I’m actually a bit good at making 3D Characters with proper poly loops for low-poly animations.
I can model, add facial morph targets for lip animations, expressions, UV unwrap, create AAA quality texture maps, rig, animate and on and on…
But I see no point in making it to sell on Marketplace unless I’m not making for the $moneis anyway.
If I could find the extra time to create them I would sell on Marketplace, maybe… But the reason I don’t do it, also the reason I don’t even bother making an online portfolio for it is: Not worth it.
Unless you are working for a good AAA studio paying you to output your best work, your time spent vs income return won’t be any good for you.
I could easily take 3~6 months to create a top notch character for games; but I don’t, since I don’t live neither work on a AAA companies’ hub to pay me while I build this kind of folio.
Making it just for selling online or niches like UE4’s Marketplace, well; I see it this way:
A) Cost of labour/investment to create quality characters: |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
B) Price range your product must be valued to sell: ||||||||||||||
C) Devs that would buy because it fits their game:
**||||||
**To increase point C, you are forced to invest on modular character sets; even more production time.
Unless something like 100s of people screaming at Epic that they would be willing to pay good bucks for good quality characters, you guys won’t see *any if at all *really good quality models for sale but the great Epic’s freebies.
All that is going to show up are characters made by novices starting to learn how to do it right, at best.
Just do it. Don’t go for AAA quality for the marketplace, go for “good enough”.
I think you’d be surprised, I know I was.
Without disclosing numbers, a quality character could very well end up selling 50 copies a month. And that’s being pessimistic. Just rig him to the free anims, then he will also fit Kubolds animsets.
Then, if you get good enough sales, you can start upping the quality, making him modular etc.
The sales on my system is what drives me to keep improving it.
That’s the best news today. I could have sworn when the Marketplace was about to release, it was at least expected for submissions to use the skeleton. I’m happy to hear that it is not the case any longer.
The system you’re proposing takes a huge amount of work to implement and comes with its own issues, mostly related to content management and creation. The system alone is worthy of a third party solution. I know this because I did this exact thing in Mortal Online, plus some more that you have not covered. (which I can’t disclose)
Yes, modular sets are definitely something that should be encouraged. I don’t think we should try to focus on enforcing such a huge standard, because standards are usually project specific because they tend to have pro’s and con’s that needs to meet the requirements of the game. (performance, quality, memory, etc)
Yes, it will be in 4.8. I sent you a PM. And to anyone reading this that’s developing animation content with the Epic skeleton – contact me now and I can give you the files right now in advance of the release.
Awesome! Yeah, the T-Pose guys are doing some really cool stuff, and I think they’re setting a great example.
You’re welcome, and that’s great to hear! I look forward to reviewing it.
To some extent it is, but there’s value in building something that’s easy to prototype with or to nail a specific style. We have a couple UI packs in the review queue right now that do this.
Yeah, the uniqueness of characters is a tricky problem, and I think modularity is definitely one way to go about solving it. If you do go down that path I’d be really interested in seeing what you produce! I’d also be happy to answer any questions or brainstorm with you on ideas on how to make a character like that buyer-friendly and useful, with the caveat that we share the ideas with the community too.
Well said!
That’s exactly our thinking as well. PolyPixel’s Assault Weapons Pack (https://www.unrealengine.com/content/d441b99625bc4d5db4e21a66aff9e8dc) did a terrific job of this, IMO. You can make thousands of weapon varieties out of that between all the attachments and the Substance materials.
That’s one of those things that we’ve gone back and forth on a lot, and tried to measure value with. We want each catalog item in the Marketplace to have as much value as possible without cluttering everything up with a million individual items. Sometimes 5 - 10 weapons in a pack is what’s valuable based on how functional they are, and in other cases like the M4A1 (Trello), it’s just a single weapon, but it has sound, animations, a scope, and is a completely self-contained thing that works out of the box. There’s a lot of value in that as a single item, but that is complete in all respects. (it’s also releasing next week!)
One of our most frequent conversations in content reviews is about what value is, and if something presents enough value to stand on its own as a single item, or if it would be better as multiple items, or with additional functionality. We have to decide it all on a case by case basis and hope for the best. It is really encouraging to read what you said, because it confirms a lot of what we thought\hoped people were thinking as well. So, thank you!
That’s an excellent point. Good characters take a long time to make, and even then it’s not a sure thing it will make it to the Marketplace. We’re constantly trying to find ways to encourage content creators to take the time to submit, and one of the ideas we’ve been building up lately is using the Marketplace as not only a way to make money, but a promotion platform.
Think of it like this – if you’re a contractor or are looking for a job, the social media reach, credibility, and reputation for quality that Epic has can get your name and your work out to a VERY wide audience. That’s why I write the blog posts that I do, and work with people to build and improve their content. What we may lack in overall sales volume (hey, we’re barely six months old!) we can make up for with publicity, broadcast, and reach.
