Sorry if this has been asked before. I have some models of reasonable quality (to myself). Now, here's my question: while model quality should always be the best they can be, at what point do they become "good enough" to be commercially/publicy released? If they have some errors, is that ok? How about intersecting polies? Messy bits? I try to keep my models as clean as possible, but in terms of looks, how good is good enough? For instance, does every model need to be super uber good? Or can they be ok without being super detailed and over the top, as long as the gameplay is good? Just a question, sorry if I phrased it offensively, or if this is the wrong section/it's already been asked :)

A good point of reference could be best seller games, or highly rated ones for their graphics.

me figures.

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Original post by Unknown Target Sorry if this has been asked before. I have some models of reasonable quality (to myself). Now, here's my question: while model quality should always be the best they can be, at what point do they become "good enough" to be commercially/publicy released? If they have some errors, is that ok? How about intersecting polies? Messy bits? I try to keep my models as clean as possible, but in terms of looks, how good is good enough? For instance, does every model need to be super uber good? Or can they be ok without being super detailed and over the top, as long as the gameplay is good? Just a question, sorry if I phrased it offensively, or if this is the wrong section/it's already been asked :)

Nobody is perfect.. not even sierra.com

sometimes it is good to have messy bits.
in your eyes they may look distorded. tand thousands of people they dont notice it.

I would say a model is good enough for commercial release when it looks good enough considering the context of it's use. You don't need a billion polys for a model that will only ever be an inch high on the screen. I consider whether the model would actually benefit from more polygons within it's use. Polygon counts aren't a big problem nowadays, so if you have to think about putting in more polys, chances are you need more polys.

This is how I consider the issue, other people might think differently.

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Original post by Unknown Target while model quality should always be the best they can be, at what point do they become "good enough" to be commercially/publicy released?

It is subjective. At the least, all the models need to be about the same quality.

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Original post by Unknown Target If they have some errors, is that ok? How about intersecting polies? Messy bits? I try to keep my models as clean as possible, but in terms of looks, how good is good enough? Does every model need to be super uber good? Or can they be ok without being super detailed and over the top, as long as the gameplay is good?

The goal is uniformity. If your main avitar is a 2000+ poly model, buildings are 6-poly models, and other objects in the game range from 6-poly cubes with bad art to beautifully modeled and textured masterpieces, it will look bad.

If the entire game looks like it's trying to have 8-bit console graphics in a 3D world, that's fine as long as it's uniform. If all models have a few rendering errors and look similar, that's fine too (but probably not good enough commercially).

For uniformity, look at remakes of games like Pac-Man or breakout. The games can use simple building blocks and solid colors. Or nicely rendered images. Or possibly very detailed models. As long as all the artwork is about the same quality, the artwork is good enough.

If you were doing a breakout clone and half of the blocks were nicely rendered images, and the other half were simple solid squares, then the artwork is not good enough; they need to be consistant.

commercially/publicy released

Do you mean within a game or by itself (like a model pack)?

It doesn't matter if the model has some tri faces or something like that, as long as you try to hide those things (example. some tri faces under a human arm). It depends on the context.