Naughty Dog and Bungie Artists Explain the “Cheats” Developers Use to Get The Best Results Faster

Game developers often find themselves with very close deadlines, and the need to create the best possible work in the least amount of time. This means that reusing assets from previous games as a base for new ones is a quite widespread practice, as explained by Naughty Dog Environment Artist Anthony Vaccaro and Bungie Digital Matte Artist Isaiah Sherman.

[theXtReMe1]

Developers should've been doing this for years. Meaning, they should create one huge insane resolution asset base to draw from and make things look different with shaders. It would cut down on the amount of time it takes to make a game and cut the costs of rerendering assets that are no different from ones used five games before. A Stop signs always going to be a stop sign, no matter how many times you decide to render it and what resolution. The same goes for 1 million other assets that are used game after game. Why did they pay artists to go back and redraw and re-render those assets over and over again, wasting tons of money and time on stuff that players see for two seconds, when they could've rendered it once in a crazy resolution and downsampled it for the game they were designing at the time.

This is why development costs have skyrocketed over the past 10 to 20 years. They waste money on the stupidest things when they could've done them once and reused them over and over again. Changing minute details with shaders, instead of re-rendering the same object looking older or newer or rusted.

Hasn't made sense to me for years.

[Abriael]

Chances are they *have* been doing it for years.

[rodiabloalmeida]

it's a certainty, actually. Nothing about chances. it's a fact.

[MegaRay]

They (games developers) should learn a thing or two from CoD developers lol

[deadfrag]

Developers already do this for years!

[Baka-akaB]

nvm every was said above

[theXtReMe1]

I understand that certain developers have been doing this, what I'm talking about is having one artist or a team of artists do nothing but create a 3-D art asset database with worldly art assets that are used over and over again throughout multiple games in multiple genres. I've talked to developers about this, and they agree that something like that should be done, but there isn't a database of anything. They can go back to their past games and grab stuff but there isn't one central database that has all of the assets in one place to make it easy. What I'm talking about is making one huge database of nothing but those assets in the highest resolution possible, that will assure they can be used for the next 20 or 30 years, but the downsample to use in the given constraints of the hardware of that generation.

Hell, it would make sense for an outside entity to do this. Making this database for any developer in the world to use. And constantly update it with new items. It would make the arts side of developing very simple for every developer in the world to use. Even making landmarks like the arch in St. Louis or San Francisco Bridge, so that art teams don't have to re-create what they've already created or other developers have already created. A simple drag-and-drop into their game world. Which will shorten game development time, both physically and financially, and allow developers to focus their attention on AI and gameplay.

[Give_me_head_strong]

Activision has done this every year since COD 4..

[user5669510]

Gotta respect them for sharing tho

[Muzikguy]

It's cool and all that they (ND) shared this info, but seriously?! If any developer doesn't know this they're in the wrong business. COD has been rehashing the same crap for years, they're masters at this too

[DJ]

If you don't do this, you pretty much don't get hired since it means you're simply not efficient enough. Recycle, reduce, reuse.

[Destiny1080]

haven't they used the same red barrel for the last twenty years

[XiSasukeUchiha]

Damn ND is exposing all these game developers:(