloff : 8.0
Pinch : 0.6
Bubble : 0.0
Now in the Front Viewport use the “Y” axis to scale the vertices down. Well, you will not scale the vertices but the distance between them. This is the result that you should have.
16. Unhide the cylinder that we have hid earlier. To do this, right click > “Unhide All” . We will modify the parameters of this cylinder. Change them like this :
Radius : 15.0
Height : 15.0 (this doesn’t really matter)
Height Segments : 1
Cap Segments : 1
Sides : 42
17. Make a copy of this cylinder like we did before. Hold the shift button, drag it using the “Y” axis and hide the new cylinder. Convert the cylinder into an “Editable Poly” and delete the selected polygons (all polygons instead the top one) :
18. Drag the remaining polygon a little down, like in the first image. Then create a copy of that polygon and move it under the nut. After moving the lower polygon in place, select the polygon and press the “Flip” button :
19. Attach all these 3 pieces and then, click on the “Border” button and select these borders and press the “Bridge” button
20. Select and Inset these polygons :
21. Now pay attention to the images. You need to select the same edges as me then you need to chamfer them using a small value , like 0.2 :
22. Connect the selected edges. Connect them with 2 rows of edges :
23. If you apply a smooth modifier like “Mesh Smooth” or “TurboSmooth” you will see that you will have a nice shape of a nut (without a hole – it will be useless to make it because it will not be visible)
24. Let’s continue. Delete these polygons. Then unhide the hidden polygon and make a copy it like we did before. Move it using only the “Y” axis (vertically) because like this everything it will be centered. We can also use the snap tool but just move it only vertically and everything should be fine :
25. Delete the bottom polygon of the selected cylinder. Then drag the object down until it will touch the nut. Select the top vertices and drag them down to make the object a little bit smaller. After this, use the “Connect” tool to split the cylinder in 2 part and extrude the top polygons. Just follow the images and everything will be fine :
26. Make a copy of the entire piece and move it under the nut and rotate it to 180 degrees
27. Select the remaining cylinder, move it under the nut, delete the top polygon and follow the images :
28. Make a cylinder with the following values :
29. Open the “Snap tool” control panel and be sure that you have checked only the “Pivot” box. To open the control panel of this tool, you need to right click on it :
30. Now activate the “Snaps Toggle” tool (left click on the button) and when you will move your cursor over the object you will see that a yellow box will appear. This means that the tool is activate and you will move the object by picking his Pivot. Then move the object (the cylinder) over the nut. You will see that it will be placed automatically on the pivot of the nut, which is centered :
31. After you have moved the cylinder in place, be sure that in covert the entire handle. Then create a copy of this cylinder (the same process like we did for the parts which are above and under the nut)
32. Hide the other parts, and leave only the cylinder because we are working on it. Delete the selected polygons in the first image, then connect the selected edges :
33. Go tot the “Modifier” list and pick the “FFD(cyl)” tool. Then click on the “Set Number of Points” button and change it to 2x6x4.
34. Play a little bit with the control points. Move each point vertically a little bit to create a more natural look of the handle. If you want you can skip this step :
35. Go to the “Modifier” list and pick the same tool like at the 33rd step. This time you need to grab all those control points from the middle and scale them a little bit down using all 3 axis. :
36. Convert the handle into an “Editable Poly” and then apply a “chamfer” the selected edges. When you are done, select the polygons between the chamfered edges and extrude them using a negative value :
37. Select these edges then connect then with the same values as in the image :
38. Now unhide the other cylinder, make a copy of it, and hide the copy. Then, use the visible cylinder to make the end of the handle. Put it in the same position like in the picture, convert it into an “Editable poly” and apply a “Chamfer” on the selected edge. And by the way, delete the top polygons :
39. Unhide the hidden cylinder and make a copy of it (maybe we will need it later). Change his values to these ones :
Radius : 21.0
Height : 30.0
Height Segments : 1
Cap Segments : 1
Sides : 12
If you want to make it transparent, press Alt+X .
40. Use the scale tool to strech the cylinder a little bit and delete the selected polygons :
41. We will model the left side. Grab the selected edges, hold the shift button and drag them to create new polygons. Then follow the images :
42. Do the same thing on the other side :
43. Select and connect these edges :
44. Now select ONLY these edges and apply a “Chamfer” on them :
45. After the “Chamfering” process, we have some triangles (4) on our mesh and since its an high poly model, the triangles should be avoided. To solve this, select the same vertices as me and weld them :
. So, select the sword like I did :
2. Now make a new file with the same size as your selected area. To see the size of the selected area you can switch to the “Info” tab. By the way, you will have a different size but doesn’t matter, the steps are the same
. So, in my case, I will make a new file 241 x 708, you will use your own dimension .
3. Drag your selected area to the new file and then save it. To save it, go to File > Save For Web & Devices and then press the save button.
4. From this step we will move to 3DS Max. For this project I am using only 2 viewports in 3DS Max but you can use 4. If you want to change to 2 viewports, just click on the small “+” from the left upper corner of each viewport , then go to > “Configure Viewports” and in the “Layout” tab pick your desired display.
