Highly polished BLACK blade with mirrored finish

Tramp Graphics

My character, Kageto wields a diasho set (Katana and Wakazashi) with highly polished black blades, so, I still want them to have a mirrored finish, like looking into a piece of Obsidian, or the polished black surface of car's paint job. Now, the Chrome shaders I use (from the Ultimate Shader Set) have the diffuse setting black, and the reflection color white. This gives a typical chrome finish with a clear reflection. When I've changed the reflection color to blue or gold, I get nice reflections on a blue or gold surface. However, if I change the reflection color to black, I get a solid black surface and no reflections. I need a black surface with reflections. What are the best settings to accomplish this?

Jaderail

Off to test this. I need a High Gloss Black soon for a render myself.

Jaderail

Tested with SuperShine Top coat Shaders with the Black setting. It seems the Angle of view and lighting really plays with what the render looks like. Some look really good some look very bad.

Tramp Graphics

Jaderail said:

Tested with SuperShine Top coat Shaders with the Black setting. It seems the Angle of view and lighting really plays with what the render looks like. Some look really good some look very bad.

Never heard of that shader set. I use the freebie Ultimate Shader Pack from ShareCG. My latest test has Diffuse: black 100%, Gloss: 80%, Specular: white 100%, Ambient: black 100%, Reflection: white 10%. I'm going to try setting Ambient to white 100 % to see if i can get better highlights.

Tjeb

I can also recommend Marianne's Supershine Shader, (just type marianne in shareCG's materials menu)
Play with the reflection strength setting, and have something to reflect, an IBL or so...

Slosh

I don't currently have anything to test this theory on, but here goes anyway... Try a color besides absolute black. Even a setting of 5:5:5 for RGB can make a difference. It will still look black, but there won't be any interference with a possible internal glitch (for lack of a better term) with solid black. I know many other software packages run into trouble when using pure white or pure black in deference to certain effects. For instance, ZBrush will often treat any pure black in a texture as transparent. Because black and white are the basis for many alpha-based effects, perhaps your shaders are not handling the black as you want.

Just a theory, not saying that is the case. I'm sure Jaderail will be right there to correct me if I am wrong. :)

Tramp Graphics

Well, I think I came up with a solution; at least it works in this scene. Starting with the "Silver 3 Chrome" from the Chrome Metals of the Ultimate Shader pack, I remove the reflection map from Reflection Color, and set these settings (Original textures and bump maps for the swords retained):

Diffuse Color: black,
Diffuse Strength: 100%
Glossiness: 80%
Specular: white
Specular Strength: 100%
Ambient: white
Ambient Strength: 15%
Reflection Color: White
Reflection Strength: 10%

And this was the result:

DaremoK3

I like your image, but it is difficult to see how well your settings turned out for your blades. Could you post a closeup image showing just the swords, please?

Also, I like how your outfit turned out. You really did a great job bringing your character to life from your initial vision.

O.K., I found this to be a difficult thing to achieve. I tried several variables, but found it hard to balance between a mirrored reflection, and obsidian-like highlights. I opted for reflection over highlights, but I would probably only use this shader for closeups, and would probably use one of Marianne’s Supershine Shader (or modified version of one) for distance shots with nothing to reflect that requires glints of light bouncing off of the blades.

Below are images showing my results, including settings, and textures used in the shader. In the render image, the bottom sword is a default screenshot illustrating form, so you can clearly see the Bo Hi. I think the shader highlights the Bo Hi adequately in the renders. Only default DSPro 4.5 lighting used. Of course, lighting will be important in establishing how the blades look in different scenes...

Tramp Graphics

DaremoK3 said:

I like your image, but it is difficult to see how well your settings turned out for your blades. Could you post a closeup image showing just the swords, please?

Also, I like how your outfit turned out. You really did a great job bringing your character to life from your initial vision.

O.K., I found this to be a difficult thing to achieve. I tried several variables, but found it hard to balance between a mirrored reflection, and obsidian-like highlights. I opted for reflection over highlights, but I would probably only use this shader for closeups, and would probably use one of Marianne’s Supershine Shader (or modified version of one) for distance shots with nothing to reflect that requires glints of light bouncing off of the blades.

Below are images showing my results, including settings, and textures used in the shader. In the render image, the bottom sword is a default screenshot illustrating form, so you can clearly see the Bo Hi. I think the shader highlights the Bo Hi adequately in the renders. Only default DSPro 4.5 lighting used. Of course, lighting will be important in establishing how the blades look in different scenes...

I used the same settings on his arms.

