Pre-Rendered Graphics

[StrawberrySmiles]

I've been curious lately on how the process of creating 2D, pre-rendered sprites and environments via 3D models is done.

Kind of like Diablo and Baldur's Gate.

I -have- dabbled with Blender, etc., but I never see anyway to export them as certain poses or whatever. And when I google it, of course, I get nothing because I suck. XD

 

[Xilef]

I've annotated a screenshot with all the things you need to export a render to a .png with an alpha-transparent background highlighted in red;
http://imgur.com/vHsL6qg

If you are using lighting, then you want to rotate your object rather than switch between cameras otherwise you'll need to reset the light source's location for each camera angle. That's the manual way to do it. You then go into Photoshop and stitch together your image.

Personally, I'd write a script that would auto-magically render each rotation of the target object into a stitched sprite sheet, switching poses for each N frames of animation.

 

[Perihelion]

We've looked into rendering out models as sprites before and concluded that it wasn't worth it for us. It's a lot more effort than it seems at first, especially if you're making the models yourself. Also, the models generally won't look as good as hand-done sprites, especially with regards to proportions and things. I wouldn't really recommend it over using RTP-based sprites, but it's certainly an option.

 

[coyotecraft]

Wouldn't you just snapshot a keyframe or something? With the right camera angle or whatever it's called. Isometic view, or or Orthographic mode. idk.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QQCTPMYYs0

 

[StrawberrySmiles]

Thanks guys!

@Peri, I'm kind of messing around and will be using resources I've seen available.

I'll look in more depth when I go on PC. :P