The journey of scaling a personal project into a community resource for 3D Pokémon assets.
Source: Dev.to
From Side Project to Official Organization 🚀
What started as a personal experiment to view a few Pokémon in 3D has officially evolved. Today, I’m excited to announce the launch of the Pokémon 3D API Organization—a dedicated home for optimized 3D assets and a high‑performance API.
Most Pokémon APIs provide great metadata, but finding consistent, web‑ready 3D models is a challenge. Raw .glb files are often massive, leading to slow load times and high bandwidth costs.
Pipeline Overview
- Automates Optimization: Using GitHub Actions and glTF‑Transform, every model is Draco‑compressed.
- Scalable Architecture: The project is split into three specialized layers:
- The Assets – 1,300+ models with animations.
- The API Server – A RESTful engine for metadata.
- The Showcase – A responsive frontend demo using Google’s.
The original repository on my personal profile received a lot of love and support from the community. That energy motivated me to build something more permanent and professional.
How You Can Help
If you found value in the original project, please consider starring the new official repositories. Starring helps other developers discover these resources!
- Official Organization:
- New API Server: Get the metadata (link forthcoming).
- Interactive Showcase: See it in action (link forthcoming).
⚖️ Legal Note
This is a non‑commercial fan project. Pokémon and Pokémon character names are trademarks of Nintendo. This project is strictly for educational use.
What’s Next?
I’m working on adding more animations and models from the latest generation and leftovers for the API. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments!