Outside of movies/games, why don't 3D art pieces get reused more often?
interpolator
I don't really want to use the word "reuse" as it might sound like it's diminishing its purpose, but what I'm trying to say is how come when a 3D piece gets made there isn't more of a "continuity" to it?
Like sometimes I would see one artist might have made this fantasy character and then next is a swordsman, and then this realistic gun. And that's the end. Even years after the fact, it doesn't feel like you ever see those art pieces continue to exist in one form or another. Even though these things already exist.
Here's an example of what I mean by reoccurring art:
On the far left was my first stylized car, in the middle was the second design 1 year later, and the last one was the final design (also a year later).
Even in the differences in rendering, they all still fall into the same universe (i.e their wheels are all shaped like ovals, they have exaggerated roofs, the seats take up more room).
"Universes" is the better word I was looking for. Does this phenomenon exist elsewhere?
Like sometimes I would see one artist might have made this fantasy character and then next is a swordsman, and then this realistic gun. And that's the end. Even years after the fact, it doesn't feel like you ever see those art pieces continue to exist in one form or another. Even though these things already exist.
Here's an example of what I mean by reoccurring art:
On the far left was my first stylized car, in the middle was the second design 1 year later, and the last one was the final design (also a year later).
Even in the differences in rendering, they all still fall into the same universe (i.e their wheels are all shaped like ovals, they have exaggerated roofs, the seats take up more room).
"Universes" is the better word I was looking for. Does this phenomenon exist elsewhere?
Replies
on top of that, If your doing client work thats not really up to you.
but as far as I know it literary happens all the time.
Im not even sure I understand what your talking about, the majority of artist has a consistent style through most of their artwork.
I try to make a consistent universe through most of what I do (3D, writing, etc), but unless you know what to look for, you might not see it. I suspect that's true for many artists. And I absolutely love when movies and games do that, even with seemingly disconnected franchises. Lovecraft also does a great job of this in his writing.
Technically, they're meant to be the same but until the last picture I didn't make more scenes with them yet. But it's that commitment to keeping the design alive through 3 generations and planning to reuse them is what I mean about continuity.
Now this is what I wanted to touch upon when I brought up the Swordsman. Someone makes a Swordsman piece, but they might never experiment with that same character/design again.
Or perhaps they just aren't as sentimental as you are?
Maybe as they get better at modeling they also become better designers and see so many flaws in old design that they find it easier to do a new design?
I do like to repaint and redraw old pieces but that's mostly because I get some twisted pleasure from taking a shitty old artwork and turning it into something relatively good.
Iteration is very common in games, but too much iteration can be detrimental to reaching an end goal. If you simply remodel the same assets over and over, you'll never finish a project with any sort of complexity.
Iteration is generally most practical and beneficial when done in the early phases of any sort of design, so typically in the pre-production and concept stage, where an artist can make 100 thumbnails, 10 rough sketches, etc, while nailing down a design. Iterating on 3D assets can be extremely time consuming.
Personally I rarely come back and iterate on any of my personal work. It's much more fun to create something new than obsess over the same thing. Starting a new task gives you new challenges to tackle and generally more room for growth and improvement as well, though there is merit to modeling something as many times as it takes to get it to look good, mostly for less experienced artists.