Since this project is currently using the home models,: Are the models using the in-battle or out of battle idle animations?
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Custom 3D Animated Renders
- Thread starter DJTHED
- Start date
So this is how we're handling this. We take the Home model meshes, and also take the ScVl armatures/skeletons and combine them. Where now the Home model will be using the ScVl armature instead of the one from home. That way ScVl animations can easily be applied to the Home models we're now using. The models from Home and ScVl don't always have an exact match, but often they are very close and only require some manual corrections to get them to work well.Hey there! Wanted to say this project is amazing! Found out not long ago and honestly can't believe how good the final gifs turn out. Congrats (and thank you) to the amazing artists contributing to this! Hope the DLCs hype inspire you all <3
Also, are there any new Legends Arceus renders done by Flicks available elsewhere? Besides the ones he posted here, I mean. They're SO good!Hello! Just passed by to say that you're doing a great job with your project! I thought Showdown staff just picked random gifs from Google Images and then uploaded into the simulator, but I had no idea you put so much effort in these gifs. I hope life chills out a bit for everyone involved and please do not be discouraged to demake new mons into these neat gifs.
If I hadn't enough in my hands right now, I would help you people, but as I cannot, at least I can give some kind words.
Keep up with the good work, drink lots of water and get some quality sleep :)
tbh i think the reason updates have stopped being posted is because of the people who see the update posts and immediately go rabid about how the process takes time and can't be over in a week
besides, maybe it's just me, but i quite like how they're silently adding them in now; it adds a little element of surprise when i load into a game and one of the critters is moving now when it wasn't yesterday
Nvm fixed bothHow do you make these 3D models I wanna try myself
Idk if "rushing" them will be a good option, well maybe i know: Isn't a good option.
We have to be patient.so...i was browsing the oldgen analysis pages during a rabbithole (as one does) and noticed something interesting; Mega Steelix's debris loops properly now? i was wondering if that was done as part of this project or if it was a manual GIF trim (after all, Steelix itself loops slightly off now)
edit: since it doesn't appear to apply to Shiny MSteelix i'd assume it's a GIF trim?
figured the armatures out but still unsure how to fix the models, this is tough, i see how much effort it takes for dj now.Uh so I have a question, is it possible to contact the people who run Pokemon Showdown and help them get Gen 7 Sprite Animations with Gen 9 Pokemon?
My friend uses Blender to make Gen 9 Pokemon have Gen 7 Sprite Animations which is what I see the showdown website lacks. It just has the icon instead of the Gen 7 Sprite.
Annhilape:Basculegion:Palafin-Hero:3D Animated Renders Update
Hello there everyone, this is my first time ever making a Smogon account. I am not typically an active person on social forums or social media, but given recent developments I have decided to make an account to help manage the hefty project that is Showdown's 3D renders.
I was going to go by Thoth on here, but that username happened to be claimed *just* last year, on my birthday no less which seems very indicative of my own luck. So as a second attempt, OnSecondThoth seemed very fitting. Calling me just Thoth though is fine and preferred.
--Project Update--
For over the last year, I have been volunteering to help pick up the work on missing 3D renders for the Generation 8 and 9 Pokémon, using DJ's render workflow he custom built in Blender. It's been a slow process, and at some points exhaustive, but it is still a project I am very passionate and determined about. Active users of Showdown in the last year or so have likely seen new renders that I've made:
I have been making renders when I can, starting all the way back with PLA Pokémon such as
Sneasler,
Ursaluna,
and Hisuian Goodra.
Through 2024, I have been working on all the Gen 9 Pokémon that are still left to render, and there is plenty more to come.
(Hover over to see the kind of work that went into each of these!)
So how many renders are left to do? Well, quite a lot, over 60 Pokémon I believe are still without 3D renders. And each Pokémon of course has front and back sprites to render, plus shinies, plus any alternate forms! Nevertheless, I have made ample progress and intend to keep that rolling.
Will the project ever get finished? Yes, absolutely! But truthfully it has not been easy.
DJ has been more and more wrapped up with his job, so it has been hard for him to find time to contribute. I, as a result, have essentially been the main and only contributor to the project for over a year. Juggling two jobs on top of that, as one could imagine, does not give me much time to crank out a new render every night, or even every week. Not to mention the extra work that can go into certain 3D renders, anything from bugged bones, to adjusting textures, to having to fix animation keys themselves...it can be quite tedious. But, it is not an impossible ordeal.
So here's what's going on.
--Moving Forward--
For 2025, I have been determined to bring this project to its most critical goal: finish all of Generation 9's Pokémon. Thus far, renders would be a back-and-forth process between DJ and myself. I would develop renders in my spare time, DJ would then review renders in his spare time for QA and any potential fixes, I would go back to make any adjustments needed, and then when the render is finally given the okay, it would hit Showdown. Now, I have been given more control to create and QA renders myself, which will speed up the process a lot. I have also been fortunate in that one of my two jobs has turned into my full time job within the last six months, so I am not as drained as I used to be last year.
That combined with me now being able to approve new volunteers myself, we have better time efficiency for render creation and more hands on deck, which I believe will be a huge boost (and honestly just a huge help for me in general). Anyone who would be also interested in helping out, please feel free to ask! I do just want to give the warning that the process can be very tedious, especially if you do not have much prior experience with Blender! So do be aware of that before reaching out.
I do not have a projected timeframe of when certain renders will be finished, but the current goal for now is to get all non-legendary, non-Paradox Pokémon in Gen 9 done ASAP. Whether you are excited to see Glimmora floating by as its devious Toxic Debris scatters onto the battlefield, Ceruledge burning bright like a Bitter Blade, or Klawf being...Klawf, rest assured these Pokémon will shmoove soon. Which brings me to my next point of interest.
