something that's always bugged me: when working in a studio or on any non indie title. what kind of pace are you expected to keep as an artist?
what i mean is when producing assets with a current gen work flow with normal maps and all the rest of it how long are you expected to work on a single asset?
naturally this can depend on the asset or role so lets say environment art/props.
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When coming up with a time frame, I'm thinking about the following:
-How long it will take me to complete the task
-How long it will take me to export it and test it
-When the deadline is for that asset
-What else might come up during the process that will take time before the deadline
I'm almost never right on the money for each task, but its a rough estimate so that my managers and co-workers know when they can expect it to be done. Mostly the managers.
"How long to model x?"
"errmm... two weeks?"
"we can't afford to take two weeks can you do it in a week and a half?"
"hmmm... ok, yeah I think so."
"great, one week!"
etc.
IIRC, on Stranglehold we had like 2 weeks per weapon, which included high res hard surface model, building LODs, making textures, etc. Then we reused these weapons in a ton of other games.
On MKvsDC, my team was budgeted about 4 weeks per primary character.