There is a rather cool program (If a bit outdated) that I came across a few years ago called "Archipelis 3D Designer". I'm currently trying to get into game development and I decided to finally make use of my copy (Which I bought for a whole 30 dollars).
However, to my shock when I wanted to check the manual, only available online, it was gone and not only was the page for the manual gone, As of 22/06/2026 the whole website was hijacked and used to promote some crypto online casino scam shit or something. I have no idea what happened to the developer and neither do the couple of people that I contacted about it that had a partnership or relationship with them, the software is about 20 years old now so it's safe to assume the software is gone for good.
I'm wising this post not so much as a guide but rather as a showcase as I think this is an idea worth re-exploring and why I'll likely use the software despite requiring a VM to run it.
What is/Was Archipelis
Archipelis was a software used to translate 2D images into fully textured 3D meshes by tracing over them. It was also very simple and very easy to do (The exe installer is 5 MB in size and once installed the binary is only 2.5 MB). This worked by "inflating" the shapes that you drew which you can then fine-tune and adjust according to your needs, act following you can export them to quite a few file types (Some of which are relevant and usable even 20 years later) and animate them or add them to your game engine or whatever.
It came from a bizarre moment in time when people thought Second Life would become the metaverse rather than a furry paradise and was intended to make exports for it. It doesn't work all that well for humans or furniture with sharp corners but it works very well for minor assets or non-human characters and honestly if this idea had caught on I can't help but think it would've accelerated some workflows massively, particularly on the indie side.
Getting Archipelis to work
I have no proof but I swear back when the website existed it claimed to be able to be installed on Windows 7, windows 8 and Wine. I can vouch having this run on wine is 100% nonsense, I could never get it to run. After some testing the last version of Windows that this runs on is Windows 8.1 with all the updates. Therefore I just made a Windows 8.1 WM with very few modifications. Except a rather obvious one.
This virtual machine has no network card and the reason for that is because Archipelis actually phones home and not only it phones home it does so in a way that it communicates to the server which buyer is using it (See addendum why I can't distribute it below). Funnily enough you can bypass this by just removing all network capabilities from your computer, it doesn't even need to phone home once or anything.
I also did a small change in the xml so the virtual machine could load more than two cores (This is an issue with any windows version).
Then I installed virtio guest tools to make the VM run smoother, you want version 0.189, any newer version doesn't work on windows 8.1...Â
... And finally I transfered the files I needed into the VM using a usb driveÂ
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Now that I have everything I just ran the installer (Which was a very standard affair) and I was good to go.
Actually using Archipelis
If there's one thing I think all archipelis users agree on is that it's specially good for two types of things, rounded objects and animals. For this example I'll be using a public domain painting of a dog made in the 18th century by Francis Calcraft Turner.
First you start by importing an image and then you have to draw over it, for this I recommend drawing over the largest body part like the torso (You cannot zoom or do anything else, all menus are gone until you've drawn this first part).
After you close the loop (Or come close to) The software will immediately generate a 3D render that you can then jump into edit mode and adjust the line of it in case it has taken some of the picture's background.
The program makes a crude renderYou can adjust the outline of the render
Act following You can just continue drawing and making shapes which will be accumulated and stored individuallyÂ
And eventually I ended up with an initial render that looks like this
Nice, until you look at it from the front.
... However from this point on you can just fine-tune it, the software allows you to change the scale of all your parts, their position, mirror them and rotate them.
Eventually I ended up with a model that looks like this
Front viewBack view
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From here all you have to do is save it and export it, which as I said in the beginning has quite a few formats to do so.
I know the results may not look that impressive for today's standards but what if I told you the result is very low poly and it was done by someone that has barely any knowledge regarding 3D modeling barely putting any effort or heart in it in 30 minutes? I honestly don't know of any software that's faster than this and I think it would effectively reduce the workload of small teams exponentially, maybe even enable the creation and distribution of easily-made assets
Similar software (And why there's no replacement for this)
Monster mash is the obvious one, I'd dare say it was inspired by this software. However that software comes with one huge caveat in the form of the license, while their github makes it seem like you can use the software without any problems under an Apache license the reality is that you cannot, and you may get into legal trouble for doing so as per their forums:
This promise to change the library was never followed upon and 4 years later I don't think they're doing squat about it. Archipelis has a very permissive license that allows you to do whatever you want with the outputs produced by the software as long as you Attribute that it was done in part or fully by Archipelis.
The second one is a plugin for blender called 'Tesselate texture plane' by Pullusb on Github, which... does exactly what it says on the box.
The problem I have with that one is that it does not inflate the parts of whatever you draw over (Which curiously is the same issue Monster Mash has regarding licensing) So anything you do ends up as a paper render in 3D
It's cool but not really a replacement for Archipelis
It's a shame really, if the idea had caught on I can't help but think there would be something way easier to use and more modern by now.
Addendum 1: Why I can't distribute it
Going back to the software calling home it does something weird, when you downloaded the software it would make a special version of the software that baked in your mail and full name into the program and basicallly makes a version for you and only you.
The mail and the name of the person that purchased it can be seen front and centre in any project that you open, which for me would result in immediate doxing. For an example of what I'm talking about look at the video of pdhowler using the software on youtube, where his full legal name and personal mail is displayed for the world to see.
