Models

Models for a game: free first, everything licensed, one look

Read the style skill first: a game's models are made under its decisions (render style, palette, scale, budgets). Routes, cheapest coherent one first:

1. The engine (free): procedural geometry, tinted from the palette. The house's best looks are procedural; never replace one with generated meshes without the owner's ask.
2. The starter library (free, CC0): assets find, then assets add.
3. The person's own files: assets add --file … --license … (ask whose it is).
4. Generated (paid, their own fal account, under a budget): a concept, then a mesh: props, and rigged characters (below). A character's rig, clips and feel are the animate skill's.

Commands run from inside the studio: npx --no-install homie-studio assets … (free) and this skill's script for the paid route: node "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/models/scripts/models.mjs" <command> (in an app with Homie's tools: assets_find, asset_add, asset_make, asset_check, asset_lineup, asset_rights).

The starter library (free)

npx --no-install homie-studio assets find "fox"                    # CC0 items, phone-sized, with triangles and size
npx --no-install homie-studio assets find "pine tree" --family kenney
npx --no-install homie-studio assets add <id> kenney-cube-pets/animal-fox --height 0.7 --card "Characters/Fox"

One library family per game (cast.family): mixing Kenney with KayKit shows. An added item is COPIED into games/<id>/public/models/ (never loaded from homie.rocks at runtime), recorded in assets/manifest.json with its pack, origin and SHA-256, and its pack is credited on the landing's credits page (kindly: CC0 needs no credit). HOMIE_LIBRARY points at another copy of the library (a folder or an address).

The person's own files

npx --no-install homie-studio assets add <id> --file /path/to/lantern.glb --license own --as lantern --height 0.6

Ask whose it is and under what licence: own, cc0, cc-by-4.0 (with --attribution "<who, where>"), eula:<store>, market:<listing>, other (with --notes). The file is refused before anything reads it when it loads anything from an address (an external URI), declares a buffer over the import cap, or is over 64 MB; a .gltf may bring its .bin and pictures from its own folder only. Then it is made phone-sized (its tier's triangles and picture size, the pivot at the bottom centre, its height in metres, meshopt geometry, WebP pictures); the raw file stays in art/<slug>/raw/ (git-ignored; the studio's R2 with media move once it has storage), never shipped and never committed. FBX, OBJ and .blend: export a .glb first (Blender: File > Export > glTF 2.0, binary).

Generated props (paid): price, budget, look, then the mesh

node <models.mjs> check                                  # the fal key (a free check) and the registry
node <models.mjs> quote <id> --count 3                   # concept + mesh, priced live (about US$0.54 a prop)
node <models.mjs> budget <id> --cap 3                    # the cap the person agreed to, for this game's models
node <models.mjs> prop <id> lantern --card "Items/Ember Lantern" --what "an iron lantern with a warm ember inside" --height 0.6 --dry-run
node <models.mjs> prop <id> lantern --card "Items/Ember Lantern" --what "…" --height 0.6 --yes     # the concept only
#   LOOK at art/lantern/concept.*: the thing, whole, in the game's style, on a plain background?
node <models.mjs> prop <id> lantern --mesh --yes          # Tripo P1, textured, face_limit 1500; then optimised and recorded
npx --no-install homie-studio assets lineup <id>         # true scale, silhouettes, palette drift

• Tell the person the price first and agree a cap; prop refuses with no budget, refuses past the cap, and asks again without --yes. The receipt is written the moment fal accepts the job (art/receipts.jsonl, the game's art/<id>-models/budget.json); running the same step again resumes it and never pays twice.
• The concept starts from the derived style prompt (homie-studio style prompt <id>) with the golden images as references, on a plain background with even light (baked light is the top quality problem of image-to-3D).
• Never a loop. Look at the concept before the mesh, and at the model in the lineup before the next one. A bad concept: change the words and --concept-again once. Spend the riskiest prop first.
• references/models.json is the dated registry of endpoints, prices and schemas. Endpoints retire and reprice monthly: node <models.mjs> registry reads every price again for free; update the registry (--write) when one moved, and never hard-code an endpoint anywhere else. fal's own MCP server (get_model_schema, get_pricing, search_models for a newer Tripo version; the art skill says how to connect it) reads the same facts; a paid run still goes through models.mjs, never the MCP's run_model.
• Tripo's models run on fal here (tripo3d/... endpoints): one account, prices read live, the receipts above. Tripo's own CLI and MCP server (tripo-cli, tripo mcp) bill a separate Tripo account in Tripo credits, outside this skill's budget and receipts, and a free Tripo plan makes its outputs public under CC BY 4.0 (references/RIGHTS.md): keep a game's models on the fal route. The Homie mod (Claude Code) and Homie's hooks (Codex) hold a tripo generating command or a Tripo MCP tool as a call whose cost cannot be read first.
• A painted mood image for the style board: node <models.mjs> mood <id> b --yes (about US$0.035; a target).

Generated characters (paid): an A-pose concept, then a rigged mesh

Library characters first (assets find "knight" --kind character: KayKit's adventurers and skeletons, Kenney's mini and blocky characters, all CC0 and animated). For one the library cannot cover:

node <models.mjs> character <id> ranger --card "Players/Ranger" --what "a forest ranger: green hooded cloak, leather tunic, a bow on the back" --height 1.45 --like kaykit-adventurers/rogue --dry-run
node <models.mjs> character <id> ranger --card "Players/Ranger" --what "…" --height 1.45 --like kaykit-adventurers/rogue --yes   # the concept only
#   LOOK at art/ranger/concept.*: one character, whole, in an A-pose, in the game's style, on a plain background?
node <models.mjs> character <id> ranger --mesh --yes     # Meshy 7.1 + auto-rig, about US$1.40; then free: optimised, rig mapped, clips retargeted
npx --no-install homie-studio anim preview <id> --asset ranger   # LOOK at the preview sheet

--like takes a library character's own thumbnail as the style reference (so a generated hero stands beside the library's in one look); golden images, when the game has them, come first. The concept is a full body in an A-pose, front view, plain background (what auto-rigging needs). Humanoids with clear limbs only. The quote reads fal's pricing API and the model page's add-ons (textures, rigging) and takes the higher. The raw rigged file stays in art/<asset>/raw/; the shipped character is phone-sized with its skeleton mapped to the standard and the library's CC0 clips (idle, run, jump, attack, hit, die, ...) retargeted onto it, recorded with both receipts.