3D People of Daggerfall

[MasonFace]

Perhaps high-res sprites could be created from this model for DFU?

Yes, this absolutely could be done similar to Kamer's HD Pre-Rendered Sprites, but personally I think it has much more potential staying in 3D at runtime. Interesting link about the Duke3D sprites, btw.

[jefetienne]

This is absolutely incredible, great job!

[Baler]

Excellent work, I'd like to see more models.
There is demand for this and large appeal just over a period of time. As more people discover DFU and if something like this was available to them they'd use it with praise.

I know there are members of this community whom would eagerly assist with it's implementation. I'd like to see more models

[Hrafnyx]

I'm seriously impressed! I think you did a great job capturing all the elements of the original asset, especially the animations.

As of now, we don't have a way to mod in 3D enemies (MOBs), but we are free to implement 3D models for static NPCs (such as quest givers) and mobile NPCs (commoners and guards). As a matter of fact, I'm currently in the process of picking up the work started by that Reddit post you mentioned, starting with the commoners. The twist is that I'm using UMA to generate the humanoid mesh at runtime so they could potentially have unlimited variation. Additionally, I'm using my SpriteWrite utility to (optionally) make the 3D character appear as a 2D sprite.

You can see what little I have so far here. During the video, I toggle on the SpriteWrite effect and vary the sprite resolution.

Anyhow, I really don't mean for this post to detract attention from you incredible work. But, if you would like to collaborate, I could really use your help with clothing/accessories and animations. I can handle the coding, packaging, and implementation details, and UMA can handle the humanoid mesh generation.

And feel free to say no. I understand completely about time constraints and real world obligations and such. This is something that I'm also just sort of chipping away at as I have time. No pressure.

Edit: I just watched the video for a 3rd time, and man... you really knocked it out of the park. Well done!

Hey, you're doing a great job! You're my hero. I've already seen this video on Reddit and the topic here. You are one of the people who motivated me to make this model. I don't know how long will my inspiration last, but as for now I'm willing to make some more models. I'd say, don't expect much from me, but I'll try to continue my work.

Still as for my taste when doing some remastering you should stay as close to the origin as possible. That is why to my point of view giving more variations to the bodies is not a very good idea. Daggerfall human models have very specific proportions with long legs, wide shoulders and short torso. This is the style that makes you recognize Daggerfall among hundreds of other games. BTW Bethesda kept this proportions in Battlespire and Morrowind. So in Daggerfall for all human like characters there are only two models - one male and one female with variations in skin color, haircuts and clothes. As you see, I'm trying to make a model as close to vanilla as possible.

If you're interested, as I see the process I can try to make a guard model from scratch (so that the two basic models will be finished) and then continue to model clothes and weapons for other characters using these two basic models. What do you think?

[MasonFace]

I don't know how long will my inspiration last, but as for now I'm willing to make some more models. I'd say, don't expect much from me, but I'll try to continue my work.

Oh man, I understand that all too well! Just do what you can as you feel up to it. It's way too easy to get burned out, especially when all this is done in your spare time. Just remember to give yourself a nice long break when it starts feeling cumbersome and stops being fun.

Still as for my taste when doing some remastering you should stay as close to the origin as possible. That is why to my point of view giving more variations to the bodies is not a very good idea.

Yeah, I definitely agree that a proper remaster should be as close to vanilla style as possible, and the body structure of the original models is a big part of that. As unrealistic as the vanilla (especially the male) bodies may be, they are very distinct and I love it.

The other side of the coin is that there is a large number of people in the community who feel that more variation in the NPCs would greatly enhance their immersion. My vision would allow for mod settings to include a very high level of customization so the user can chose the experience that best caters to their taste. "Vanilla" settings would use your female/male base models, and "Enhanced Variation" would leverage UMA.

Edit: Another thing that I forgot to bring up is that the static NPCs that are hand drawn show a lot more variation in their body types. It should be much easier to use UMA to get the bodies as close as we can to the original asset, rather than creating many distinct humanoid models.

If you're interested, as I see the process I can try to make a guard model from scratch (so that the two basic models will be finished) and then continue to model clothes and weapons for other characters using these two basic models. What do you think?

Yeah, I think that's a great call. And since the guard is also technically a commoner, we can play test it quicker since we won't need MOB 3D asset replacement.

[King of Worms]

Id really like to see a image of this exact model where it has like 100x less polygons, but Im not sure its so easy to do in blender.

Blender is an all around. I even edited the video for Youtube using internal video editor.
Every 3d editing software has its tools to automatically reduce the poly count, but unfortunately it never works well and you have to always reduce the poly count manually. I think you didn't mean 100x less polygons though. This model 18 178 tris or 9 246 faces (mostly quads). Reduce it to 182 tris? Well, it would be tricky. Even mobile games have more. The low poly model for the body is considered to be about 2 000 tris. My body model (without clothes and stuff) is 7 676 tris. So I assume it is quite mid poly model.

In that case you did great job, I was expecting the poly count to be roughly at x10 of that, thats why I just shoot divide by 100. Ofc 180 poly model might be a little on the low side And yea, I had a faint idea that its not so easy to just divide the polycount and get a nice model. I ended my 3d career 20 years ago in 3DStudio (not even 3DstudioMAX if anyone remembers that)

[Magicono43]

I'd like to see your take on the goofy "walking" animation of the guards and knight sprites. I imagine it would be more difficult to make that not look silly with more frames than the night-blade one you worked with, lol.

[Hrafnyx]

I'd like to see your take on the goofy "walking" animation of the guards and knight sprites. I imagine it would be more difficult to make that not look silly with more frames than the night-blade one you worked with, lol.

Challenge accepted!

[Hazelnut]

Wow! That's amazing quality work. You've been completely faithful to the original. With the extra detail and resolution the costume looks even more improbable now to my eyes, I mean clothes are not that expensive in Daggerfall...

Honestly it's much better quality than I expected to see. Are you a professional modeler?

[l3lessed]

Hey, hit me up on message. I would be happy to mess around with 3d models in the base script files and engines; be another side project o learn more coding language and tricks. And, with a miracle, maybe I could get a 3d model into the base engine.

I know I just said, I wasn't going to look into it, but, if no one expects an actual result, it would be fun for me to mess with the code and just see what could be done, if anything.