by Saviski·Workflow
Images © Saviski. Used for product review; image policy.
NovaSkin Export earns its place as a purpose-built bridge between Blender and the NovaSkin browser tool: it bakes the lighting once so a wallpaper can be re-skinned live without re-rendering. Version 1.4.1 adds the animated wallpaper workflow alongside the existing still export.
With one click, NovaSkin Export writes the characters in a scene as re-skinnable meshes with a baked light atlas, ready for the NovaSkin browser tool. You can export a still interactive 3D scene or a full animation. In the browser, the tool can drop in any skin and relight it with the scene's baked lighting, switch between classic and slim arms, and toggle scenery layers and per-part overlays such as hat, jacket, sleeves and pants.
A still export writes the characters' geometry (mesh.bin and positions.bin), a per-character light atlas, shadow and foreground images, the background, and a manifest.json describing draw order, depth and bounding boxes, resolution-independent. Any scenery object, rig or collection can be marked as an optional layer, exported separately with correct occlusion and its own cast shadow so the wallpaper tool can toggle it on or off.
The Animation tab exports the whole frame range as a looping, re-skinnable animation, shipped in a single composite.webm with the scene's view transform baked as a LUT. Full quality bakes a per-frame light atlas per character, while a fast Draft mode gives a half-resolution preview. Animated exports require ffmpeg.
NovaSkin Export is best for blender artists building re-skinnable Minecraft wallpapers with the Thomas Rig Legacy rig for the NovaSkin browser tool.
NovaSkin Export is completely free to download and use.
NovaSkin Export runs on Blender 4.2 LTS and newer, with 5.1 recommended. It needs Blender running with a GUI because the exporter reads renders through the compositor's Viewer node, so the --background command-line mode is not supported. You also need a saved .blend file, since output goes to a novaskin/ folder next to it, plus an active camera in the scene. The Thomas Rig Legacy rig must be present with at least one player, installed separately from its own extension page.
NovaSkin Export needs ffmpeg on your PATH only for animated exports; still exports need nothing extra. Animated wallpapers ship in a single composite.webm that stacks the scenery, character lighting and a character-vs-scenery occlusion matte into bands, kept in frame lockstep by one decoder, which is why animated exports depend on ffmpeg. If you only export still wallpapers through the Render button, you can skip ffmpeg entirely and the exporter still produces its meshes, atlases and manifest.
NovaSkin Export installs as a classic add-on: open Edit > Preferences > Add-ons > Install and pick novaskin_export.py. Once enabled, open the sidebar with N in the viewport and go to the NovaSkin tab, check the detected players, then press Render for a still wallpaper or use the Animation tab for an animated one. A progress bar shows each step and the export can be cancelled at any time, with the scene restored exactly as it was.
NovaSkin Export's Animation tab offers two buttons. Export Draft gives a fast preview of the first few seconds at half resolution and half frame rate using a quick screen-space light with the base skin layer only, useful for checking timing and framing. Export Animation runs the entire frame range at full quality, baking a per-character UV light atlas for each frame so the second skin layer, such as hat, jacket, sleeves and pants, is lit correctly per face. Full quality is slower but is what you ship.
NovaSkin Export is listed as free here and is released under the GNU General Public License v3.0 or later. The source, issue tracker and full output-format reference live on the developer's GitHub page, which is the place to check current licensing terms directly. Note that it depends on the Thomas Rig Legacy rig, installed separately from its own extension page, so you will need that rig present in your scene before exporting a wallpaper.
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