Smart way to reuse models/characters?

[Anonymous No.699465]

Its pretty well known by now that most Vidya companies recycle assets to use them in various games, the diffrence is the big guys know how to do it in clever ways, so that unless your eye is trained you never know it's a clone.
How does one do this? Shaders, retexturing, retopology? I'm a solo indie dev and its simply not possible for me to create every individual character model for my game. As there are several dozen becuse its an areana shooter with extra "skins" for characters.


But the recent Pokemon sword and shield controversy has terrified the fuck out of me. Im scared to reuse anything for fear of gamers calling me "lazy" So how do I reuse my exsisting assets without being a douche?

[Anonymous No.699466]

[Anonymous No.699467]

>>699465
There's literally nothing fucking wrong with reusing your assets. It's just being smart.
Whether it's a barrel or a house or a sexy chicky babe.
It becomes a problem when it's so obvious that it jarrs the viewer. This relates to all art really, not just reusing 3D assets.
You don't have to recreate from scratch a whole new npc if all it needs is a new shirt and face, you would be retarded to do otherwise.

Like you said though if gamers start calling you lazy it becomes a marketing problem.
Personally the Pokemon one was avoidable, they should have known because everyone sees from the same angle it would be noticable.

[Anonymous No.699477]

>>699465
>Im scared to reuse anything for fear of gamers calling me "lazy"
Gotta love this. People who sit all their day pressing buttons to interact with a system made for the sole purpose of delivering immediate satisfaction without much of an effort, aka "gaming", have the gall to call ANY sort of developer "lazy". As if they ever worked in their life, the fucking brats.

[Anonymous No.699482]

>>699477

yeah, the more I learn about gamers actually being a gamedev, the less I want to devote my time and energy to vidya, gamers are the most whiny and entitled group of people I've ever had the displeasure of knowing. And if you call them out on it they scream "DEVELOPER TOXICITY"

[Anonymous No.699483]

You can easily age or youngify characters, or change their features a bit and texture to create something new entirely. Meanwhile it's all rigged and shape keyed, ready to go. Always use old assets.

[Anonymous No.699484]

>>699465
The smart way of doing it is thru customization that alters the outline and visual impact of samey content to make it look diverse and varied.
It works as long as you are doing bland stuff that isn't so specific it becomes highly distracting and obvious what you're doing.

Need to fill an entire city with people? make like 5 sets of forgettable leg garments and 5 sets of forgettable upper garments and a few bland everyday head variations and randomize between
these and do different color swaps and it'll be good for making crowds of 100's of people look fairly believable.

If you did the same with very flamboyant unique outfits and highly attractive faces the illusion would shatter.
Also if you're an indie dev people will forgive you for tricks like stretching assets thin. The Pokemon backlash is directed at a AAA dev and different.

Soldiers in uniform can also easily be combined so that everyone you encounter looks a bit like their own character instead of a lazy instance
as long as you have a few different gear layouts, helmets and camouflages etc to swap between.

These old goblins from a personal project of mine highlights how much variation even a very small number of swaps can give.

The legs, arms, torsos where all interchangeable with one another, They where further supposed to wear interchangeable pieces of armor
and gear on top of these bases to break up the outline and cloak how low effort reskins of the same simplistic 'jumpsuit' mesh they all where.

[Anonymous No.699485]

>>699482
This. Actually makes me question is it even worth it pursuing success in gamedev industry.

[Anonymous No.699486]

>>699482
That's not gamers, it's just leftists.

[Anonymous No.699487]

>>699484
Also in my experience it becomes even more powerful if you combine sub elements into elements for even deeper variation.
These helmets was very effective at making each encounter give a different feel than the previous even tho it was the same asset.
Just a few base helmets with different face plates and it gave rise to something a lot richer than the small number of art assets used would suggest.

>>699485
>>699482

Just grow a thick skin and try to learn to evaluate criticism based on the merits of what people bring up, not the tone in which they do it.
As a developer you're not entitled to someone liking your work just because you struggled to make it.
You can't successfully hide behind a "can you do it better yourself?" type attitude when you try to make a living as an professional entertainer.
If you're not doing this because you are a gamer and because you want whatever you're making to exist you might as well pursue something different.

[Anonymous No.699488]

>>699465
>But the recent Pokemon sword and shield controversy has terrified the fuck out of me.
Are you fucking retarded bro? The """controversy""" involves people WANTING them to reuse assets to ensure all pokemon get in. Its the complete opposite of what you are saying...

[Anonymous No.699495]

>>699465

Well they are not exactly the same.

[Anonymous No.699496]

>>699495
Probably more a case of that being the type of face the artist or lead artist likes. Japan have a lot of obsession with formulas and ratios for made up heads.

[Anonymous No.699497]

>>699496
>>699495
It's just another gen, much higher poly. Reusing assets is fine if they're on the same level. The character design still looks very similar.