53 lines
3.1 KiB
Markdown
53 lines
3.1 KiB
Markdown
# Asset Guidelines and Considerations
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When making assets for games, there are many technical requirements and considerations that must be factored in to making said assets.
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## Topology/Detail Density
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When working on a model, there are a few questions you must ask yourself:
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- How close to my camera will the model get?
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- What proportion of my screen will this model take up?
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- How many of these will be present at any given time?
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- When, where, and in what context will this model be shown?
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- Does this model need to deform? Where?
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- Does the model move in-game? How fast?
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- How will the topology impact shading?
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- How will the topology impact the sillohouette?
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Use these answers to your advantage:
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- If a prop never gets close to the camera, it doesn't need much modeled detail!
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- Contrarily, if a model takes up lots of screen space, it probably needs some extra detail to properly fill it out
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- If the model is static and non-deforming, Unreal Engine may make some use of LOD to hide the unnecessary stuff for you. This is not guarunteed.
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- Enemies need a low polycount since many are on screen at once
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- Contrarily, we only have one Insurrectionist, and he is close to the camera, so it is okay if he's a bit more detailed
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- If there is topology that does NOT impact the sillohouette, it is not necessary in the low-poly
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- There is no need to keep and texture topology that will never be seen. Delete it!
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## Texturing
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The same questions as above also goes in for texturing.
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- If a model takes up a lot of screen space, it's likely going to need a higher texture resolution to accomodate, or it'll look low-quality.
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- If a prop is exceptionally small (like the size of a character's fist), you could likely use a 512px map and be fine.
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If you are uncertain what resolution you should use, go straight for 4K or 2K, and we can painlessly resize the textures with IronPress
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(assuming that you followed the proper [Naming Conventions](../README.md#material-maps)).
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Ideally, even if a prop is broken into separate "parts," **keeping all related-parts on one texture set**:
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- Reduces file-system overhead
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- Reduces how many textures we have to import and manage
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- Optimizes rendering
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## Scale
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As we are working with asset packs grounded in realism, keeping scale consistent is important to the player's immersion and believability of the scene.
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In some cases, however, we may be required to push this in one direction or another for gameplay purposes specifically.
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Here are cases where we would want to exaggerate scale for gameplay purposes:
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- **Doorways** - Do not want the player's camera to bump against it as they move through
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- **Walkable platforms** - Players may accidentally stumble off of thin platforms
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- **Objectives (buttons and such)** - Player should be able to easily spot things of interest
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Regardless of if scale needs to be exaggerated or not, doing research on what conventional sizes for objects may be helpful.
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Context is key in these cases as well.
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For example, some pine trees may have an average height of 10 meters, whereas most oak varieties may have an average height of 20 meters.
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What does this mean for the size of our models when we're in a taiga versus a savanna?
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