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[gouhadouken]

I was chitchatting with a gamedev buddy of mine, and the conversation turned to the hacky but genius things indies do to save time and money on small projects. This has always been a total topic of interest for me, and I would love to hear/discuss all the triumphant victories and staggering defeats you guys have had in this area before.

For me, the thing I' most proud of right now is that I've come up with a 3d pipeline for my personal project that focuses on geometric detail and silhouettes. It totally throws sculpting and retop out the window and keeps the texturing down to an absolute minimum. I'm talking fill bucket and gradients :D

ITT: proprietary time savers and clever design 101, go!

[TheClintHennesy]

Haha- at first, I thought this was gonna be a "Look how smart I am" thread- but now you've mentioned it...

We're working on a game- and we have around three different mob designs.

We gave the mobs MINIMAL LIMBS and it gave our animation team a heck-easy time to animate the creatures. I've seen a LOT of game jammers do this as well. Removing stuff like hands and feet simplify animation SO SO much- regardless if it's in 2D or 3D. :D

A lot of the animation cues also were relying on the special effects- rather than the animation itself- which wasn't too bad.

[gouhadouken]

Haha- at first, I thought this was gonna be a "Look how smart I am" thread

Totally, unashamedly is! I think game devs are a smart bunch. I also low-key want to steal some clever ideas :p

I totally feel you on the animation thing, oh lord. I'm a fiddler, so nothing slows me down like dealing with a beautiful, intricate rig that gives me total control. It can be hella refreshing to animate something with like 12 bones total.