A newbie question, so I apologise in advance if i’m using wrong terms or not giving enough info.
I’m designing a walking simulator that takes place in what considered a small area: A two-story house, a road and some land, with a small mobile home park. That’s it.
The house is big but with a “normal” number of rooms, very detailed; lots of small props. Game is story driven and there won’t be any more places to explore other than what I described.
OR
one-piece big meshe for the house creation workflow? (like that one - http://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/3d-model-two-story-cottage/739188
What considered as “game ready” poly count in my case? I’m a bit confused, does the small level I described should be limited to poly count? (for example, would the model in the link above should work fine).
I considered separating the indoors from the outdoors, thus creating different maps for each location. How should I approach poly count in that case?
I find doing modular meshes a very time consuming process. a game-ready asset means that it dosent contains so many polycounts, yes. One dosent become a good 3D artist overnight. You need to learn the terms of texturing, UVs and designing. Gamedeveloping takes years. Also, gamedeveloping isnt only about designing. It has to be managed too, so it dosent die overtime. I dont want to scare you, but it isnt so easy as it seems. I would model the house in one mesh and make the assets seperate to place out in the house.
Don’t worry I was a complete noob at this point also and try to explain from what I learned. Polygons which is a way i believe the computer form objects. Like a box has four sides I believes is the same as four polys. The way game machines create detail such as facial expressions or etc is by adding more polys. For example you want to edit one side of the box we just explained That whole face is one poly!!! you can only edit the lines which is the corners of the box which will form weird shapes. Now lest say on the same side you draw a square (now you have five polys)dependsing what you do with that square you may make a pimple a nose or anything.
It def. doesn’t take years. You have to know how to code . When you read c++ and learn c++ it’s like you know the language but it doesn’t teach you minor stuff like opening files and etc. don’t worry the minor stuff is easy but like hell to find. Don’t slash and hack take time and learn. fortunately learning everything about art is easy to find online
I’ll try to answer your questions since previous answers both strayed off into completely different areas.
Modular VS not modular is both a matter of preference as well as usability. If you were making a large scene where you would be able to reuse modular assets a lot for building multiple houses and such I would definitely say go with a modular approach as it would definitely save time and resources.
When it comes to a smaller scene like you are describing you won’t see as much of the benefits of a modular workflow so it becomes more a matter of preference. Keep in mind that these two options are not mutually exclusive. Let’s say you decide to make the house a single mesh since you don’t plan on building multiple and you feel like it would be easier and more comfortable for your workflow. You can still make for example the fence, the road and parts of the mobile home park modular pieces since you might have use for those pieces multiple times and want some variety.
As for polycount /vertex count it’s impossible to say without knowing your target hardware/platform. If you’re targeting competent computers and since the level you describe seems fairly small you will be less limited by polycount as modern computers can handle incredible amount of geometry without any problem. Mobile on the other hand have much less power and therefore requires simpler geometry.
As for the deterring comments previously don’t let them get to you. Yes, making a game can be a huge undertaking but it’s incredibly rewarding and it’s all up to your willing to work hard and learn. When I set out to make our first game a few years ago I knew absolutely nothing and have since then learned tons of techniques and made huge progress on our game, all from using free learning resources online.