‘Final Fantasy VII’ Characters 3D Printed Straight from the Game

[Guest]

Digital artist Joaquin Baldwin ripped the character models from the original PC version of 'Final Fantasy VII' and 3D printed them.

‘Final Fantasy VII’ Characters 3D Printed Straight from the Game : Read more

 

[xerxces]

All there is to say is "Nice", lol

 

[cozmium]

"Baldwin hollowed the models out so they would be cheaper to print. "It's a long and tedious process," he told us." - He lied. They are exceptionally low poly, and most if not all 3D packages have some sort of boolean subtract function so all you would have to do is rezise it in another layer and subtract from the original. Voila: a hollow model in >10 seconds.

 

[cozmium]

I obviously meant "<" - thanks for making your pages here editable Toms. While i'm here again though, it was pretty bold to try and sell them when obviously they are one of the most famous IPs of SE.

 

[nevilence]

I would of forked out for each one of them if they were still for sale, best game ever ><

 

[chicofehr]

did he upload the models so we can print our own when we can afford a 3D printer?

 

[kyuuketsuki]

That's actually really awesome. Wish I'd caught wind of this before he was served the inevitable take-down notice. Hopefully Square-Enix will note the demand for these and make some official ones.

 

[lpedraja2002]

Man, if these 3D printers ever become commercially available for the general public, the toy industry will take a huge hit. Everyone would just start to print their favorite video game or cartoon characters. As long as we don't sell them it should be legal, right?

 

[shadowfamicom]

Good work with extracting and preparing the old models for printing. I am surprised he did it himself and didn't just got to some of the many websites that posts video game 3D models. On a side note.... I still cannot get into FFVII... after FF6 (FF3 in the states) I didn't really enjoy a Final Fantasy game for a long time. I rather watch a black and white made for TV movie, in Russian on a 12 inch TV with bad reception then try to sit through FF7 again. I still say a big reason why the FF7's fanbase is so fanatical because for most of them it was their first RPG. Give me Chrono Trigger or Dragon Quest (insert number) over FF7 any day.

 

[monkeycmonkeydu]

It wasn't everyone's first RPG, it was quite a revolutionary game when it came out... The first several Final Fantasy games were amazing on NES and SNES, but they were fundamentally different... I actually bought that game BEFORE I bought a playstation to play it on, that is how much I wanted to play this game... Guess how many times I have done that since - zilch. For their first attempt at converting a 2d series to a 3d story and world they did a fantastic job, the variety and immersion of the world has been matched by few games since then, first time through I think I logged about 130 hours and still had a few things left I could have done. The music was exponentially more engaging than the previous games, and the wide range of characters meant something for everyone. I think people who dismiss this game out of hand never truly considered what a masterpiece it was for game design both at the time and still to this day.

 

[inerax]

He should put the files on the pirate bay lol. Let people with 3D printers go nuts.

 

[shadowfamicom]

Oh I think it was an interesting piece of game design and set the stage for things to come. 2D to 3D was always the big problem of the day. To me though, as a game I do not find it engaging, both when it came out or when it gets booted up now. I don't think that it was everyone's first RPG (I know alot of people who like it that had been into RPGs since the NES). I just find for a lot of people it was their first. Either way not my cup of tea.

 

[gm0n3y]

@shadowfamicom,

I'm a big fan of FF7, but you are correct that it can't compare to Chrono Trigger (probably the best console RPG of all time). My first console RPG was probably A Link To The Past.

 

[warezme]

You can do same with Skyrim or New Vegas models. Pretty cool. I have printed a Dwemer spider, Centurion, Grand Soul Gem and holder and made a working Horn lamp. It takes a little work to clean up the files and sometimes just recreating based of original works best or you get print holes or air printing.

 

[fracture]

Joaquin Baldwin used to make $100 an hour on the computer. He had been laid off for 10 months. But in comes Square Enix. Now he borke.

 

[master_chen]

....well...not bad, but...now do full-sized models from Final Fantasy VIII (including entire Triple Triad board and all of the cards), Shenmue, Skies of Arcadia, Shadow Hearts II (including all Harmonixer Fusion forms), Tekken 5 (including all possible customizations), BIOHAZARD 2, Silent Hill 2, Silent Hill 3 and Dragon Quest VIII - and I'm sold for 3D-Printing technologies.

 

[rmstallman]

The article is clear except for one point which is totally confused,
where it said that "Baldwin was selling their intellectual property".
That is nonsense. Baldwin was selling little models of characters.

Based on the facts stated in the article, it appears
these models infringed the copyright on the video game.
That's a simple, clear way to say what happened.
But he wasn't "selling their copyright"; there is no way
he could do that.

As for "intellectual property", that's just a way of lumping together
copyright with a dozen or so other unrelated laws that are irrelevant
to this case. Those laws really exist, but "intellectual property" is
a fiction -- an overgeneralization that spreads confusion every time
it is used. The reason it's used is that some lawyers and PR
organizations find it effective propaganda for their interests; and
since they use it, people assume it is more than a fiction.

If you want to understand what copyright law says and does, and think
about the issues it raises, the first step is to expunge "intellectual
property" from your thinking.

See http/www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html for more explanation.