Japanes Katana, 'Kawauso'

for Half Life
Replacing the Crowbar weapon.

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This file contains:
w_crowbar.mdl (the world model you run over to pick up) featuring the Sword in it's Saya (scabbard)
v_crowbar.mdl (the model you see in front of you when the weapon is selected).
P_crowbar (the model the player model holds)
Readme.txt (you're reading it).

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TO INSTALL:

unzip this zipfile into the folder SIERRA/Half_Life/Valve/models
the sword models will replace the crowbar or whatever model you have currently replacing the crowbar.

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FACE COUNT

The V_Crowbar and P_Crowbar both use the same model and have 149 triangles each
The W_Crowbar has 160 triangles. A bit more than it should have but not unreasonable.

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SKINS

All three models have different skins. The Main V_Weapon has a greyed skin with the worming on the Hamon(blade edge). I also used a 128x128 texture of the tsuba (crossguard) which I scanned in from a pencil drawing I did of Kawauso's tsuba. and then coloured it and used highlight and darken to give it a 3D effect.
For the P_Weapon I used a smaller tsuba skin and a smaller Tsuka (hilt) skin. I also used a chrome texture on the blade. Unfortunatley chrome skins have to be 64x64 so I couldn't add much detail.
Finally on the w_Weapon, I decide to have the sword sheathed in it's Saya (scabbard). This model also uses the smaller Tsuba and Tsuka skins and some chrome at either end.

I had a lot of trouble with the blade and Saya textures. they worked fine in the model viewer and Studio MAX but totally screwed up in the game. I discovered in the end that the texture was too long and thin. I had made it 16x256. I thickened it , by simply stretching the existing texture to 32x256 and it didn't affect the end result at all and it worked fine. Something to bear in mind in future.
This has actually been a valuable experiment with odd sized skins. 

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Why Kawauso?

Well, I decide to release the Katana model after Ixnay's failed to satisfy. I made the model months ago but it sat at the back of my harddrive awaiting a skin. I decided to skin it based on my own Katana, 'Kawauso'. 
I have a 'Daisho', a pair of swords, namely a 'Katana' (sword) and 'Wakizashi' (short sword). I have named them Kawauso and Sukoshi Kawauso, meaning 'Otter' and 'Little Otter', Otters being my favourite animals.


This is my favourite weapon that I have made to date, do enjoy,

Scarecrow (Cold Fusion head munkey)

http://www.planethalflife.com/coldfusion