What would be the cost?

Timodjin

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Jan 18, 2022
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My simple question is what it would cost to kickstart a 3d game?

I have a story written and are willing to pay a sum to see it materialize. Not a fortune but to cover some initial hours.
My wish is that the story is basically followed and some quality control level will be agreed.
The developer will have all other potential incomes from Subscribestar or Patreon.

Maybe this information is to poor but please inform me about what I need to know to ask the correct question.
 

kuraiken

Member
Dec 5, 2017
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856
1. Depends on the 3D game.
There is a massive difference between a 3D game where you walk around levels, and a 3D game where you have satisfying shooter gameplay, a 3D game where you have character customization & rendered, physics based sex scenes, vs. pre-rendered sex scenes and no customization.

2. If what you mean by 3D game is Daz3D renders, then you're going to have to consider that there's going to be a whole set of costs you may not anticipate. Depending on the specifications of your game (story, setting, characters, outfits, etc.), assets would have to be bought (if not in posession) and especially if you want fast work, a dev may or may not need to buy a second computer to render scenes if you want them to be very high quality.
Rendering a small scene (character, background, light effect) can take as a little as 1-5 min. Easily done.
Rendering a big scene, (3-4 forground characters, large prop background, background characters, vfx effects, multiple light sources etc.) can multiply that by a lot. Then you can easily end up at 15-25 min minimum, up to literally hours.

So if you plan on a small story in a family apartment - that's something most Daz3D devs can render relatively quickly. Large Fantasy or Sci-Fi world sets? Takes a lot longer and usually also involves some trickery.

3. You're going to have to deal with devs from all kinds of varying levels. A good idea is to pick a game or scenes from an existing game and use them as reference of what you want. That way, you can indicate the kind of game & type of quality you want.

4. If you keep the story secret, you're probably more likely to get people who want the money and get the job done some way, instead of devs that feel like your game is up their alley and something they're motivated to do.
Once you agree on standards & make a contract with a dev - you're both comitted to that. If the dev just does the minimum necessary to meet the expectations to get the payout...there's nothing you can do about that. That's why you should look for someone who's enthusiastic about your story.

5. Unless you're a professional writer, I'd be cautious about creating scripts and sticking to them. It's easy to imagine a story and write some kind of rough script, but implementation rarely survives it, especially if you don't have experience in visual storytelling (which is different from purely narrative storytelling). Stuff that seems to work on paper, or that you imagine would be neat, may fall apart when implemented in a game or scene.
If you find a skilled dev, you're usually better served with an overarching experience and certain themes & plot points you're interested in, that the dev than aims to implement, rather than a straight sticking-to-the-script dev. Because the latter may just really do that. Stick to the script, whether it works or not, and then shrug and call it your fault. (Which it is, but that's not helping you because you don't get the thing you want)

So you should be a lot more specific about the kind of experience your game should be (game mechanics, core gameplay loop, story type, fetishes) to attract people that WANT to make your game, and you should give information about the quality and scope of the game, because you can have anything from a 2-5k intial cost, to 50-100k.

Also, keep in mind that since the game's so closely tied to your story and what you want, any game dev would be limited in patreon & other final payments by how good your work can be implemented. So there's the danger of getting a dev that charges high initial cost, because they know they won't be able to get any long-term revenue from it, because there just never will be that kind of patreon support.
 

Timodjin

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Jan 18, 2022
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280
Thanks a lot for this answer. Was more or less exactly what I needed. It is obviously I need to rethink in a number of perspektive. I realize my story is big and the renders are the assets.
I am going to re-read your answer a couple of time to fully underrstand what I am asking about!

Highly apprecitaded.
 

Timodjin

Member
Jan 18, 2022
210
280
The Assistant from BlackHole is a production type and quality level I would like to see. I guess this is a high level standard?
Cloths would be modern and nothing special.
 

Timodjin

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Jan 18, 2022
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280
Ok, sorry to bother you. I told you I needed´help to understand. I will follow your advise and gather more information before I post.
 
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Count Morado

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Jan 21, 2022
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Ok, sorry to bother you. I told you I needed´help to understand. I will follow your advise and gather more information before I post.
Perhaps you are looking at this from the wrong direction. Instead of asking "what it would cost to kickstart a 3d game?" say "I have $XXXX to invest in the start of a game that I would like developed - the developer would have full subscribestar/patreon rights to the game after raising the money I initially put in. How far does $XXXX get us?"

Because if it's a couple of hundred dollars - you are probably out of luck. But if its a couple of thousand dollars, that gets the ball rolling.
 

Timodjin

Member
Jan 18, 2022
210
280
Perhaps you are looking at this from the wrong direction. Instead of asking "what it would cost to kickstart a 3d game?" say "I have $XXXX to invest in the start of a game that I would like developed - the developer would have full subscribestar/patreon rights to the game after raising the money I initially put in. How far does $XXXX get us?"

Because if it's a couple of hundred dollars - you are probably out of luck. But if its a couple of thousand dollars, that gets the ball rolling.
Yes, I was thinking the same. Since I almost have no knowledge I cant specify as Kuriaken explains. Even if I understand his point.
 

Timodjin

Member
Jan 18, 2022
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280
May somebody help me to understand the exakt meaning of a render. I do understand the translation but in this world I need to frame it. What is included, can parts be reused?
Thanks You for having patience with me :)
 

kuraiken

Member
Dec 5, 2017
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856
May somebody help me to understand the exakt meaning of a render. I do understand the translation but in this world I need to frame it. What is included, can parts be reused?
Thanks You for having patience with me :)
In terms of Daz3D:
A render is the result of the rendering process, where the computer takes the 3d models of the scenes, light effects, vfx and other effects, and it calculates what the picture would look like.
Clothes, Hair Physics, Light & Shadows, etc.
The program will run multiple iterations on the same image and use this to gradually construct a more and more clear picture.

Simply put, the render is the image that you end up with when you run your scene through the rendering process.
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Timodjin

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Jan 18, 2022
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Ok, that makes every scen a multiply amount of renders?
I mean if that guy now meet somebody, same place but it will be a new render?
Backgrounds are in this case easier but renders are the real work?

Once again thanks a lot !
 

kuraiken

Member
Dec 5, 2017
346
856
Ok, that makes every scen a multiply amount of renders?
I mean if that guy now meet somebody, same place but it will be a new render?
Backgrounds are in this case easier but renders are the real work?

Once again thanks a lot !
Think of it like this:
You've got a room, but in 3D, where you can tell people how to pose and what to do.
When everything's the way you want, you take a picture with a camera.
Every time you want an image where things are ever-so-slightly different, you take another picture with the camera after changing what had to be changed.

The big difference? Instead of that picture being instant, it takes a while to be created, depending on how much stuff is in that picture.

Backgrounds are part of the render and are rendered as well. (In general) In certain instances, artists trick around by creating a background image, turn it into a 2D cardboard after rendering it, and then load that 2D image onto a plane in the background. That way, they don't have to individually render a large background every time. If anything in the background changes, though, like any movement at all, the next image needs either a newly rendered background or you have to render the entire scene in full. (There's also other drawbacks like those background images not reacting well AT ALL to any kind of strong light source that lights them up as well)

So technically, there's no difference between a background and a render, because both are images that need to be rendered, so both are renders. Any scene where you have a background that's made of 3D assets? Everything's rendered anew.
 
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