Hero Props. How many to include in a space?

zachagreg

Hey everyone. Random thought I had about hero props and how many I should include in an environment? I know that in production, not every single prop can be a hero prop as its dictated by the players camera and whether or not the object will be interacted with. So for personal work what is everyone's kind of go to amount? Do you base it off of story in the scene or just what you believe would be most impressive to show off? Or for personal work does anyone strive to make all of their props heros?

Eric Chadwick

Depends on the concept art and the map layout. If it's a visual waypoint, or a key storytelling item, then it's a hero asset. Everything else is set dressing.

zachagreg

What about for your personal work Eric? Same mindset? Just replace visual waypoint with what you want to show off in close up screenshots?

Eric Chadwick

Ah yeah, I was talking about making assets during actual game development. Which is very different. When making things for a portfolio, every model is a hero prop. Don't worry about optimization, etc. Just make it look awesome, and use reasonable budgets. Like, don't use 200k vertices and a set of 2048's for, say, a fire hydrant.

zachagreg

Okay cool that's super helpful. For the texture thing I usually just follow a guideline at the beginning of texel density. I think optimization and thinking about it too much is what sometimes gets me.