Alek Ituin, on 15 December 2014 - 04:21 AM, said:
Borderlands:TPS recycled this same exact asset thousands of times, using it for a huge chunk of tech-heavy maps. It was simply a long, wide rhombus with two "gun barrel" like openings on one side. It was used for turrets, power relays, conduits, vents, pipe junctions... you name it, and it was probably used in it somewhere.
And honestly, it worked. If they had used completely unique assets, my suck-arse interwebs would still be struggling to DL it. Recycling assets saves time, money, and resources.
Not only makes it the final client lighter, but makes map creation simply easier.
Think about how a map in CE is created:
Enviroment artists use the mapping tool, which is compareable to other map creators. You start by shaping your terrain, build the skybox/lighting, then apply textures to it with brushes, add big structures, add smaller structures (grass, trees, rocks).
These big structures are the critical point.
If your Creative Director tells you, that you need a unique building in the map, you have to load up your 3D modelling program, modell an asset from scratch, apply textures, materials, etc. Then import it in CryEngine.
Unique Asset creation seems to be a bigh hold up for PGI for whatever reason and this would ease this a bit.
I'd like to bring up the DayZ as an example. They all use the same pool of houses, shacks and other buildings, but these are arranged in different ways, from very small towns to big cities. These big cities usually have 2-3 unique buildings/assets, which makes it easier to distinguish them from another.
This is Elektrozadovsk for example, it's one of the biggest cities and a known hot-spot. Nothing there is unique, aspite from the combination of a firehouse and a big power station.
Edited by Iqfish, 15 December 2014 - 05:22 AM.