Sharpen your skills on this.... Fifteen minutes (more or less, as usual) to build, shade and render a blade -- knife, x-acto, scalpel, scissor, whatever.... I'll post mine as soon as I get it done!

OK, how about the famed ebony blade of the dread Obsidian order... ah, no, I probably can't get away with that trick twice.

these 15 min challenges are great practice. keep it up!

Most impressive work, everyone! And, there's no such thing as cheating in these fifteen minute ditties.... The point of these things is to have fun and to learn.... I should have some time tomorrow to think up something else.... Give everyone the weekend to crank something.... And Don't forget Litst's monthly challenge: The machine! Have fun!

I'm working on my machine even as we type. I think I have a good chance of winning, assuming no one else enters. Of course, if anyone else enters, well, then, I'm probably toast. But I have learned a TON doing this project, so I guess I win anyhow. Ha! Take that! --Terri

Yeah, don't forget the contest (see the link at the top of the page ) ! Hey Terri, i hope you won't be the only submission ! Good luck anyway ! litst

Honestly, if I can get a picture done that matches the idea I have in my brain and that I won't be embarassed for anyone to see, I'm gonna count it was a personal win. That's my goal. Baby steps, you know? I was just kidding about winning the contest (even though I covet the prize); I still have a lot to learn about lighting and textures (among other things) before I become A Force To Be Reckoned With, contest-wise. So don't worry, I don't plan to be a sore loser. Much. --Terri

I'm getting really impatient to see your image ! :) litst

litst...I was wondering if you could post a pic of your axe model when it's in the vertex modeler...I just doing see how you were able to get the blade that smooth! I've been trying everything I know and I'm having problems with curved edges. Thancks, rockjockjared

WOW! That did subdivide nicely! I'm getting the creasing thing down but it's still not coming out as smooth as I would like...It's getting there, but I feel as if I'm adding too many verticies to the model. After seeing how many polygons your model has, I know I am! I'll keep working on it. This gives me some good ideas. Thanks for posting your model! I really appreciate it! Oh yeah, nice lighting in your scene. The textures are excellent too! rockjockjared

O.k., one last thought...is there a bug whenever you go and try to weld verticies? I've been trying to duplicate this blade with symetry for the last hour or so and whenever I try to weld the points the stupid thing is crashing!!! It's happened about 5 times now I'd I'm getting really frusterated. Just wondering if this is a bug. Thanks, Rockjockjared

I've found welding to be sometimes unstable, so it's not just you. Sometimes exiting and restarting helps, sometimes not. Computer voodoo strikes again. Here's something I've done when I can't get a particular weld to work: I link two vertices I want to weld, then I go into the properties tray and make their xyz coordinates match (linking allows you to see both sets of coordinates at the same time). Then I save before I weld. If it crashes, at least my model looks like the point has been welded. Hmmm. It occurs to me that maybe one could weld by hand, just by linking vertices, and deleting the duplicate. Like, say you have two triangles and you want to weld the top point of one to the top point of the other. You could link each of the bottom points of one triangle to the top point of the other, then delete the the top point of the first one. Sort of a manual weld, if you see what I mean. I wonder if that would work... if so, it might be a solution when a particular vertex object is being weld-cranky. --Terri

Attached Link: http://www.life3d.co.nz/tipstricks.htm