Thanks man, I’m happy to help! We’re finally getting caught up from all the GDC submissions so I’m able to spend a bit more time here than I used to. It’s been a crazy month and a half!
It’s only a single weapon, but it’s 1) high quality, 2) includes arms and animations and audio, 3) includes clips and bullets, 4) includes Blueprints, and is basically a fully functional and ready-to-use weapon right out of the box, with virtually no additional work required. It’s not just a 3D model of a gun, it’s an entire functioning weapon system.
Ultimately it all comes down to value to the buyer. In many cases, a higher quantity of content is where the value is. But in this case (and others) it’s how much time and effort it saves you after the purchase in order to do what you want. That’s how we review and qualify content for the Marketplace. How would a developer use this? What kind of problems can this solve? Knowing what I know as a content creator, how can I make a buyer’s life easier if they buy my pack? It’s not so much thinking of how to design an asset as it is how to design a product.
Thanks! Like I said I definitely don’t want to write it off completely, but I won’t even have time to consider it until later this year since I’m deep in development for the environment packs. I will definitely be open to hearing feedback and suggestions on how to approach it though! Also did you get my email? Wanted to make sure it sent through alright given the deadline.
I did, yes! Will hit you up tomorrow. The timeframe may have moved out slightly, but the interest remains.
If you saw the type of submissions that don’t make it to the Marketplace, you might feel differently.
The whole idea of the Marketplace is that there’s a place for developers using the Unreal Engine to go to find high quality, relevant, useful content that they know has been reviewed and tested for quality and functionality, so that a purchase doesn’t feel like a gamble. In practice, this is very time-consuming and difficult, and I’ll admit that we are not at that point yet. But we’re getting better, day by day, and having the support of the community is not only helping encourage us and feel that we’re doing something worthwhile, but you’re all helping us get there.
Hay SE_JonF I’m always cruising the market place looking for parts that’s the sum of the whole knowing that I can harvest the part by FBX export > 3ds so as feed back.
Case in point.
Prototype Characters.
Intended to replace the current blueman as kind of a test dummy.
I bought it because we cant to make a character with a robot leg.
So
Unreal 4 > FBX > 3ds Max.
I can then harvest what I need, in this case the robot legs, and add them, as to scale, to my character component.
Knowing that you are into making the best of the best how about making the best looking robot leg ever so I can make it look the way I want it to look with out having to resort to a cookie cutter asset. (meaning no disrespect)
May not be the best thread for this, but I would be more than happy to release some stuff for the marketplace, however I do more c++ than blueprints, when/if we are able to put c++ stuff up there, then I have a few things I could submit that are def not the usual things we see there Only have a couple things I could maybe tweak that are on the blueprint side of things.
The two “best” blueprints introduced so far to the Market Place is “Simple Wall Jump” and my fav “Persistent Graphics Menu” as they are unassuming as to the intent as to the use of their design.
Personally I charge out at about 60 bucks and hour and for 35 dollars there is no way I could make even a basic menu system that includes all of the key features that could be plugged into our UI design. Something this simple saves hours, even into the hundreds, just to copy the same over all design feature sets.
In this case it is “Top Down” in design.
Most blueprints are designed from the bottom up as to the intention of use by the designer and programer so it is not obvious as to key features to a baker looking to make their own cake and all of them are all based on the same idea that is making an MMO.
Want to make a product that will sell like Hot Dogs then make a Hot Dog blueprint with in the same price range.
A good example is our project needs , top down, an asset loader that X number of component player models can be added bound to whatever 1st person hands matches the player and a in blueprint inventory that does not require the player to pick anything up but can be scrolled through in real game time. After that any sorting that needs to be is a snap but for 35 bucks saves what could translate to thousands of dollars of man hours.
Simple product by just thinking what would save time and not require the reinventing of the wheel?
Actually I’m glad you brought it up! We’re adding support for code plugins in an upcoming release, and I’ve been meeting with developers to find out what they’re developing and how we can support them. It’ll be a gradual rampup to fully accepting everything since it’s still a feature in development that requires Epic being more hands-on than we are with other types of assets, but it’s coming, conversations are happening, and it’ll be in the wild soon.
What kind of stuff are you developing? I’d like to hear about it.
That’s one of the things they are going back and forth on. As pointed out the M4 is a good example as as being a single item it is fit to finish and ready to use as to value but it is also and item that can help stage and set up a weapons inventory by example.
A single grenade = little value like a car with out tires. A grenade set up with proper projectile BP and top notch PBR materials that has physics when it explodes, including explosion shaders, causes damage has more to it then just the required five items required built into it’s design.
We actually had someone submit something like that a few months ago, but they disappeared and stopped responding to email. It’s kinda weird, because that would be a great thing to have.
(meaning no disrespect)
Only have a couple things I could maybe tweak that are on the blueprint side of things.