Blacksmith

Inspiration

Creating video game artwork takes dedication, time, patience, and can be very expensive. What if there was a tool that could help developers create art for their games, and also provide an incentive to help create game art for others?

Blacksmith allows game developers to quickly turn an idea into a full 3D model! These models can be imported and used in games, or offered for sale on the Blacksmith Marketplace. The Blacksmith NFT smart contract gives game art creators a 5% royalty on all secondary sales, providing a way for residual income.

What it does

All you need to do is provide a quick description of the game art you would like to create: "an orc carrying a battleaxe", "a sword and shield", "a wizard wearing a blue robe", etc.

You will then be presented with a series of sketches which will serve as reference art for your final 3D model. Make your selection and receive a 3D model file that can be imported into your game and animated (generated by Theta Labs' Sketch to 3D).

That's not all! Blacksmith also provides a marketplace, empowering creators to buy, sell, and trade game art assets, with ownership represented as NFTs on Theta. Creators receive royalties in TFUEL for all secondary sales!

How we built it

Blacksmith uses the following technologies:

Sketch to 3D on Theta EdgeCloud
Stable Diffusion AUTOMATIC1111 on Theta EdgeCloud
Web3.js to allow users to use MetaMask and transact with TFUEL
Theta Blockchain (smart contract deployed to Testnet that allows for minting and transferring of NFTs)

We use deployed models on Theta EdgeCloud to generate initial sketches, which are then turned into full 3D models. Users also have the ability to mint NFTs representing the models, which can be bought, sold, and traded in the Blacksmith Marketplace.

View transactions related to this smart contract here: https://testnet-explorer.thetatoken.org/account/0x1e3313d8e65e7cb091dadf23fe142cfebffc988d

Challenges we ran into

The Sketch to 3D API did not have many examples or much documentation (perhaps because it is so new), so it took a lot of trial and error to figure out the best way to integrate it into this project. I spent two days trying to get the API to work to no avail, so for demo/hackathon purposes, it is embedded in an iframe for the time being. The Sketch to 3D model is essential to the core idea of this project, so I had to figure out how to use it in any way possible.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Blacksmith is tightly integrated in the Theta ecosystem, with a smart contract currently deployed on Testnet. It also uses two distinct model deployments on Theta EdgeCloud.

What we learned

I learned a lot more about the Theta ecosystem, and was pleasantly surprised by the recent development initiatives led by Theta Labs. Theta EdgeCloud is impressive and I'm looking forward to seeing which services are offered next, specifically in the area of rendering.

What's next for Blacksmith

I'd like to develop this idea further and get the word out to game developers/artists. There is still much more to be done, but I believe this idea is solid and should be explored further with a more robust marketplace, more tools for generating art, and more ways to provide incentives to users.