I want to write a tool in Python that will help me create isometric tiles from 3D-models. You see, I'm not a very proficient artist and free 3D-models are plentisome, and creating something like a table or chair is much easer in 3D than in painting.
This script will load a 3D model in orthographic projection and take pictures from four directions so it can be used in a game. I've tried this in Blender, but the results are inconsistent, very difficult to control and take very long time to create simple sprites.
Rolling my own script will probably let me do neat things too, especially batch-genetration, maybe on texture changes, shading, etc. The game itself will probably be made in Python tpp, so maybe I could generate on the fly. (Edit: and automatically creat cut out see-through walls for when they face camera)
Now my question, what Python libraries can do something like this? I've checked both Pyglet and Panda3D, but I haven't even been able to load a model, let alone set it to orthographic projection.
I found this code:
www.pygame.org/wiki/OBJFileLoader
It let me load and display an .obj file of a cube from Blender with ease. It runs PyOpenGL so it should let me do everything OpenGL can. Never knew OpenGL was so low-level, didn't realize I'd have to write my own loaders and everything.
Anyway, I'm pretty sure I can modify this to project isometrically, rotate the object and grab shots and combine them into sprites. Thanks you guys!
Render 3D model orthographically in Python