Ren'Py Daz New and seeking advice for art

[MissMelonKiss]

Hi all, I’m working solo on a kinetic novel (~20k words) and looking for art advice. And I’m sorry if this isn’t the right place for this post. I’ve written the story and started coding in renpy. My plan is to release the game for free on itch.io to get feedback and learn what works and doesn’t work. I don’t have a large budget for art, so I might need to create it myself, but that’s where my skill set is lacking.

I’m looking into different options for the art

• 2D Illustration: My illustration skills are not the best. I know I can eventually get to a place that looks good enough to put in a game, but it’ll take me much longer than a professional to create something decent.
• Daz3d: I don’t have any experience with 3d modeling. I’ll either need to learn or buy pre-made models.
• Source Filmmaker: same as Daz3d. I'm also not sure about the legality of this one.
• Hire an artist: I don't have a large budget, so I'm not hopeful about this. Maybe I can edit the story to have a short asset list.

So, for anyone that has been in a similar situation, what did you do?
Did you use Daz3d? 2d illustration? Source Filmmaker? Something else?
If you created the art yourself, how long did it take you to learn?
If you bought assets for Daz3D, what was your budget like?
If you hired an artist, what was your budget and timeframe like?

I appreciate any advice. Thanks in advance!

 

[twix]

I dont make games with a game logic or so, i just use renpy to build a story for my renders. I use Daz3d its easy to learn and easy to use. There is no need to buy assets. I just look on renderstate or 3d-load if i need any assets. I like the combination of daz3d and renpy. With renpy i can combine just two or more renders to let it look like an animation. Without rendering an animation in daz3d

Sorry for my bad English

 

[MissMelonKiss]

I dont make games with a game logic or so, i just use renpy to build a story for my renders. I use Daz3d its easy to learn and easy to use. There is no need to buy assets. I just look on renderstate or 3d-load if i need any assets. I like the combination of daz3d and renpy. With renpy i can combine just two or more renders to let it look like an animation. Without rendering an animation in daz3d

Sorry for my bad English

Thanks for your input! I'll look at tutorials for Daz3d and check out those sites for assets.

 

[Queen Rat]

I was in a very similar situation - got a story written with some coding experience, but very little graphical skills. I picked up Daz3D, and although I don't think the learning curve is particularly steep, it's not trivial either. The basics are simple enough and there are good online resources to get you started, but the devil is in the details. There are many, many little tricks and shortcuts that you'll have to pick up, so be prepared to google a lot!

This is the high-level process I suggest.

Work through some beginner tutorials to get the hang of the basics.
Download some assets from this site to build one of your scenes. You'll need an environment (office, room), your female lead (because there are many more female assets than male), hair, clothes and an expression and pose pack to get started.
Set up your scene and character. This was where I did most of my initial learning - trying to get that scene and character to look the way I wanted took a long time with a lot of research, but it was nice learning on an actual scene from my game.
Lightning - probably the most important part of making the scene look good, and the area where I had to do the most research. I also think this is where the true artists shine and the rest of use strive for adequacy! Regardless, you'll quickly get better with experience. I went back to that first scene the other day, played a bit with the lighting and made some significant improvements.
Rendering - depending on your hardware, this is an optimization exercise between quality and speed, and there are many little tricks to improve both. Once again Google is you friend!
I guess that should get you started, and at the end of this process you'll know whether this hobby is for you or not.

Regarding your question about budgets - Daz3D assets are not cheap, and often you'll need the get an entire office block scene because you like the look of the front desk! I've kept meticulous notes of every asset I've used (all downloaded here), and during the recent Daz3D Thanksgiving sale I estimated what it would have costed me. Extrapolating to the full game I guess somewhere between $3000-$5000 (double that if you buy at normal prices), but people who have actually completed a game might think my estimates are wildly off.

I did buy some of my most used assets when they were on sale; if I ever release the game and people are prepared to back me on Patreon, the first thing I'll do is buy the outstanding assets. I have no idea whether that is common practice, or if developers buy the assets up front, or just don't pay for it at all.

 

[MissMelonKiss]

Thanks so much! I'm working through some tutorials and I'll make sure to look at lighting next.

For the assets, I'm making a list of must haves and nice-to-haves. I'll keep an eye out for sales.

 

[Romirom]

Daz isn't really that good for modelling. It does a better job for posing in my opinion. If you start with a story it's important to make it not 100% perfect like the ones you maybe looked at before considering using DAZ. Be yourself and don't try to copy a specific style from someone else. Simple as that.

You have to make mistakes in the beginning. That's normal and totally fine because that's how you learn to make it better next time.

My first renders were not nearly as great as I hoped. I'm still not a pro today, don't get me wrong, but I've learned a ton of stuff from my mistakes since then which is the best experience you can get.