Silly texture rendering idea

[JohnBeavers]

Hello everyone,

Here is an idea I add while recording the midi tracks for my vanilla midi mod.
As a disclamer I must say that I know not much about texture rendering. I did some customisation on Morrowind using paint.net and that is it

What if one used Skyrim as a rendering engine to take characters in different postures and positions in a all green (or blue) ingame room to only keep the character with no background ?
You know, like how they made sprites in mortal kombat, but in a modern 3D engine.

I know that A LOT of armors and clothing mods exists. Making such a room must not be too hard (a square box with plain textures) and putting characters in positions mimicking Daggerfall characters must not be too much to ask to a skillful skyrim modder.
We could even use a "cell shading" kind of render... I don't know :p
(https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/60609/)

It would be : model your character > dress it > put it in a position > move around while taking screenshots > process the screenshots > ??? > enjoy.

Take this idea more as a thought experiment more than anything else. What do you think ?
We could end up with a ridiculous result or a good one but I'm no artist and only one could tell.

I just wanted to share it with you guys

Cheers !

[dMike]

Someone already made a tool to do this with Unity.

viewtopic.php?f=22&t=1613

[MasonFace]

Someone already made a tool to do this with Unity.

viewtopic.php?f=22&t=1613

Well, I'm making (present tense) a tool to do something similar. What JohnBeavers is describing is sprite baking. There are already several Unity assets in the Asset Store that do this very effectively. My tool does not bake the sprites, so the 3D model would need to be used within DFU to capture and project a render texture onto a quad; currently you cannot replace characters with 3D models within the DFU modding system so my tool won't work for characters.

Baking the sprite from Skyrim sourced models as you described has two key problems:

1. Using Skyrim models would represent an infringement of intellectual property. A cease and desist would soon follow from Zenimax. This isn't insurmountable, though. Simply ask authors of Skyrim mods to use their assets. They're usually better quality anyhow. I'm guessing that this is what you were suggesting anyhow.

2. Baking the sprites from within Skyrim engine would be very cumbersome. It would be muuuuuch easier to import the model into Unity or Blender and bake from there since you would have direct control over the viewing direction, animation frame, background transparency, etc.. This process would be similar to what megaten and Kamer have worked on, except using other people's models.

A much smaller issue would be clashing of styles between Skyrim and Daggerfall. Also not insurmountable. We could use shaders to posterize the color, simplify the shading, etc.. Also Daggerfall's sprite styles already clashed among themselves, so it isn't really that big of a deal if they don't exactly fit...
Still, some lore enthusiasts will argue that armor styles of the era of Skyrim and Daggerfall are anachronistic, but I don't think most people would notice or care.

I do think that full 3D models will be the best way to go long term. Now that DFU is in Alpha, I'm sure more development effort will migrate back over to the modding system and soon enough 3D characters will be supported. Once that happens, my tool could make them appear as dynamic 2D sprites for the retro enthusiasts.

[Jay_H]

It'd probably be safer, legal-wise, to use some of the free-to-use models in the Unity store and bake them in. I haven't browsed them but there's got to be something good in there.

It's a good idea, though.

[JohnBeavers]

Thank you for your answer and taking this answer seriously.

1. Using Skyrim models would represent an infringement of intellectual property. A cease and desist would soon follow from Zenimax. This isn't insurmountable, though. Simply ask authors of Skyrim mods to use their assets. They're usually better quality anyhow. I'm guessing that this is what you were suggesting anyhow.

I didn't think of the IP behind all this
It is true though. Quoting the modders might not be enough.


I realize how little I know about Unity. In the end, I thought completely out of it.
I saw both megaten and Kamer' post. It is quite impresive already !

When you say full 3D models, you mean like they did in doom or duke nukem ports ?

Thank you again guys !

[MasonFace]

When you say full 3D models, you mean like they did in doom or duke nukem ports ?

Yup, exactly!

[Kamer]

So pre-rendered graphics

[JohnBeavers]

I cannot imagine what 3D NPC models would look like. It would be nice to see that in game.