Provide a 3D printable file of our toons!

FlopsyPrince · May 9

I would bet this would not be really expensive, but it might be nice to be able to make a 3D print of our characters in the game. They might need to be painted of course, but printing a "current figure" would be something that likely could be automated.

Include it in ESO+ if needed, but please don't charge Crowns, especially not for each print. Making the engine to make the file would take time of course, but it should run quite easily (with minimal load) once that is finished.

Hapexamendios · May 9

Definitely something that should not come from the company's end at this time. Resources should be allocated to game performance and features rather than something that is extremely low priority for most and would not be a revenue generator as you suggest.

MasterSpatula · May 9

I have all my minis from my tabletops games. I even used HeroForge to create a model for a VTT game during the pandemic that I eventually also had printed out as a memento of those experiences.

Sooner or later, this game will end. I would LOVE to have miniatures of my beloved characters to remember the good times. And unlike OP, I would fully expect this to cost Crowns or straight-up real world currency. I'm perfectly okay with that.

ArchangelIsraphel · May 9

Oh man, where do I begin?

Now keep in mind that it's not that I wouldn't want to be able to 3D print my character- in fact, I have some experience in extracting 3D models from other, single-player games in order to rig and pose them to create scenes in XNALara and other softwear.

The thing is with 3D printing- in most cases, the models really need to be made with 3D printing in mind to begin with. There is a huge amount of manual clean-up involved in preparing a model for print. ESO's models, as they currently stand, are not print-ready.

Inner faces and clipping can be a huge issue, and often have to be cleaned up manually when preparing a model for print (I do this in Blender). It really cannot be automated in the way you are suggesting. The geometry used to display a character in games is generally non-manifold, so a lot of adjustment needs to be made for print.

3D print design studios which provide automatic services, such as Hero Forge and other similar places, are using 3D models which are made for printing to begin with. ESO is definitely not- the motifs would be a nightmare to clean up in and of themselves.

This is a system that would require a lot of hours of work by someone preparing the model, and be accordingly very expensive.

TaSheen · May 10

My characters live in my mind and imagination. I don't need or want them printed. If it can be done without shorting actual content (already less than in the past), fine. Otherwise, no thank you.

DMuehlhausen · May 10

Blizzard use to work with a company that would make models of your character. I don't remember the company name though. I've always tried to find ways to do this, but no company does it for copyright reasons and frankly 3D printing for me, is just to expensive.

I suppose in theory you could take enough screenshots and save them and if somebody is good with modeling software could make it.

DMuehlhausen · May 10

TaSheen wrote: »

My characters live in my mind and imagination. I don't need or want them printed. If it can be done without shorting actual content (already less than in the past), fine. Otherwise, no thank you.

What?

tincanman · May 10

DMuehlhausen wrote: »

TaSheen wrote: »

My characters live in my mind and imagination. I don't need or want them printed. If it can be done without shorting actual content (already less than in the past), fine. Otherwise, no thank you.

What?

Translation: I have a wonderful and active visual imagination that can readily render all my indivdual characters in full 3D, living colour so don't require an actual external physical representation as described, but have no objection if such a feature were to be developed provided such development was not at the expense of developing new game content.

TaSheen · May 10

tincanman wrote: »

DMuehlhausen wrote: »

TaSheen wrote: »

My characters live in my mind and imagination. I don't need or want them printed. If it can be done without shorting actual content (already less than in the past), fine. Otherwise, no thank you.

What?

Translation: I have a wonderful and active visual imagination that can readily render all my indivdual characters in full 3D, living colour so don't require an actual external physical representation as described, but have no objection if such a feature were to be developed provided such development was not at the expense of developing new game content.

Masterful summation. Thank you. I was involved in a.... um.... "not argument" with husband, and seriously had to shortcut what I wanted to post.... because otherwise I ran the risk (not at all unusual at my age) of not remembering what I wanted to say or why.

WhiteCoatSyndrome · May 10

I don’t object to the idea, but TBH I’d rather just mod them into the next single-player Elder Scrolls game.

Sakiri · May 10

TaSheen wrote: »

tincanman wrote: »

DMuehlhausen wrote: »

TaSheen wrote: »

My characters live in my mind and imagination. I don't need or want them printed. If it can be done without shorting actual content (already less than in the past), fine. Otherwise, no thank you.

What?

Translation: I have a wonderful and active visual imagination that can readily render all my indivdual characters in full 3D, living colour so don't require an actual external physical representation as described, but have no objection if such a feature were to be developed provided such development was not at the expense of developing new game content.

Masterful summation. Thank you. I was involved in a.... um.... "not argument" with husband, and seriously had to shortcut what I wanted to post.... because otherwise I ran the risk (not at all unusual at my age) of not remembering what I wanted to say or why.

You have to remember that there are actually people that cannot visually imagine anything.

They did a study on it. Tell people a word, say, "apple", and then ask what they "see" in their minds.

Some saw photorealistic images of actual apples, outlines, drawings, multiples of the above... And there were also folks, a lot of them young adults, that for some reason or another could not create the image of an apple in their mind.

So yeah, they exist.

GooGa592 · May 10

Super fun idea, but I doubt ZOS has a 3D model to work off of. Our toons and the game is very much 2D.

furiouslog · May 10

You can do this yourself with various tools on the internet.

FlopsyPrince · May 11

GooGa592 wrote: »

Super fun idea, but I doubt ZOS has a 3D model to work off of. Our toons and the game is very much 2D.

I am so amazed that some came out so strongly against this.

People make 3D prints of so many things today. The resources to do so are not as big as even a few years ago.

