Buying game art

[NothingLikeit]

Hi everybody,

I have been giving some serious thought to buying game art. The reason is that I don't want to/can't pay for the services of a good artist to design it myself. Since this is my first title I think it would be okay, since I can focus on getting better at coding. It also saves me the time/energy of learning to create comercial quality art.

Have any of your ever used pre packaged art in your games?

How did it look compared to your other assets that you or a team member created?

Did you make any changes to the original asset?

I know that the license is one issue I should be concerned with. Are there any other issues I should think about before making a purchase?

Oh and could I/should I use free models in my final game if the license states that it's okay for commerical use?

Is there a such thing as too much using too much prepackaged art?
In other words can I go too far and end up with a game that looks like it was "clicked together"? (It sort of will be in the package that I use :-) )

As always, I appreciate any and all opinions that you can provide. Thanks.

[soniCron]

I can't really tell if you're using pre-packaged art or just using royalty-free 3D models. For one thing, I can't imagine any pre-packaged art working together -- the chances of each's art style meshing are nil. As for using 3D models, of course you can use it if the license stipulates that freedom! :)

I'm using royalty-free photography from stock.xchng and a couple licensed images from NASA in a future project. Each takes considerable amount of calibration -- adjusting colors, curves, etc. -- but it's a functional workflow and the images look like they belong together. However, I can't imagine the same coordination happening with pre-packaged art. (Not to mention I've never even heard of such a thing, unless you're talking about clipart...)

[NothingLikeit]

very true, I was thinking of buying the soldiers that I needed and making the guns myself. I don't think that would make too much of a difference.

[MrPhil]

FYI http://www.nothinglikeitgames.com/ seems to be down

[NothingLikeit]

yea i'm working on it. I'm not sure what happened.

[TimS]

buying the soldiers that I needed and making the guns myself

Not to be the bringer-upper of topics taboo... but are you still working on an FPS? And expecting to sell it? After all we've been through on these forums?

[NothingLikeit]

Yes. But I'm working on making the art better. It's not going to be the same "game" that I showed here though.

[NothingLikeit]

I know what you're thinking Tim... It's not going to suck as bad as that "demo" did.

[MrPhil]

FYI http://www.nothinglikeitgames.com/ seems to be down

Still not working for me :(

[NothingLikeit]

The site is being wierd... I'm thinking of taking it down permantly for now. But there wasn't anything related to the game on the site yet anyway.