Magmadeep, Two-Handed Axe

[Bloomfalls]

Still speechless, you approach the enormous axe, realizing all stories about it were true.

The blade is buried by layers of rock and magma and doesn't seem particularly sharp. Like ember the rock glows, although it seems eternal, never melting. The blade, as you know from the stories, is in touch with the elemental plane of fire itself. The very edge is an open rift to the fiery realms, and endless flames come from it, wave after wave.

You look for the handle but it intimidates you at first as you can clearly see magma dripping all over it.

Indeed, the weapon is there not to tame, but to be tamed. It's meant to be used only by those with a deep affinity with the fire, crafted for dark purposes you cannot conceive. For a mortal, your power would have to be big enough to feel not more than a simple warmth from it.

With a deep breath, you hold the axe firmly. The dark iron makes a sharp, metallic screech as you take it from the stand. You walk back, unworried.

Feels warm.

Greetings!

Magmadeep is a small project I came with about a month ago and started de facto about two weeks ago. My idea was to create an entire new weapon from scratch and put it in the game.

It was no easy task considering about a week ago I had absolutely no idea on how to actually do anything related to model-edit. Thanks to Goshujinsama for his tips and Tigurius for his work on this. It was actually a fun experience. The model is not 100% as I wanted it to be (effects, particles, etc) but it ended up better than I thought it would, being my first model-edit.

Magmadeep is a two-handed axe model which, as usual, can be patched to any other weapon. Well, enough words. Some action:

Screenshots:

Screenshots don't do much justice because of the texture animation, but here we go nevertheless!






Statistics and general Information:

The model uses 4 custom maps. A diffuse, a self-luminance, and two other luminance maps used for additional effects in the handle and the blade. The four maps were originally made in 1024^2, but reduced to 512^2 and I realize it's considerably more than most models in WoW have. The model has 3046 triangles and it's divided in three parts: Handle, Blade and Skull. I also made specular and normal maps, although they're not present in WoW for obvious reasons.

The textures were all 100% hand-painted on Photoshop including the fire effects, no photos or samples were used.

I spent about 20 hours working on this through two weeks, the bulk being the past few days. About 30 minutes on the concept, 2 hours on the model, 5 hours on the texture, and the rest fine-tuning everything and getting it in the game.


Usage:

1) Download the file.
2) Locate the file name of the weapon you want to change it. You can use a viewer such as WoW Model Viewer to find the weapon.
3) Open the file you downloaded in a MPQ editor such as Ladik's MPQ Editor or any other of your preference.
4) Browse to the folder ITEM > ObjectComponents > Weapon in the file. Rename the file magmadeep.m2 to the name of the file corresponding to your weapon you got in step 2. Change the .skin file to that same name, except with 00 in the end (so if the file is genericweapon1, the m2 will be genericweapon1.m2 and the skin will be genericweapon100.skin).
5) DO NOT touch any other file in the mpq!
6) Rename the MPQ to patch-x.MPQ. For example, patch-6.MPQ
7) Drop the file in the Data folder in your WoW directory. Don't overwrite anything, if the number you chose for the MPQ file is already used, choose one that isn't.
Enjoy!


Download Link:

Latest version: Magmadeep 1.1

Previous version: Link

Other:

Any questions feel free to ask. I'll not do any custom changes to a weapon. I will however try to fix any issues if something is preventing you from changing it correctly. I ask patience if there's any issue or bug. As I said this was my first model edit, so there's a chance something may be off.

Thank you very much for your interest. As always, C&C is duly appreciated.

Enjoy!

[alj03]

Looking pretty good. I like it.

Magma Axe ftw.

[Goshujinsama]

good stuff dude glad to see you got it working in game

the fact it glows up is pretty baller. i had no idea self illumination maps worked in wow ... nicee

[Tocasiar]

Thanks for releasing this, you did some awesome work there. I like it!

[Reflection]

Looking awesomely well, Bloomfalls. It'd look a ton better with particles though but I can imagine that they're pretty hard to implement correctly. Keep it up! +7 if I can.