I don't care if they aren't perfect, but it would be a nice bonus to make our players physical. Amazing that some are opposed to even that. Nothing would compel anyone to use it, it would be available for those who might want it.

kargen27 · May 11

Sakiri wrote: »

TaSheen wrote: »

tincanman wrote: »

DMuehlhausen wrote: »

TaSheen wrote: »

My characters live in my mind and imagination. I don't need or want them printed. If it can be done without shorting actual content (already less than in the past), fine. Otherwise, no thank you.

What?

Translation: I have a wonderful and active visual imagination that can readily render all my indivdual characters in full 3D, living colour so don't require an actual external physical representation as described, but have no objection if such a feature were to be developed provided such development was not at the expense of developing new game content.

Masterful summation. Thank you. I was involved in a.... um.... "not argument" with husband, and seriously had to shortcut what I wanted to post.... because otherwise I ran the risk (not at all unusual at my age) of not remembering what I wanted to say or why.

You have to remember that there are actually people that cannot visually imagine anything.

They did a study on it. Tell people a word, say, "apple", and then ask what they "see" in their minds.

Some saw photorealistic images of actual apples, outlines, drawings, multiples of the above... And there were also folks, a lot of them young adults, that for some reason or another could not create the image of an apple in their mind.

So yeah, they exist.

what color is your apple? Mine was a granny smith.

LyricsEcho · May 11

Ninjarip

TaSheen · May 11

kargen27 wrote: »

Sakiri wrote: »

TaSheen wrote: »

tincanman wrote: »

DMuehlhausen wrote: »

TaSheen wrote: »

My characters live in my mind and imagination. I don't need or want them printed. If it can be done without shorting actual content (already less than in the past), fine. Otherwise, no thank you.

What?

Translation: I have a wonderful and active visual imagination that can readily render all my indivdual characters in full 3D, living colour so don't require an actual external physical representation as described, but have no objection if such a feature were to be developed provided such development was not at the expense of developing new game content.

Masterful summation. Thank you. I was involved in a.... um.... "not argument" with husband, and seriously had to shortcut what I wanted to post.... because otherwise I ran the risk (not at all unusual at my age) of not remembering what I wanted to say or why.

You have to remember that there are actually people that cannot visually imagine anything.

They did a study on it. Tell people a word, say, "apple", and then ask what they "see" in their minds.

Some saw photorealistic images of actual apples, outlines, drawings, multiples of the above... And there were also folks, a lot of them young adults, that for some reason or another could not create the image of an apple in their mind.

So yeah, they exist.

what color is your apple? Mine was a granny smith.

Mine's a farm stand in Washington State, with about a dozen bins of different varieties - a few heirloom (Northern Spy, Orange Pippin), but also Granny Smith, Red Delicious, Yellow Delicious, Rome, Jonathan, Gala, Braeburn....

Desiato · May 11

Sakiri wrote: »

You have to remember that there are actually people that cannot visually imagine anything.

They did a study on it. Tell people a word, say, "apple", and then ask what they "see" in their minds.

Some saw photorealistic images of actual apples, outlines, drawings, multiples of the above... And there were also folks, a lot of them young adults, that for some reason or another could not create the image of an apple in their mind.

So yeah, they exist.

Based on what I've read over the years, it seems rare if two people experience reality exactly the same. I was completely shocked to learn some people don't have an inner monologue. I can't even imagine that.

TaSheen · May 11

Desiato wrote: »

Sakiri wrote: »

You have to remember that there are actually people that cannot visually imagine anything.

They did a study on it. Tell people a word, say, "apple", and then ask what they "see" in their minds.

Some saw photorealistic images of actual apples, outlines, drawings, multiples of the above... And there were also folks, a lot of them young adults, that for some reason or another could not create the image of an apple in their mind.

So yeah, they exist.

Based on what I've read over the years, it seems rare if two people experience reality exactly the same. I was completely shocked to learn some people don't have an inner monologue. I can't even imagine that.

Heh. My inner monologue is usually the best conversations I have on a daily basis....

Four_Fingers · May 11

Would be cool to have a model of our own characters, but there are tons of 3d printable elder scrolls characters ready to download on the web.

Amottica · May 11

I'm not sure what someone thinks is not very expensive, but this would not be cheap.

Zenimax would need to design a system to extract a 3D printable design for characters. There is no reason this would already be developed and implemented. They would have to be convinced they would reap a solid profit from this effort. Then, there is the aspect that Zenimax owns our characters just as we do not own anything about our accounts.

If they were to do this, it would be through a third party. I'm not sure what the original Molag Bal sculpture sold for, but a character of that size and quality would go for several times that value since it would be completely custom. Does not seem like a "not very expensive" item.

But I think it would be fantastic for those who could afford it.

Tommy_The_Gun · May 11

That would be cool if game offered a way to basically "save" current character with all the apparel & pose as a 3D file (.stl, .obj for example). Kinda similar to taking "screenshot" and it creates a .jpg file. I can imagine that it would be not as simple to implement as "taking screenshot", but it is definitely possible. I mean, there are already some "tricks" you can use if you know how to do it, but it is kinda hard as it most likely involves GPU memory dump and extract 3D scene from that memory. So, ESO devs should definitely be able to do that and it should not be that hard tbh.

I would imagine that there would be potential market for it, so ZOS could even make it a "crown store" paid feature (example: you buy a token, and token gets used when 3D file is being created). I mean, you would still need to 3D print it & paint it so it is a lot of post-procesing & work to make an actual "figurine". I also doubt that ZOS has resources to 3D print & paint custom figures & ship them world wide in a scale large enough.

BlueRaven · May 11

DMuehlhausen wrote: »

Blizzard use to work with a company that would make models of your character. I don't remember the company name though.

Figureprints.