"Video Games Are Too Expensive To Make!"

[Cerebralbore101]

Bofferbrauer2 said:

Cerebralbore101 said:

Taking a 3D model from something around the PS3/Switch level and improving it to the 4K PC/XB1X level easily takes four times as long. And that's with a talented 3D modeler, texture artist, and animator. 3D assets are art and nobody becomes a Corradini over night. Just like learning to paint or draw takes years of practice, learning to make good 3D assets takes years of practice. Especially with organic models. 

 

Cerebralbore101 said:

We were talking about Nintendo games though, so those assets don't exist for PC. But yeah, if the game is already on PC, then it's just a matter of using the already existing PC assets for a 4K version on consoles. Could you elaborate on the bolded? I didn't realize that 4k was so advanced that saving texels was required. But what's this about cutting down on vegetation? The animation gets planted 1:1, but rigging the model can be a bigger hassle the more complicated the model is. And as we both know, without rigging no animation will work. 

On the quoted post you where just talking about ONE X and Pro, so I just talked about them.

Texel was a typo, I meant triangles, or polygons if you prefer. What I meant with the vegetation is that the character models don't get changed between low and high settings (maybe on ultra they do, but not always), just their textures do. To save on polygons there will instead be less grass or other vegetation or their models are simplified. At least that's what I got the last time I asked a modeler (about 2 years ago)

Ah ok, yeah that makes sense in relation to the X and Pro. Vegetation absolutely does not need more polygons than character models. A good character model will be over 3k polygons (four sided until the game engine splits them up into tris, which doubles the count) even in the PS3/360 era. Up until last gen, trees, grass, and other vegetation was mostly comprised of alphamaps (Flat 1 dimensional polygons with a double sided texture). In a game engine vegetation usually doesn't take up much processing power, because from a distance the models are low poly, and up close they are rarely high poly. When making art for your game vegetation doesn't take long because you just have to make three or four trees, and then let whatever program you are using copy them 5,000 times. The same thing goes for grass and flowers. 

TL/DR: Vegetation is a breeze, and the thing you make the new hire do. Character models are the thing you put your veteran modeler on.