--Community Engagement--
So one thing I'd love to do moving forward is try to bolster more excitement and interest in the 3D render project. One idea I've thought of is trying to run occasional "Pokémon Priority Polls", where certain Pokémon that are farther down the to-do list are placed into a poll for users to vote on. Whichever Pokémon people would be more excited to see earlier will get moved up in priority and I'll push to get them done myself ASAP (ideally within a week or so if I can help it)! This won't include certain Pokémon groups like the Paradoxes, as those will need special attention that I intend to get to once all the other Paldea Pokémon are complete, but this will allow me to see what certain players want to see sooner. Overall, I hope this will bring better communication to the playerbase (certain Pokémon in game ID order are bizarrely way down the list, so this is a good way for me to help bring those Pokémon "early". Did you know that Tinkaton in game ID order is after Koraidon and Miraidon? So strange.)
If there are any suggestions from the community of what they would find helpful, do also let me know! Besides the polls I will likely be doing occasional posts in the thread to make updates here and there, but the poll idea is at least a testing ground to see how it's received. If it goes well, I have some fun ideas for other community votes down the line.
--
I think that about wraps up my thoughts. Thank you all for your patience, and thank you as well to DJTHED for creating the workflow and compositing setup for this project. I hope I can continue to deliver in quality renders. Before I end this message, I would like to show some renders I am in the process of finalizing. I hope you all will enjoy once they hit Showdown!
^ this has got to be a serious contender for best first post by an account. Absolutely nuts.
In all seriousness, thank you for continuing this great project. I’ve been following this thread ever since DJTHED started it, so I’m happy to see it active again.
You mentioned that the Paradox Pokemon would need “special attention.” May I ask why this is the case?
Keep up the extraordinary work!
Thank you for the comment, I really appreciate it.
As for the Paradoxes, it would be a bit more accurate to say that the Future Paradox Pokemon require special attention. This is mostly due to a unique shader that all the Future Paradox Pokemon share.
https://gamemakers.jp/article/2023_09_12_49637/
Back during CEDEC 2023 (a video game industry conference in Japan), the director of Game Freak's CG department came over and did a talk where they detailed a lot of the different shader and post processing work that went into SV. One of the topics was actually the unique "particle" shader I mention (I jokingly/affectionately call it the lava lamp shader).
In a brief explanation, the areas that have these glowing dots have two extra textures involved, a 4x4 "sprite sheet" that plays the animation of the moving dots (left), and a parallax texture that gives the particles a sense of depth (right). These together help make the particle effect play over the model's base colors:
That becomes a bit of a problem when we try to translate to Showdown, but there is good news and bad news. The good news is that it looks like the HOME models of the future Paradoxes have the particle sprite sheet baked into the base colors. That plus the fact that Showdown renders are small, I have a hunch that the parallax map would not be needed too much since any sense of depth would probably be impossible to see at that scale. We'll have to see in testing of course. The bad news is that because the particles are baked in, at this scale the particles might be completely washed out...so I'll need to see what we can do to improve their visuals.
(Example HOME render from the Lewtwo Asset Archive. Note that GIFs like this would be way too big to work properly on Showdown!)
I could always of course just do all the Past Paradoxes first, and then figure out the Future Paradoxes later, but I want to be sure all the Paradoxes can release around the same time. So I'd like to take the time I can now to get out all the regular Pokemon out first so that I can try to workshop a solution in the background.
Incredible work, I think polls for community input and occasional updates (maybe once every other week or so) would get people more invested and show people the cool work you're doing.
they're decent but have a few issues, the idle animations are a lot faster than they should be and cyclizar's tail has both of its models visible at once when it shouldn't use the rolled up one while standing as well as the partially afformentioned inconsistant scaling of them all compared to each other
As woodgoldtwo mentioned, these are a solid base but there's some issues.
- Munkidori and Cyclizar's animation speeds are too fast, that is not the speed at which they play in the game.
- Both Munkidori and Cyclizar have meshes visible that should be hidden! Munkidori's headband should only have the skull on the left side of his face. The extra skull on the right I imagine is from some animation where he probably spins the headband around. Cyclizar's tail "tires" should also not be visible, the puffed up dewlap and the curled tail only appear for other animations.
- Cyclizar also seems to be in the wrong animation. Their battle idle is more hunched, with their mouth opening and closing as they wait. This seems to be their out-of-battle idle.
- Pawmi has some strange outlines rendering around their left arm? Not sure what would be causing that. (also the shiny back idle skips a frame)
- Munkidori also seems to have no shading? While Cyclizar's shading feels oddly pillow shaded. The ideal shadows should be cell-shaded, your Pawmi is actually very close to what I expect for Showdown renders.
- And yeah, overall these scales are just too big for Showdown. Renders on Showdown need to be scaled accordingly to the other existing renders (or else you might run into a Glimmet towering over Wailord!), but also the files sizes themselves should be kept as low as possible. That's where the Optimization step comes in, where we ensure we keep the color palette as small as possible while making the GIF look near identical to it's nonoptimized version. This Cyclizar render of yours is over 200 KB, while the Cyclizar render I was adjusting recently was nearly half of that.
I hope this doesn't sound overly nitpicky! You definitely show competence with Blender being able to get that close to the style. It's more so I want to show how much goes into refining these renders so that they work for Showdown.
If you do make adjustments though, please feel free to share!
