Indispensable Resources for Indie Video Game Makers
I am a game player and programmer. I am not a digital 3D artist. That means if I want to make a game that looks better than the 3D equivalent of stick figures I’m going to have to get my Assets from somewhere else. And since I don’t have the money to hire a 3D artist, composer, effects makers, or animator. I am going to have to rely on free and inexpensive assets.
I realize some people think that any game that uses generic assets as an “Asset flippers”. They are wrong. If I buy some art from a store, alter them as needed, and then use it in a unique game that’s fine. An asset flipper is someone who only buys cheap or free assets, buys some free or cheap starter projects, and makes no changes other than to replace some of the art with more free or cheap assets.
I hope you all can see the difference. So I’ve been collecting places where I can find free and inexpensive assets. Here’s my list of places.
Asset stores
First and foremost is Epic’s unreal store. It’s got all sorts of items for sale. Everything from 3D meshes, music, particle effects, and common plug & play systems. I probably won’t be buying any game system assets since that’s the one area I can accomplish myself.
While Epic’s Unreal store has a lot of items, Unity’s Asset store is king. So I can always get an asset from there. Then I will have to figure out how to import it to Unreal. Though I haven’t done it, I’m betting it isn’t difficult.
General Purpose stores
The internet has a lot of stores whose sole purpose is to upload and sell 3D assets. While many of these places aren’t geared solely for gaming, many of the assets are usable for games. The three stores I’ve found that had huge selection are CGTrader, TurboSquid, and Free3D. In spite of their names, all of them have both free and pay-for 3D models.
Independent Stores
I’ve also seen a few stores that specialize in selling packs or kits for game makers. These tend to have a pricey upfront cost, but they come with so many assets that it can be cheaper in the long run. It also has the benefit of making your art more consistent.
A few places I’ve found are. Kitbash3D and Game Creator Store.
Sound
Of course, the Unreal and Unity stores have audio tracks. But I’ve also found several sites that I can find inexpensive audio tracks. If I can’t find what I need there in the stores I can check these.
I’ve found pond5 to have a huge selection of music tracks. It’s got everything from classical, jazz, 8bit sound retro game-like music. Everything is tagged and it makes searches fast. The time-consuming part is deciding which of the tracks I will eventually use. The music track selection is so huge it can be easy to forget it also has sound effects too.
There are also these other stores. I’ve found Audio Jungle and Music Bed. A lot of the songs on each of those can also be found on pond5 and the search isn’t as quick for me. I’ll be using Pond5 primarily and will use those others if I can’t find the music I need.
Video game sound effects don’t seem to be particularly difficult to find. Just a search for “Free Video Game Sound Effects” gives tons and tons of websites. I’m hopeful that I won’t have to spend any budget on sound effects.
Human Figures
The toughest 3D assets to get right are human characters. They tend to get expensive quickly. Unfortunately, there are no ideal solutions out there. I’m just going to go through a few options.
Adobe Fuse
The first is the site that probably lots of indie developers use: Adobe Fuse. It’s a service that Adobe has been offering for free while it’s in “Beta”. Unfortunately, Adobe just announced that they are discontinuing it soon. So this is not a good solution. That’s unfortunate because I know a lot of indie and micro game studios used it to create high-quality characters.
Make Human
Make Human is another bad solution for me. It’s free but it has a “viral” open source license. This means you can only use it if your game is free and open source. However, If you don’t mind making your game open source, this could be a good solution for you.
iClone/Realallusion
If I had a lot of money to so sink into a project, I would look into iClone and it’s related projects. It looks like it has everything I could want so that even a schlub like me could make a detailed 3D character for my game. Unfortunately, the character creator starts at 200 dollars and that doesn’t include animation, mocap, or several other features that make the Reallusion suite of tools awesome. For the full suite, it’s over a thousand dollars and only includes the tools and not many figures. Those are in its marketplace and cost extra.
Daz3D
This is ultimately the option I’ll be using. Daz3D is a tool that exists solely to create 3D models of characters. Originally, it was not geared to game makers. It was meant for advertisers and artists. However, the makers have also started embracing the game makers market.
The tools and some base characters are free. However, there is a large marketplace for clothes, accessories and additional base models. These tools cost money and are not particularly cheap. However, when you consider getting a full set of armor for any character would take a 3D artist days, if not weeks, suddenly 30 to 60 dollars doesn’t seem so bad.
Considering my budget I’ll be very careful with what extras I purchase to keep my budget low. Hopefully, I won’t have to break the bank.
Keeping within Budget
I have to say I’m pleasantly surprised how easily a non-artist can find and use game assets — even 3D ones. I’m thinking I can get everything I need for a 3D video game for only a few hundred dollars. I’ll keep track of what I spend and see what the final cost is.