2026
Tools: 3DsMax, ZBrush, Substance Painter, Unity, Wacom Intuos 4.
A survivalist Axe with a Post-Apocalyptic horror or thriller style for the Enigmatic Forest Swamp game environment in Unity.
This is a game-ready axe built specifically for high-fidelity survival, dark thrillers, and horror projects (Silent Hill / Resident Evil vibe).
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THE WORKFLOW: PHYSICAL PROTOTYPING & VISCERAL RECONSTRUCTION - REAL-WORLD HAND-CARVED REFERENCE
I didn’t just throw automatic grunge materials or generic generators at this model.
Physical Tool Carving: The intricate handle woodwork, ergonomic patterns, and stress fractures were originally hand-carved, weathered, and chemically stained by me on a real physical axe handle using a motor tool to study exactly how it feels and how light reacts to the wood fibers.
Pyrography & Burn Analysis: Real physical burns were introduced to the reference handle using a soldering iron (cautín) to visually document charcoal depth, carbonized specular behaviors, and ash accumulation before translating them into the digital roughness maps.
Empirical Oxidation Study: To understand the true anatomy of metal degradation, I subjected real raw iron to controlled outdoor weathering over time, taking close-up macro photography references to capture the precise hue shifting and flaking distribution of real rust.
Visceral Storytelling: This rigorous industrial research was directly fused with a deep reference study of organic trauma anatomy to sculpt the decaying flesh and clotted blood specularities wrapped around the grip, creating an unsettling, uncompromised horror aesthetic.
TECH SPECS & OPTIMIZATION
Tris: 1848
Polys: 924
UV Sets: 1 (Single coordinate space layout for maximum performance).
Topology: Hand-optimized, ultra-clean game-ready topology with localized density on silhouette curves. Fully calibrated for clean deformation and seamless LOD downscaling pipelines.
Resolution & Texel Density: Textures are authored up to 4K and delivered at an optimized 2048 x 2048 (2K) resolution. Calculated strictly based on 1:1 real-world metrics to guarantee perfect texel density without ruining your engine’s VRAM budget.
Orientation & Scale: Y-Axis UP. Native transform matrix calibrated to absolute 1:1 real-world scale (1 Unit = 1 Meter).
Real-World Dimensions: 40.0 x 14.0 x 2.3 cm | ~15.7" x 5.5" x 0.9" (Height x Width x Depth)
ENGINE PIPELINES & SSS MAPPING
Unreal Engine: Native DirectX Normals and pre-packed _ORM (AO, Roughness, Metallic) maps.
Flexible SSS: Subsurface scattering mask data is embedded directly into the Alpha Channel of the _BaseColor to optimize draw-calls, but I also included a standalone grayscale _SSS map so you can use whatever material network fits your project best.
Unity 3D: Custom packed _MetallicSmoothness and standalone OpenGL Normals. 100% compatible with URP and HDRP. Grayscale data streams map perfectly into custom Subsurface Profile slots for realistic flesh translation.
TEXTURE VARIANTS - STORYTELLING
It features a dual-texture pipeline, meaning you get two completely different looks in the same package to show progression or visual storytelling in your game:
Base Wear: Heavily weathered, old, rusted metal with realistic wood usage marks. The straps are more like dry leather.
Mild Decay: The slight visceral version. Straps are more raw, packed with wet blood specularities and organic tissue wrapping the handle.
Deep Decay: The gory, visceral version. Straps are packed with wet blood specularities and organic tissue wrapping the handle and some mold and leaks around the wood.