5. In the “Front” viewport, we will make a plane. The dimension of the plane will be the same as the dimension of the blueprint. In my case the plane will be 708(H) x 241 (W). For the “Lenght Segs” and “Width Segs” use 1. I have disabled to grid in 3DS Max. You can do this by pressing the “G” button on your keyboard:
6. Click on the “Material Editor” and pick a material slot. Then click on that little square/box from the “Diffuse” slot then choose “Bitmap” and open the blueprint (the image with the sword)
7. Now drag the material on the plane and be sure to click on the “Show Shaded Material In Viewport” button to display the texture in viewport :
8. Before modeling, we need to be sure that the plane will not move. To lock it in place, select the plane > right click > Object Properties. In the general tab check the “Freeze” box but you also need to uncheck the “Show Frozen in Gray” box. Then press OK
9. Lets start to model. We will model the sword from the bottom to the top. At the bottom of the sword there is something that looks like a nut. We will start by making a cylinder with these values :
Radius : 18.0
Height : 15.0
Height Segments : 1
Cap Segments : 1
Sides : 6
And uncheck the “Smooth” box
10. Do this in the Front viewport : Select the cylinder, hold the Shift button and use the “Y” axis to create a clone/copy of it. Just drag it using the “Y” axis. A small window will appear and you need to choose “object” :
11. Hide the copy that we have made because we will work a little bit on the first cylinder. To hide it you need to select it > right click > Hide selection. Then select the first cylinder that we have made earlier. Convert the cylinder into an editable poly and delete the top and the bottom polygon :
12. After deleting the polygons you need to select the top and the bottom edges like in the image :
13. Now connect them using the same values as me. To modify the parameters of the “Connect” tool, you need to click on that small squared button near the “Connect”.
14. Select the vertices from each corner, the top and the bottom.
15. keep the vertices selected and open the “Soft Selection” tab. Check the “Use Soft Selection” box and use this values :
Falloff : 8.0
Pinch : 0.6
Bubble : 0.0
Now in the Front Viewport use the “Y” axis to scale the vertices down. Well, you will not scale the vertices but the distance between them. This is the result that you should have.
16. Unhide the cylinder that we have hid earlier. To do this, right click > “Unhide All” . We will modify the parameters of this cylinder. Change them like this :
Radius : 15.0
Height : 15.0 (this doesn’t really matter)
Height Segments : 1
Cap Segments : 1
Sides : 42
17. Make a copy of this cylinder like we did before. Hold the shift button, drag it using the “Y” axis and hide the new cylinder. Convert the cylinder into an “Editable Poly” and delete the selected polygons (all polygons instead the top one) :
18. Drag the remaining polygon a little down, like in the first image. Then create a copy of that polygon and move it under the nut. After moving the lower polygon in place, select the polygon and press the “Flip” button :
19. Attach all these 3 pieces and then, click on the “Border” button and select these borders and press the “Bridge” button
20. Select and Inset these polygons :
21. Now pay attention to the images. You need to select the same edges as me then you need to chamfer them using a small value , like 0.2 :
22. Connect the selected edges. Connect them with 2 rows of edges :
23. If you apply a smooth modifier like “Mesh Smooth” or “TurboSmooth” you will see that you will have a nice shape of a nut (without a hole – it will be useless to make it because it will not be visible)
24. Let’s continue. Delete these polygons. Then unhide the hidden polygon and make a copy it like we did before. Move it using only the “Y” axis (vertically) because like this everything it will be centered. We can also use the snap tool but just move it only vertically and everything should be fine :
25. Delete the bottom polygon of the selected cylinder. Then drag the object down until it will touch the nut. Select the top vertices and drag them down to make the object a little bit smaller. After this, use the “Connect” tool to split the cylinder in 2 part and extrude the top polygons. Just follow the images and everything will be fine
:
26. Make a copy of the entire piece and move it under the nut and rotate it to 180 degrees
27. Select the remaining cylinder, move it under the nut, delete the top polygon and follow the images :
28. Make a cylinder with the following values :
29. Open the “Snap tool” control panel and be sure that you have checked only the “Pivot” box. To open the control panel of this tool, you need to right click on it :
30. Now activate the “Snaps Toggle” tool (left click on the button) and when you will move your cursor over the object you will see that a yellow box will appear. This means that the tool is activate and you will move the object by picking his Pivot. Then move the object (the cylinder) over the nut. You will see that it will be placed automatically on the pivot of the nut, which is centered :
31. After you have moved the cylinder in place, be sure that in covert the entire handle. Then create a copy of this cylinder (the same process like we did for the parts which are above and under the nut)
32. Hide the other parts, and leave only the cylinder because we are working on it. Delete the selected polygons in the first image, then connect the selected edges :
33. Go tot the “Modifier” list and pick the “FFD(cyl)” tool. Then click on the “Set Number of Points” button and change it to 2x6x4.
34. Play a little bit with the control points. Move each point vertically a little bit to create a more natural look of the handle. If you want you can skip this step :
35. Go to the “Modifier” list and pick the same tool like at the 33rd step. This time you need to grab all those control points from the middle and scale them a little bit down using all 3 axis. :
36. Convert the handle into an “Editable Poly” and then apply a “chamfer” the selected edges. When you are done, select the polygons between the chamfered edges and extrude them using a negative value :
37. Select these edges then connect then with the same values as in the image :
38. Now unhide the other cylinder, make a copy of it, and hide the copy. Then, use the visible cylinder to make the end of the handle. Put it in the same position like in the picture, convert it into an “Editable poly” and apply a “Chamfer” on the selected edge. And by the way, delete the top polygons :
39. Unhide the hidden cylinder and make a copy of it (maybe we will need it later). Change his values to these ones :
Radius : 21.0
Height : 30.0
Height Segments : 1
Cap Segments : 1
Sides : 12
If you want to make it transparent, press Alt+X .
40. Use the scale tool to strech the cylinder a little bit and delete the selected polygons :
41. We will model the left side. Grab the selected edges, hold the shift button and drag them to create new polygons. Then follow the images :
42. Do the same thing on the other side :
43. Select and connect these edges :
44. Now select ONLY these edges and apply a “Chamfer” on them :
45. After the “Chamfering” process, we have some triangles (4) on our mesh and since its an high poly model, the triangles should be avoided. To solve this, select the same vertices as me and weld them :
