Ah, . Looking forward to going over this with you!
We produced an shantyhome for the Identity Crisis project and realized I didn’t have enough room to fit it into the original post here so I threw it up on sketchfab this morning and wanted to share with the community
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oyu do concept work?
It is my opinion that the current ‘indie’ gamedev scene is extremely hampered by poor planning resulting from information deficit.
For example, a single drawing of a AAA-level concept art would take ~$700 US, possibly rising upt o a thousand depending on the artist involved (and higher price doesn’t necessarily mean anything).
Which leads us to conclusion that for 5 mood pieces, ~15 conceptual drawings (and make that 45, because we all do several tries of those things, and extra money is good anyway) for ~$150 each, would roughly result in $10250 US for a Sega Genesis-scale game to be conceptualized visually.
I’d wager that the assets in question would cost about five to six times as much, when you consider cleaned-out animations. Now when you choose to pay for programming assistance, provided that you have all the game logic down on paper and only have to find suitable solutions, that probably ramps the price from another couple thousand to anywhere above ten thousand US dollars for a clean quality-assured release. Oh, and I didn’t take music and levels into account, so make that a demo version for your Kickstarter fans.
Am I correct or not?
I am prepared to file a quota, in order to reduce the cost-prediction overhead, but I would much prefer a simple discussion or confirmation/rejection.
Hey Mighty, thanks for the well thought out response and definitely everything you said is just about spot on. I can say without doubt that the most valuable thing that brings to the table is the planning and foresight that only comes from learning all of the lessons there are to learn about gamedev the hard way. A few people complain to me every now and then about our form and how indepth it is, and although it’s almost all optional to fill out, what I tell them is that every field on there is there because at some point we didn’t ask a client for that info and ran into problems because of it.
Your pricing is also correct and unfortunately we have to educate a lot of people new to the business on the reality of how much time and money needs to go into doing even simple things. Hell we had a potential client come to us asking for characters to be designed, concepted, modeled and then animated. When I gave them the price their reply was “we plan something about 40-60$ for ALL the characters and animations”. This is an extreme example of just how ignorant people are to the time and money involved in actually making decent quality game assets but it’s something that is fairly common and most likely compounded by the fact that we have the Unity asset store and now UE4’s fledgling little marketplace where people can get 5 characters for $50 and think ‘oh it must cost this much to make them from scratch too’.
Either way, we pride ourselves as being the most experienced and knowledgeable creative and technical service provider in the indie scene, we’ve been here longer than any of the others who cater exclusively to indies and I certainly feel that for the price point we deliver a quality far above anyone else so we make it our business to educate our clients, help them plan and make sure that we do things the way that is best suited for their needs and project. I would very much love to chat more with you about what you have going on over there and speak a little more in person about how we can make what can be a dangerous journey be a little less daunting and definitely a lot more enjoyable.
cheers
So if I provide you with sufficient concept art for a typical space marine, what is the approximate cost off the top of your head just to have it modeled (AAA quality, 60K-80K polys) and textured? I have absolutely no idea what the timeframe for 3D work is, but I figured it would take a talented person a week at least. Going rate for labor $40 an hour (I have no idea what’s fair in the industry), plus any overhead. So maybe a couple grand?
Hey there, sorry for the late reply it was a busy weekend of travel. Let’s chat via PM here and go over your needs but your numbers are pretty close although we tend to work for a little less per houor than $40 for indies… Larger clients that works but we like to cater our rates to match the budgets of our clients, which in our case are almost exclusively indies so we can be flexible there.
Anyways thanks for reaching out and looking forward to chatting soon
Pretty excited about the next big batch of weapons and showing them off but of course we do so much more than weapons and if you’re looking for 3D character, environmental, vehicle or any other kind of modeling (let alone animation, concepting, level design) drop me a line and let’s get working together!
Hello Mr .
I really like the things you worked. Though I wonder something. Later on, I might need a lot of good (literally top quality) effects for my own game, which are mostly consisting of Lightning and Fire. In your site, there isn’t much to show related to UE4 and with zero offense, they seem abit for outdated. Any chance you can show particle effects that you have created before? Could be anything!
Thank you =)
Hey there, sorry for the huge delay, we’ve been firing on all cylinders to get a few new projects setup over here, happy to report that they’ve been taken care of and we have some breathing room. You are 100% correct in your critique of our VFX portfolio, it’s something we really haven’t put enough time into updating and hopefully in the next 6 months or so I’ll be able to get the time to do it. For now can you send me an email(info a_t_ ironbellystudsios.com) and we can chat more then… Thanks!
Can you do mock-up terrains?
I can map out and get concept of terrain, but I have a hard time visualizing the sculpted/modeled terrain in Unreal (could be because of lack of textures placed)
Hey Bata, mocking up terrains is no problem at all, drop us a line to with more info and let’s chat about this some more
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Hey Vata, mocking up terrains is no problem at all, drop us a line to with more info and let’s chat about this some more
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I’ll do it later when I know I can afford it, don’t want to waste your time right now, was just asking for future reference
Does your happen to use Allegorithmic’s software for texture work?
Hey Bata, yea we use Substance for any and every project we can… Don’t worry about wasting anyone’s time, it’s always a pleasure to chat with Indie’s about your projects!
Every good marine needs an antagonist!
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Just for future reference, would the Ratchet&Clank style be demanding in terms of workload? I’m talking about this level of graphics:
Or would it likely be very expensive for an indie game?
Hey Envy! The visual style itself isn’t what’s demanding it’s reaching that level of quality. All told that visual style could be slightly cheaper and easier than going for something 100% realistic(assuming that the art bible was rock solid and we weren’t discovering the style as we went along). But achieving that level of quality, in any style is no quick and easy task 
Just added a ton of things to our portfolio. Here’s a taste! No Chainmail bikinis on our watch (unless that’s what you want, but really, we dig the full metal look).
I know it isn’t as flashy as guns, armor, or pretty scenery, but it is just as important. Some example UI/Menu work!
http://.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/TMH_UIMEN_GameMode1.png
Hello ,
I recently submitted an iquiry through your website; It was about UI work. Have you received it?