Lord of the Rings Weapon Pack

Description
There are quite a few models here, so I'm going to go through them each separately:

[b]Gandalf's Staff[/b]
It is painfully obvious that the texture on this was photosourced. The staff itself is a flat texture - paintbucket - and the top of the staff is just a picture. The top of the staff is very low-poly, and the hilt is much higher poly than it needs to be. I also find it amazing that a wood staff can make the same sound as a metal blade entering flesh. Curious...

[b]Gimli's Axe[/b]
A simple texture for a simple model. The hilt is even square, and has some bad stretching on one of the sides. I don't believe this one is photosourced (not all of it anyway), but the textures do not look like what they're supposed to. The blade doesn't look like metal, and the handle looks more like stone than wood. Unless it's [i]supposed[/i] to be stone. I confess I can't remember.

[b]Glamdring[/b]
If you don't look too closely at this one, it looks pretty good. If you do, however, you'll notice there's not attempt at shading or detail on the blade, the handle is simply blurry grey and white lines with text on it, as is the lower part of the hilt. The only part of the skin on this sword that looks pretty good is the blue part of the handle, and that even looks a bit flat. I find it curious where this author puts detail and where he doesn't. For instance the little ribs on the handle are modeled on, but the blade itself is completely flat in terms of skinning.

[b]Legolas' Knives[/b]
Speaking of flat, the blade on this knife is so thin that I don't know how it doesn't snap off. The skin consists of a base color - flat - with some detailing on it. Looks okay from a distance, except for the nasty texture stretching over the top and bottom of the hilt.

[b]Moria Orc Sword[/b]
Kudos! The author finally tried to put some texture on the blade, instead of just a flat color. Unfortunately he only went halfway. There's no shading on the blade anywhere. There are some rusty stains (I think) which is a nice added touch, and gives me hope for the future.

[b]Narsil[/b]
w00t! Some shading on the blade! Still not realistic looking, but it's nice to see improvement even within the same pack. Technique will come in time.

[b]Nazgul Sword[/b]
The texture on the hilt looks sourced, and the texture on the blade looks random. The blade has [i]way[/i] too many faces - you could have gotten away with a fraction of what you used here. And remember, a cylindrical hilt probably only needs about 8 sides. The hands will be covering it as well, so you won'd see it. Remember - less is more.

[b]Saruman's Staff[/b]
Well the texture for the staff isn't entirely flat this time. It has a little bit of noise. Other than that, once again it's just paintbucket. The globey part of it is paint bucket with some symbols on it. Once again, way too many sides on the cylinder.

[b]Aragorn's Sword[/b]
I'm assuming it's Aragorn's sword, anyway. I couldn't match this up with one in his read-me, and I honestly can't remember that much from Lord of the Rings. I did see all of the films, though. I swear. With this one, the white parts were [i]so[/i] flat that I actually amused myself for a good five minutes by spinning the model, because it looked like everything but those parts was moving. It was more amusing than it should have been. Here we have a lot of flat colors, and even though the blade is slightly shaded it still looks flat. Looks nothing like metal.

[b]Uruk'hai Sword[/b]
Definitely one of the better looking models here, but also completely photosourced, and as per the usual there's some nasty stretching on the handle.

[b]Witchking Sword[/b]
The term "witchking" makes me giggle, but that's not the point here. Once again, a very flat model. The textures on this one don't even line up all that well, and they are very blurry.

[b]Overall[/b]
Skinning is not this author's strong point, [i]by far[/i]. The models really aren't bad. They could use some tweaking to technique, but they show great promise. The skinning, however, needs to improve. Remember, a model is only as good as the skin on top of it. Bad skins = ugly models. An unfortunate truth. Ask for help. People usually have great techniques they're hording all to themselves, waiting to share.

All these weapons are also sized much too large, and many of them float around the hand rather than where they're supposed to be. The hand bolt is at (0 0 0), remember that. One of the models was even turned sideways. These are the kinds of things you should check for before submitting!

Another big killer here are no shaders. No shaders! They are [i]swords[/i]! They should be shiny! I don't know how you could make a pack of this many swords and not put a shader on them. Trust me. If you're planning on using flat or bad texture, you need a shader to at least attempt to cover it up. And next time, credit your blood effects. Just because they cycle around the community doesn't mean they're fair game.

~Inyri