Tramp Graphics

Well, I found another solution to creating a mirror polished "black-steel" blade (as opposed to a painted black blade) while maintaining the blade's original texture, including the all important Hamon and grain (something my previous attempts didn't do). I spent the day (and much of yesterday) messing around with creating new textures to create a black blade, and, then reloaded the original texture, set the settings as follows:
Diffuse- White
Diffuse Strength-15%
Glossiness-80%
Specular-White
Specular Strength-100%
Ambient- Black
Ambient Strength-100%
Reflection-White
Reflection-90%
This creates a uniformly black blade while maintaining the hamon and texture provided by the blade's original map, albeit a very dark hamon. To create a dark blade with a light hamon, requires keeping the Diffuse setting at 100% and the creation of a new texture map, either by manipulation of the brightness and contrast of the original texture, or using it as a template to create a new texture from scratch.

I was testing these alternative options because, apparently (at least according to this article), authentic traditionally forged Japanese "Black bladed" katana don't exist (at least not when new), and I have yet to find any source to dispute that. Kageto's Daisho set is supposed to be an old-world "koto" set, dating back to the thirteenth century, and were forged together as a matched set. According to this article, and others on proper polishing of katana, the traditional techniques will darken the main body of the blade, but lighten the hamon, making it "whiter" and thus, my testing various techniques to get that effect, with varying degrees of success. These ranged from creating whole new textures using the original as a template, to manipulating the brightness and contrast of the original texture to darken the main part of the blade while lightening the hamon. The downside with the latter is the texture has a "gradient" running along the blade, with artificial highlights and shaded areas which are only deepened and made more exaggerated when the brightness and contrast are adjusted. Below are the result of these different experiments. They are:
1-New texture "black" blade with bright hamon, and exaggerated grain,
2-new texture "black" blade with medium hamon, and proper grain,
3-original texture with brightness and contrast adjusted to darken the blade while maintaining a lighter hamon,
4-full black blade using original texture and adjusting diffuse strength to darken the blade.
Thus the question becomes, which is the best option to meet the needs of this character?

DaremoK3

Nice results.

I'm torn between 2 and 3. I really like how the hamon looks in image two.

I have never seen a real (or traditional) black Shinken in my over 40 years of Martial Arts (including Kenjutsu, and Ninjutsu), nor in the past twenty years researching them.

I have seen plenty of "blackened" cheap Ninja-To, though.

Which one do you think you will go with for your (assuming) comic?

Either way, I like following your development. Keep up the good work. Looking forward to your future installments.

Jaderail

Oh, nice. I'm with DaremoK3 on this one. 2 and 3 look great. I'm leaning more 3 but both are very nice.

Tramp Graphics

DaremoK3 said:

Nice results.

I'm torn between 2 and 3. I really like how the hamon looks in image two.

I have never seen a real (or traditional) black Shinken in my over 40 years of Martial Arts (including Kenjutsu, and Ninjutsu), nor in the past twenty years researching them.

I have seen plenty of "blackened" cheap Ninja-To, though.

Which one do you think you will go with for your (assuming) comic?

Either way, I like following your development. Keep up the good work. Looking forward to your future installments.

Yeah, the swords are supposed to be true Nihonto Shinken blades. The idea for the black blades is derived from the names of the weapons, "Katana no Kage", (the swords of shadow), aka the Kage-to (shadow blades), from which, in turn, the character gets his common name Kageto. They're hereditary blades forged by one of his early ancestors, and may (or may not) have mystical properties through "shinobi magic" used in the forging (I haven't decided yet, because this is supposed to be set in the real world, not that of "superheroes"). I still have to work up a full history of the Kuraiyama family and it's place among the shinobi samurai clans and schools (such as those from the Koga and Iga regions).

Tramp Graphics

I'm thinking of also making the tsuba black as well, to go further with the "Shadow" theme. What do you guys think? I could use more opinions on the blade too.

DaremoK3

That's a great name for your legacy Daisho.

I think your development of your characters is on a good path. Whichever way you decide to go (mystic vs real world), I think you will definitely find an audience.

As far as making the Tsuba black to coincide with Kage, I think it is a good idea, but I thought you went with a gold? /bronze/copper Tsuba to match his costuming. Either way, I think either would look good.

Tramp Graphics

DaremoK3 said:

That's a great name for your legacy Daisho.

I think your development of your characters is on a good path. Whichever way you decide to go (mystic vs real world), I think you will definitely find an audience.

As far as making the Tsuba black to coincide with Kage, I think it is a good idea, but I thought you went with a gold? /bronze/copper Tsuba to match his costuming. Either way, I think either would look good.

Traditionally, I have used the gold tsuba, but not because it matches the trim on his kataginu. It's more of a "default". the vast majority of swords I've seen (with a few exceptions) have always had gold cross guards. I'm thinking of changing it.

Joe Cotter

I think you might want to play with applying the texture to the sss channel rather then the diffuse (would need to convert to UberSurface or something that supports sss.) If you look at my example here, I used a mapped sss along with refraction and mapped reflections to give depth to the water which was a 2 poly object in this case.

As for the examples, I would go for 3 myself, with high specular (mapped so it was stronger/weaker in areas) on the edge to catch the light. Random specular could actually be a distraction, similar to a tassle, since it wouldn't automatically translate to something familiar like a blade right away in the observer.