I don’t know how these asset packs work. Could I get .stl files from them?

  • MolochAlter@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Short answer: no

    Long answer: game assets are absolutely possible to print but will look nothing like the model you see on screen.

    Rendering techniques used for real time mean you want fewer polygons and will be faking a bunch of shit, like hair or thatched roofs for instance, and none of those faked parts will show up correctly on a print since they are actually just textures on planes.

    • Pennomi@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      In addition, even the base mesh of many game assets aren’t manifold (watertight) meaning they are more akin to papercraft than 3D printable objects.

      • MolochAlter@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        True, I didn’t even think of that, buildings you’re not meant to walk into usually don’t even have a floor!

    • anlumo@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      I actually managed to extract the 3D assets from Star Craft 2 and print them, specifically the Baneling and the Ultralisk. I had to remesh them to make them manifold and subdivide to smooth the triangles, but they looked great in the end.

      The only problem of the Baneling is that the center of gravity is nowhere near the feet, so it always tips over. Hollowing its body would probably help.

      • MolochAlter@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        As i said, it’s possible, but it’s not guaranteed to look anything like the original model. I’m unfamiliar with the baneling as a model but I’m assuming it’s probably not hairy, right?

        • anlumo@feddit.de
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          1 year ago

          Star Craft 2 models aren’t hairy at all, because they’re really low poly. The engine has to be able to display hundreds of them on a single screen.

          Some have some thorn-like protrusions, but I intentionally didn’t try to print them, since they’re way harder to get working.

          • MolochAlter@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Yeah this is exactly the kind of model you would want to use to print, my take is that this is indeed possible but there are a lot of selection criteria for the models to work, which you can’t expect a newbie to catch and that will still require a lot of postprocessing before they’re actually printable.

      • thorbot@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        You were able to get them to work with extensive post processing. Models ripped from a game won’t print right unless they are reworked.

        • anlumo@feddit.de
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          1 year ago

          That’s not extensive, that’s a five minute process in Blender. I didn’t have to touch a single vertex, it’s all global operations.