Katana

[MrHiro]

Well, this is my third work ever. So please be gentle. ^^ I worked in Maya 7.0 with mental ray. The composition was done in Photoshop. Hope you like it. :)

[Ilkejav mk5]

A katana should be slightly more curved IMO (well... depends on what kind of katana you,re modeling). Plus the blade look a bit dull (not sharpened enough)...

What I suggest is readjusting the curvature (very easily done) and creasing the cutting edge so that it is razor sharp...

Also look very closely at some photo reference for the shape...

Anyway, it's very good for a beginner, the shaders look fine, the lighting is ok.

All in all, it's an awesome job. Simply tweak the things I mentioned, and you'll be set.

[s0nkitE]

i like it but you could use a hdri reflection

[gfx.KhronoS]

Yeah, if you put some HDRI for reflection, it will not look that dull.

[MrHiro]

Thanks everbody for the replys so far. ^^ I'll try to do some changes like you say. :)

[disturbed_1]

but its also very nice.... gives a almost comic book feel to it.... and i love katanas :D

[Saber]

is HDRI reflection available in max 6? don't seem to find it...

[Saber]

no one can tell me?

[RedWorks]

It's been awhile since I used max 6, but I'm pretty sure it does ;) I think it's more of a matter of what renderer you're using. You mentioned using Mental Ray. Unfortunately I've used it very little, so I can't tell you how you'd go about it exactly.

Edit - well you could just go into the environment panel (press "8"), click "none" and select the HDR probe as your environment. I'm probably explaining this badly, but after you choose the HDR probe as your environment, drag it onto a slot in your material editor. Then choose spherical environment (or whichever works best with that probe). That's one way to go about it. That will only cover the reflections though, if you want to light using an HDR probe I can't help you if you use MR. I'm still relatively new to 3d compared to 99% of the other members here, so wait for another answer as well. I can't promise that my suggestion will work out right for you.

Edit 2 - I just wanted to say I think the katana is pretty sexy as is. It's more of a studio render this way. You might as well give HDRI reflections a go just to see what it looks like.

[Saber]

thanks I 'll try that