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UPDATE 04A test of the 3D-to-sprite pipeline

A first vehicle, built in 3D

Vehicles, the airship and the mechs are planned as 3D models. This update tests that route: a dune buggy was modelled in Blockbench, rendered from 8 directions, and turned into pixel art. It is a test, not the final vehicle.

All 8 directions, with idle and drive frames.

What's new

  • A buggy with 8 facing directions, wheel-spin and bob animation.
  • A reusable render script, so any model can be turned into a sprite sheet.

How it was made

  1. The buggy was built from 60 tool calls to the Blockbench MCP plugin. The calls are logged in art/blockbench/mcp_calls.log. No part of the model was drawn by hand.
  2. Every surface uses a 64x64 texture whose colours are all taken from the master palette, so the colours stay locked.
  3. Blockbench exports the model as glTF. The render script (tools/blockbench/render_sprites.py) then turns it into 8 directions at a fixed 50 degree camera angle, with the light in the top-left.
  4. Aseprite (tools/blockbench/finish_3d.lua) palette-locks the frames, removes stray pixels, adds the outline and shadow, and tags the idle and drive animations.
  5. Blockbench was installed from the official AppImage and extracted, because this system has no FUSE 2 support. The AUR also has a package, blockbench-bin, that wasn't used.

Screens

The buggy next to the player at game scale.

Tools used

Blockbench 5.2.2Low-poly 3D modelling. An agent built the buggy by calling its MCP plugin, not by hand.
Blockbench MCP pluginLets an AI agent create the project, add cubes, set textures and export glTF through tool calls.
Godot SubViewportRenders the glTF model from 8 directions and writes the frames.
AsepritePalette lock, a 1 px outline, a drop shadow, and the animation tags.

How to try it

  • Not in the game yet. Vehicles are planned for a later update.
  • The model is in art/blockbench/buggy.bbmodel and opens in Blockbench.

Known issues

  • Drive animation is subtle, the front is hard to read, and the rear views are darker.
  • Fine details break up at 64 pixels, so larger frames are needed for big vehicles.
  • Needs a polish pass before it ships.

Ironfall dev log · Update 4 of 18 · All updates

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