Models will be available?

[Pannoniae]

I am no expert in graphics; and I don't want to do that (at least for a time). But I've read something on Reddit, and it made me thinking.

It is known that the game is 2D, rendered from 3D. I've always wondered why some mods are so different in art style to vanilla. We cannot (or at least, who learnt modeling) modify vanilla models besides basic recoloring&stuff.
A few years ago, a moderator on Reddit said, 'these assets aren't available YET'. The keyword is 'yet'. This was 2 or 3 years ago. Have things changed?

I know it is unlikely, but if a developer sees this post, (s)he may have further information on this.

P. S. "We tolerate and even encourage people to make mods using assets from the game (tinting, combining assets, etc.). "
Not wanna be offending, but if artists don't have src models, why do you say 'we encourage'? I know I am a bit naive, sorry if I asked wrong things or whatever. No harmful intentions from my side

Just a newbie at the game,
Pannoniae


EDIT1: typos, grammar

[Oktokolo]

It is a common practice in the game dev world to never give out any source for game assets (except selected concept art bundled with collector's editions). The sources are the only thing you do not have to ship with the game to make it work. And not having these makes it a lot harder to use the game's assets for other games...

But if you want a community to be able to make mods with new stuff that are visually compatible with the vanilla game, you might actually want to have others to be able to build on what you created.
So releasing the used models and textures under a CC BY-NC would probably lead to more mods beeing graphically compatible to vanilla while also providing new graphics for new stuff.

[bobingabout]

when the new ores were created, they used a template to make them all look the same, but different.

I asked if I could have a copy of the template to use in my ores mod.

I had to resort to editing the ores they released to make them tintable.

[Oktokolo]

I had to resort to editing the ores they released to make them tintable.

Guess, they fear the copycats more than they want mods to be shiny.

They are not allone though - even Bethesda doesn't give their known-great modding communities the sources for the tilesets of their Elder Scrolls or Fallout games. And the ridiculousness has its maximum at The Darkmod wich is a free community-built game (based on id Tech 4 i.e. Doom 3) with its assets available under CC BY-NC but the sources to that hidden in private subversion repos somewhere...