After seeing what one artist can do in Mount and Blade I realize I wasn’t getting my money’s worth from my existing outsourcing art team. Several times recently at my job I will look at what other artists can do at my contracting job and say “Wow, one artist did all that?”
What really was the last straw was when they sent me this, as a carrier interior
It’s just a tremendous ugly mess. And I look at what they did up close and you see this:
So they spent a huge amount of time modeling control panels right down to the lights, when you actually play the game with the camera about half a kilometer away (as in the first screenshot). I’m about the least competent artist there is but even I understand if you are looking at objects from half a kilometer away maybe you shouldn’t spend time modeling buttons you don’t even see. They’ve been playing the game for 3 months too, so I’m dumbfounded on how this wasn’t obvious.
This has been going on from day 1, which is why it took them 7 months to do essentially half the work they were contracted to do in 4 months. It’s not that they can’t do a good job, it’s that you can’t leave any detail unspecified.
I give up. I’m going to find someone preferably local to salvage the situation.
3 replies on “Looking for an on-site artist”
I suspect this is more of communication problem as I have suffered this kind of problem myself. In other word, you really have to tell them (instead of just assuming) – okay don’t design too detail as it will always be seen from some distance away. And always ask them how long to complete certain model because if it takes too long then you will know something need to be done.
Anyway this is sometimes unavoidable because this is exactly one of the things that can only be learnt from mistake. You cant expect yourself to know every single thing especially in the first games project.
I thought all the graphics looked very good, but somewhat generic. As you stated yourself most of the detail got lost; on the ships as well.
The way I envisioned (wished) the game would be: Crisp graphics and colorful weapon effects (nice particle effects / bloom etc).
I was booming with ideas and was disappointed to read about the setbacks. I wish you good luck with whatever you decide to do.
Kevin,
I have sent you an email titled:
RE: Development Issues Galatic Melee (Collaboration Proposal)
To rakkar at rakkarsoft.com
Just wanted to make sure it wasn’t mistaken for CS or something along those lines.
– A. Jacob