Daggerfall Workshop Forums

How hard would it be to make a tool to import sprites and models from Redguard and Battlespire

jayhova wrote: ↑Fri Mar 01, 2024 8:54 am How hard would it be to make a tool to import sprites and models from Redguard and Battlespire

No idea on the models and IMO its not about "one hit wonder" tool. 1st u need extract the assets from the source game, make em compatible with DFU and import em. Its already possible to export sprites from Battlesprire, but than u come into the copyright territory. Thats why the direct imports are not in a mods like Daggerfall enemy expansion. There are remade sprites based on the original Battlespire, but no direct copy/paste. So that also explains a part of the issue.

I'm pretty sure the sprites are the same format as they were in Daggerfall, more or less. The model formats are beyond me though.

I was mostly thinking for those of use who own the games not simply extracted.

King of Worms wrote: ↑Sat Mar 02, 2024 7:52 pm There are remade sprites based on the original Battlespire, but no direct copy/paste. So that also explains a part of the issue.

Although this is not really related to the topic of this discussion, I'm pretty certain that no one would bother if one or two (or perhaps even all) Battlespire monsters were imported and used in a DFU mod as they are. This is generally a perfectly acceptable practice and should be covered by a fair use-like exception. I believe that the authors of the enemy expansion mod just scaled the Battlespire monsters down to make them fit better with the art style of vanilla Daggerfall.

In fact, as far as I understand the issue, if Bethesda/id really wanted to go after someone for using their copyrighted assets, custom made sprites based on their art would not be a sure defence either because, well, they're derivative works. It's just that usually game devs and publishers are okay with proprietary assets used in mods, at least as long as those are not used for profit or become a rival product that could threaten them.

Not so sure bout that, as for example Skywind has to remake every single asset.
But I agree Battlespire is so old that it would possibly not matter.
I believe the sprites in DEX are complete remake, at least in case of that dremora

Fair use would cover it if you owed the game

Part of the Redguard Unity project is the Redguard File Exporter. As these assets are being used in a Unity project it should not be a great deal of effort to make them compatible with DFU. I imagine it would not be exceedingly difficult to create a utility to extract the assets of Battlespire and make it an expansion for Daggerfall as it was originally intended.

I am inspired by OpenMW and the ability to load assets from the last 3 titles [youtube]https://youtu.be/D-t11y8O3Fw?si=YRcurQ5h7tOklEZI [/youtube]