erasmus wrote: ↑Wed Feb 26, 2020 8:55 pm
1) I'm not seeing many Unity games out there that I can confirm were made by teams our size (going from a team of 1 to a technical team of at most 5) and that look significantly better. That's not an solution/answer, but team size, resources, and engine play big parts here. The models were originally Daz and were touched up considerably by one of our graphics staff and had certain features and shaders configured by a production house we partner with, Mimic. Given our starting point, settling on Unity 2018 as our final engine, and production schedule and team size, we've done just fine. This was never, ever going to look like a game from a AAA studio, and to top all that off, we are trying to ensure the product is viable for the widest range of customers possible and won't have any performance issues when we pursue VR.
I don't think you're quite in tune with our development history or what it takes to get a game of this nature and size to make this kind of change within two years:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGv3zgKys3s Claiming otherwise would be pointless.
As for number 2), your passive aggressiveness is, well...years late. I doubt you've ever looked up the previous posts on the topic, but we've already acknowledged many times that there are model/technical reasons as to why we cannot change body shape. In fact, as you'll see below, I admitted this to you already on at least one occasion. Immediately after you informed me that:
masterspanker wrote: ↑Sat Nov 16, 2019 4:58 pm
I will admit that I am not an expert on this, I am a modder of sorts but I have relatively limited knowledge when it comes to developing a game, but because I am a modder, I at least know how animations and meshes work.
I didn't think you were being mean at all, and we're aware the game has weaknesses, but be realistic and speak plainly about them please
As you cleverly pointed out, I am a modder, not a newborn in the wilderness. I admited not being an expert, which doesn't mean I don't know how any of this work. Even with my limited knowledge and skills, I have poked enough games to know what makes them tick. As a princible I try not to talk about stuff I have absolutely no knowledge of. Granted majority of my experience comes from Source engine (along with Gamebryo and Creation Engine), but deep down Unity is not all that different than any other engine. Methods may differ, but it should still be possible regardless.
It is just a mesh. What we are talking about is something I could probably mod into the game if I tried. It is certainly not the daunting task you make it out to be.
Now if we were talking about animations, that would have been a different story. But you don't need to touch the animations at all.
In most games, it is done by scaling bone and animations for certain characters. For example, animations for child characters are not at all different than adult characters, just scaled down. (animation itself is untouched, bones for that character is just scaled down)
For different body shapes (thick or thin) you wouldn't even need to go that far. It should work as is, as long as you assign the weights correctly.
Unless all characters are using same model file somehow (which would be absolutely ridiculous) you can alter models one by one and even the smallest alterations would make a huge difference. Unless your technical reasons are "I don't want to bother", you don't seem to have any other reason not to do this at all. I am not saying this would be dirt easy, since nothing ever is, but it should still be doable.
Also, you are mistaken, I am not saying you have done a bad job, I would never say that. I am just saying you could do better.