Minecraft Wiki:Minecraft Dungeons standardized views

This article contains instructions for creating standardized views for Minecraft Dungeons elements. The instructions describe only one way to create the desired view. Individual authors may work differently.

The views follows Standardized views rules for lighting and camera projection. On the right side there's a downloable file template with all those preferences set up already.

Getting stared
Dungeons renders are created using 3D graphic software. The software can be freely chosen; in this article Blender (required version 2.8 and higher) will be used.

Before getting to rendering - game files like models, textures, etc. is needed. All required game assets can be downloaded here: Minecraft Wiki:Minecraft Dungeons Game Files(UModel)

The only folder you need from the package is Game.

The character models uses .psk file extension, to import them into Blender - installing plugin will be required. This psk/psa importer will be up for this purpose.

Setting up the model
Let's import the dungeon character into Blender, for this article - creeper will be used as the example.

On top menu select File>>Import>>Skeleton Mesh (.psk) and navigate to the creeper directory, that is located in Actors/Characters/Enemies

Before clicking Import PSK button it is recommended to select both Reorient bones and Don't invert root bone on the right.

After importing the model it should look something like this:



The model seem to be too big, it should be scalled down to around 0.016 of the original size, it can be done either in transform area on the right by setting same scale value in all axis or by using +typed in value combination and hitting.

Most of Dungeon character renders represents them in their idle animation pose - select the model's armature(the elements inside character geometry) and again File>>Import, but this time select Skeleton Anim(.psa)

Navigate to Animations folder and select Creeper_Idle.psa. Now on the timeline box at the bottom move the selector to frame 0 and also set Start and End values to 0. After these operation it should look like this:



Applying texture and setting up material
Now that we have our geometry set-up, let's apply the texture. Select the creeper mesh and navigate to Material Properties tab on the right(pinkish-gray checkerboard sphere icon), the tab looks like this:



In this window there's only three things that needs configuration. First off, in Settings area change Shadow Mode to None and Blend Mode to Opaque or Alpha Hashed if character's texture have transparent elements. After setting these click on Use Nodes button.

Further configuration will be done in Shader Editor. Switch timeline to Shader Editor by clicking Clock icon on the bottom left.

You can change the window size by dragging it's edges.

You will see a grid-like dark gray window with two boxes connected with a node: Principled BSDF and Material Output. In the BSDF there's several values that needs to be tweaked:


 * Set Spectular value to 0
 * Set Roughness value to 1
 * Set Sheen Tint to 0

Now it's time to add the texture. It is done by adding new box via + combination, from the context menu select Texture>>Image Texture and connect Color dot with Base Color in BSDF by dragging it.

In Image Texture box change Linear to Closest, and Open the texture file(T_Creeper.png).

The whole workspace should look something simillar to this right now:



Finishing up
The last thing that needs to be done is camera position and image resolution. Select camera and hit Num0 key. Change location values in transform area and Orthographic Scale in Object Data Properties(With Camera object selected it will be green camera icon) until top and bottom camera borders are really close to character model edges. After getting it done switch Object Data Properties to Output Properties(Printer Icon). In this window slowly change the X resolution value until it reaches left and right model edges. The finished camera configuration should look something like this:



Now just render the image by selecting Render>>Render Image from top menus. In the new window that will appear select image tab on top, and from there Save As...

Weight mapping
Sometimes character have additional equipment as separate models. After importing you will notice, that those models are not attached to the main model skeleton. To fix that, the objects will have to be parented to skeleton and weight mapped so they can follow certain bones the same way as parts of the main character model.

In this part of the article creeper will be replaced with Piglin holding the golden sword.

Before getting to weight mapping you have to get and import two models:


 * Whole piglin directory located in Content_DLC4/Actors/Characters/Enemies
 * Sword model located in Actors/Equipment/MeleeWeapons/Sword_Steel

Position the sword model to the piglin's right arm and attach the textures the same way as it was described in applying texture section. Do not scale the models down or apply animation at this moment, it will be done after weight mapping.

The objects after these actions should look like this:



Select the sword object and while holding click on the armature. Use combination + and from context menu select With Empty Groups. Now the sword is parented to armature, but doesn't follow the movement of it.

There's two ways to attach the sword to a specific bone.

First method
Select armature and while holding - select sword object. With those two selected change Object Mode on the upper left corner to Weight Paint. For better visiblity you can change color mode to material as seen here:



You will see three sliders: Weight, Radius and Strength. The weight slider describes bone influence, radius slider, as the name states - radius of the brush and strength slider describes the strenght of weight application. Set Weight and Strength to 1, brush radius value is up to your preference.

Before painting on the sword, select corrent bone the mapping will be applied to. In this case it will the bone on the bottom of piglin's right arm. After getting this done, start painting. The bone influence is applied to model's vectors and every value is described with certain color as seen in image below.



Red color represents full bone influence, while blue - zero.

After the process the sword should be fully red, as seen below:



Second method
This method will require you to know the bone name you will be attaching sword to. Select armature and change Object Mode to Edit Mode. Select the bottom bone of right arm and on the right pannel go to Bone Properties(Green bone icon). Here you will see that bone is named J_R_Hand. Exit Edit Mode. Now select sword and change Object Mode to Edit Mode. Select all verticles with tapping and go to Object Data Properties on the right pannel. This should look like this:



Select J_R_Hand group and click on Assign button and exit Edit Mode.

Finishing
Now the sword is attached to armature and follows the bones. You can now scale the model, apply animation and set up camera as described in above sections.