[Toyoka]

Indeed looks pretty sick! If only all weapons looked like this I wish they had a new way of showing enchant effects (ie. a glow around the weapon instead of particle effects).

[Bloomfalls]

Thank you everybody for your kind words.

good stuff dude glad to see you got it working in game

the fact it glows up is pretty baller. i had no idea self illumination maps worked in wow ... nicee

Thank you! Technically there's no self-illumination map support... but you can "implement" it. This is how I did:

1) Set the original texture as Opaque. no special renderflags.
2) Create an additional texture to that geoset, now here's the thing: Set the blending mode to 3 (Additive) and turn on the renderflag Unlit. Now that texture, specifically, will ignore the ambient shading/lighting and "add" over the original model, essentially being a self-illumination map.

The magma effect is a third texture layer doing the same, except it's animated.

I have some theories on how to add other effects using the current engine... specially a faux specular and a faux oren-nayar shading. They'll probably fail horribly but if I succeed, they'll make way to my next model and I'll let you know.

[Kitsuji]

Hey, I use a mac and I can't figure out how I would manage to put the model into an MPQ data file thingy (Im kinda a noob to model editing..) Do ya think you could make me an MPQ with the axe replacing the model "Quel'Delar, Cunning of the Shadows"? Would be awesome, and will +rep. Thanks.

EDIT: Just noticed that was a 1h Sword XD.. Do you think you could do it to the model "Reclaimed Shadowstrike" instead?

[Bloomfalls]

Hey, I use a mac and I can't figure out how I would manage to put the model into an MPQ data file thingy (Im kinda a noob to model editing..) Do ya think you could make me an MPQ with the axe replacing the model "Quel'Delar, Cunning of the Shadows"? Would be awesome, and will +rep. Thanks.

EDIT: Just noticed that was a 1h Sword XD.. Do you think you could do it to the model "Reclaimed Shadowstrike" instead?

Sorry, as I said, "I'll not do any custom changes to a weapon."
For mac, you can use: /dev/klog

Also, there's nothing in the model that forces it to be usable only as a 1h or 2h weapon. They're just models. You can replace anything with it, even a helm if you want to.

I started without any knowledge either. Changing models, however, is too easy. I favor the philosophy of teaching people how to do things instead of doing it for them, I'm pretty sure you can follow the steps to get it working in your game, if you have any trouble with them you can ask and I'll try to help.

[Zantas]

Oh damn your weapon is badass.

Great work Bloomfalls, I hope you'll make more custom models
Have cookie(+rep)

[Goshujinsama]

Thank you everybody for your kind words.



Thank you! Technically there's no self-illumination map support... but you can "implement" it. This is how I did:

1) Set the original texture as Opaque. no special renderflags.
2) Create an additional texture to that geoset, now here's the thing: Set the blending mode to 3 (Additive) and turn on the renderflag Unlit. Now that texture, specifically, will ignore the ambient shading/lighting and "add" over the original model, essentially being a self-illumination map.

The magma effect is a third texture layer doing the same, except it's animated.

I have some theories on how to add other effects using the current engine... specially a faux specular and a faux oren-nayar shading. They'll probably fail horribly but if I succeed, they'll make way to my next model and I'll let you know.

I see, but where do you swith the blending mode to 3 ??. because i was able to do that with the old m2modder. but now i have no idea how. Also will the converter actaully convert the information that there are 2 textures on 1 geoset ?

[Tigurius]

You could either set it in the MDXEditor or directly in the model via Hexediting or PyM2(see the Renderflags).
And it should convert the 2 texture layers.

[svedin]

Dam, Sweet for first

[nialnees]

Yeah!! Dude!! F*cking Epic! You brought me back to WoW.

[Bloomfalls]

Thanks everybody for your kind words.

I see, but where do you swith the blending mode to 3 ??. because i was able to do that with the old m2modder. but now i have no idea how. Also will the converter actaully convert the information that there are 2 textures on 1 geoset ?

Switching the blending mode should be easy to do in hex, but making more textures is a bit more complicated. I had no idea there was a mdx editor, I used Tigurius' PyM2 to make the changes.

Anyway I've been working on the crazy task of getting a faux specular map in. Here's what I got so far: