I have a new exploring tool under development called Daggerfall Modelling. This tool is to 3D content what Daggerfall Imaging 2 is to bitmaps. It provides a fun way to explore content in Daggerfall and export it for other uses.

Besides just viewing all 3D models in the game, Daggerfall Modelling can assemble entire cites and dungeons to explore. If you remember my Scout project couple years back, this tool takes the same basic idea and puts it into a more useful format.

The final goal of Daggerfall Modelling is to export 3D content to Collada format. This will allow 3D artists to create high-poly versions of Daggerfall's locations and dungeons for other projects. Lucius has stated that DaggerXL will support model replacement mods sometime in the future (after further gameplay elements are implemented) and that Collada will be supported as part of that tool chain. This means 3D artists can get an early start on rebuilding certain content.

This release of Daggerfall Modelling is just an alpha to check stability and play with the exploring features. It does not have Collada exporting at this time, but I expect to have this available within a few weeks. If you are interested in helping me test Daggerfall Modelling, please check http://www.dfworkshop.net/?p=813 for links to all the details.

Daggerfall Modelling is based on my open-source Daggerfall Connect library and is likewise released under the free MIT license. If you are a coder, you can check out the latest code http://code.google.com/p/daggerfallconnect/source/checkout in the 0.5.0 branch of Daggerfall Connect.

Thanks for the tools (I am looking at the art using Daggerfall Imaging 2) - I had forgotten how much artwork you don't see in-game...

I wonder if Lucius will enable the extra art in his DaggerXL builds

There is a http://www.dfworkshop.net/?p=821 on my blog showing progress on the Collada exporter. It will soon be possible to export Daggerfall's 3D models to any content creation tool or 3D engine with Collada support.

This is very good. When i get my new laptop i will start working on new models. I also propose some two features to help teams organize themselves and make things more fun.

It would be very useful if we could give our own names to models and organize them in a directory structure. I can see this as a text file mapping daggerfall model ids and texture ids to a name like this 'group/group/.../name'.

My other other proposal is to add lua script support so that we can fine-tune the way cities and dungeons are procedurally generated and assembled together. There's no need to do this exactly like Daggerfall did which IMO is very simple and immersion breaking in some cases.

I have something similar planned for Daggerfall Imaging and I can see how this would be helpful to ensure teams are working on the correct content and not doubling up on work. However, please consider first that Daggerfall already has a nice hierarchy in place you can start with. It goes like this: Region Name/Location Name/Block Name/ModelID. This hierarchy is clear text and will pinpoint any model as it is placed in the world.

For preventing content artists from doubling up on work, it would make sense to divide work along the lines of Block Name/ModelID as these are the molecular and atomic units of every location. Daggerfall Modelling can retrieve any unit of content (model, block, or location), so all you need is one person organising work and providing content artists a Block Name/ModelID to work with.

Finally, once the content has been exported to Collada format, you can call it whatever you want, put it into any folder structure you wish, and share using Dropbox. The main requirement is preserving ModelID both in the filename and in the Collada file so content remains easy to identify and import later. The next release of DF Modelling will show how this is done.




You may need to explain this one to me in a little more detail, as I might be misunderstanding what you are asking. None of the locations in Daggerfall are procedurally generated; their precise layout is defined in the game files. While it is true the original content designers used procedural methods to generate most map layouts, this layout information is now baked into MAPS.BSA. When you visit a location in Daggerfall, DaggerXL, or DF Modelling, it will appear the same for every person in every copy of Daggerfall.

Are you saying that you would like a way to build your own dungeon layouts just for fun? Or did you have something else in mind? I am sorry if I have misunderstood your proposal.

Yes, when i said procedural generated i meant how dungeons were baked from blocks into dungeons and towns. The process is very simple and limited to two dimensions. Even dungeons are two dimensional arrangement of blocks with those strange almost vertical corridors. Expanding on this would go beyond Daggerfall but that could be interesting.

There are many models which are just combinations of more simple parts or with a different texture set. If moders will reproduce all these models, is much easier to use a script to compose models than to save each variant in a separate file. A lua script could be use to bake cities and dungeons without Daggerfall restrictions when the game starts but with the speed of computers today this may not be necessary.

Besides it would be very interesting for procedural quests if it was possible to bake a dungeon when the quest was accepted and link to a location the player has never visited before (obviously if the player has already visited a dungeon it's basic layout should stay the same). This gives more possibilities for dungeon quests than just pick a random dungeon and add item to random location.

I will be implementing the ability to export blocks and locations as Collada scenes. Collada is just an XML format, so you can use that information to play with the layouts however you want and in any language/engine you prefer. For example, you could write a new procedural generator to build infinite dungeons in realtime with existing dungeon blocks. Couple it with coherent noise of some kind and people could exchange dungeons using a seed value. That would be an interesting side project to be sure.

I've seen your Daggerfall Roguelike project, which is looking excellent by the way. Perhaps there is some way you could use the exporters in Daggerfall Modelling to grab the building blocks you need and create interesting dungeons or environments with them. All you will need is the ability to read XML and some understanding of the Collada format. How you use the model and scene information is up to you. Collada is incredibly versatile and supported in nearly all modelling programs and game engines.

The second Alpha release of Daggerfall Modelling is now available for http://code.google.com/p/daggerfallconnect/downloads/detail?name=Daggerfall%20%20Modelling%20ALPHA%200.6.8.msi&can=2&q=. Updates in this version:

• It is now possible to export models to Collada .dae format.
  
• Fixed mouse picking to be accurate to face level.
  
• Improved visual feedback of models under the mouse in Location View.
  
• Fixed model alignment (switches, coffins, tapestries, etc.). These should all be aligned correctly now.
  
• Fixed camera bounds. It is now possible to fly around Mantellan Crux.
  
• Fixed improper culling in Location View. Again, Mantellan Crux was most affected by this issue.
  
• Slightly improved draw times in complex scenes with off-camera culling for objects.

Please check http://code.google.com/p/daggerfallconnect/wiki/DaggerfallModelling for system requirements and other information before installing and running Daggerfall Modelling.

There is a new http://code.google.com/p/daggerfallconnect/wiki/DaggerfallModelling_ExportingModels showing how to explore a location and export a model into Blender.

I hope you enjoy this release of Daggerfall Modelling.

Speaking about converting models for DaggerXL i don't think doing a piece by piece conversion is viable. I can make a test with Privateers Hold when i get my new laptop but don't see it working very well. There are thousands and individual pieces and many are simple repetitions with a different texture.

The only way i see to do this is for moders to replicate entire blocks and only of those unique dungeons and towns that are mentioned in quests. For the other places it would be better for DaggerXL to bake its own dungeons with a better method and ignore the ones in Daggerfall map file.

I think it would be useful to make an inventory of all unique places and items that are mentioned in quests, which are the more important ones for purposes of redoing models. I already have this half done and will post a list here in these forums.



"I've seen your Daggerfall Roguelike project, which is looking excellent by the way. Perhaps there is some way you could use the exporters in Daggerfall Modelling to grab the building blocks you need and create interesting dungeons or environments with them. "

Thanks. Procedural generation of realistic places and dungeons is very challenging, even if it's generating a grid of icons. I was using statistical data together with l-parser grammars and some complex search algorithms. And it's not just the layout of places that need to be generated but also peasants, their names, inventories and activities, item names, their distribution, terrain and vegetation and so on. This needs more research before producing something interesting but eventually i will come with something when I'm satisfied with the results.

I don't believe anybody plans on a "piece by piece conversion" of thousands of models. It's more likely you will see high-poly versions of specific buildings and unique features in locations. You should really get together with the DaggerXL community if you're interested in being part of a model replacement project. It will be some time before Lucius gets around to adding model replacements to DaggerXL so you have plenty of time to hammer out details with other modders over there. I also believe Lucius has mentioned better dungeon generation in the past. Again this is something best discussed with him as these features would be part of DaggerXL. They have nothing to do with Daggerfall Modelling.

What my tool does is export Daggerfall's 3D content to a flexible and widely supported intermediary format. You can use this exported data any way you like. You could transform it with scripts, data-mine it with Linq, or import it into another 3D engine. You could build maps, walkthroughs, or an atlas of the Illiac Bay. Collada just an XML schema so you can do all the things you normally do with XML (which is a lot). It's not just limited to importing models into DaggerXL.

Daggerfall Modelling is also a fun exploring tool in its own right. It is built equally for the Daggerfall community at large to explore the game world for the heck of it. I will be adding many more exploring features as time goes by in addition to bulking up the exporters to be as useful as possible.

Edit: I have created a http://xlengine.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=77 thread over on the DaggerXL mod forums. Please use that thread to discuss any specifics relating to DaggerXL modding and keep this discussion about Daggerfall Modelling.

Good point. I will do that.

There is http://www.dfworkshop.net/?p=851 on my blog outlining enhanced exploring features in the next release of Daggerfall Modelling. I'm aiming to make this tool a fun resource for everyone, and not just for exporting models from the game. This upcoming release adds fun stuff like skies, collision and gravity, XBOX 360 controller support, and the ability to interact with switches and levers.

Let me know what you think.

Very impressive. It would be interesting to use Daggerfall assets like this to create small movies, if we could also export entire scenarios and camera animations. We could then import the scene in Blender, add npcs and voice overs and render small movies.