Buy the Gaia addon from the Asset Store and generate a landscape with it.
Buy a modular neighborhood and build my game’s environments.
Buy a character model in Daz Studio and use characters generated with Daz in game,
Is this all okay? I know there’s nothing illegal about doing so as long I reads all the licenses, but do players frown upon indie games that are made with lots of purchased assets?
I was thinking of adding my own touch to the houses and other assets of course. I require buying assets since I only code and want to tell a story. I don’t plan on buying assets related to gameplay though, that’s on me. Thanks!
The first two are fine. The player objection you imagine comes from using assets in a way that is incongruous with the game you’re trying to make. Many celebrated games use assets from the asset store.
However, the Daz license for using Studio content in games is restrictive.
0 - I suggest what you do is remain with Unity tools where possible, and use placeholders until you know the answer yourself. How are we supposed to guess what your needs are?
A tree is a tree is a tree (except for that one tree I’ve identified across several Ubisoft games, of course - they really should have pushed randomise on that). A very uneven rock at different angles can look like a thousand different rocks. Some assets are just perfect for mass-production because they’re just there, while others need a tad more uniqueness, like main characters, boss enemies and signature units in a strategy game.
If you buy a nice stockpile of assets for general use I’d recommend learning how to re-texture them. Substance Designer in particular is useful, because you can make procedural materials. For character models there are systems like UMA and Morph3D to modify your character models, and many different shaders to spruce things up.
What players generally dislike are games that appear to just be a collection of assets without much original content, especially if they are assets that have been seen in several other games. Often these games have no style of their own, instead an amalgam of styles from the various assets they include. The worst offenders are games that lean heavily on complete game system assets that include demo levels, and the demo levels are included in the final game verbatim.
Systems for generating terrain are not going to be an issue. City building packs are more likely to get noticed, but not generate much backlash if your layout is unique and even better if you include other city assets to fill out the city. Character models are probably the most likely to get noticed if they are commonly used in other games, since they tend to be a focal point of the game.
The more unique elements you can add to your game, the better. That doesn’t necessarily mean art assets either. If players notice you’re reusing a lot of common art assets, but your systems are mostly built for your game, you may see some comments about the art but you’ll probably still have players react favorably to the game regardless. The easiest thing to do is stay away from “free” assets, since they tend to get the most use, especially in poor quality games known for asset spamming.
The games are fairly popular - enough that the company still stays afloat. But you’ll see quite a lot of familiar sprites in at least the first half-dozen or so games
This ^^ Learn to re-texture and customize the hero assets you purchase, especially if they are character assets. Terrains are alright because by just shifting a seed element or height map - the terrain is changed to be unique.
In addition to the license @Marble pointed out - Daz characters have a certain ‘look’ to them that makes them stand out compared to custom characters. Look through steam and you’ll be able to spot them - even if they are morphed and wearing totally different clothing/gear - they are recognizable. Just keep it in mind.
Better to have some custom art for hero units - characters on screen.
I pretty much use everything I can find from the asset store that I can’t make. It’s there for that reason. If your plan is a commercial product, then the simple answers are don’t use “Demo” scenes from enviroment assets, Re-texture where needed, and most of all is to just make sure it’s fun. Some people won’t mind if you’re using bought assets, others will flame you for it. Look at Yandere Simulator. It’s using Aoi Character pack as the main character, and people love it.
