When the drill sergeant shouts out, "There's a dangerous secret mission behind the enemy lines and I need volunteers! I need 'em now! This will be dangerous. Most of you will not come back alive. So, don't be shy! Who's with me?" and you, naturally, take a step backwards. But when you look around you to see who has volunteered... you notice there's only you in the parade ground.
The thing is, it's all very well being a one-man (or woman) team. It's all quite rosy being a one-man army, a single-boy band, a Unity, in fact. That is until things take a turn for the worst and you find yourself up a river without a paddle. You're bored of slaving away at your computer in isolation, you're stuck for ideas, stuck for time, and just plain stuck.
Many people involved in games hit this wall. It happens when you start your game project thinking, "This is going to be Great! This is going to be amazing! And, I'll do it all by myself!" You see this kind of thing on the forums all the time:
"I'm doing a first person shooter in the style of [some big title]. Here's my progress so far! What do you guys think of THIS!!? "
Then, there follows a couple of small images. The first of a gun (un-textured). The second of maybe a crate (sometimes textured). The third (if there is a third) of another gun (un-textured and a bit like the first one). The forum replies come through thick and fast, and they're not very complimentary.
This particular kind of mania is actually quite normal for us compulsive gaming types. No one told us that creating a FPS in the style of Rambo goes to Mars in a Taxi (by Epic Games) was this much work, so we're not really to blame. The fact that the list of credits at the end of any commercially released game takes longer to scroll through than it took to complete the game itself is lost on us... because we're a one man army! We've volunteered our multiple self for the mission and we're going to finish it until it kills us!
I'd like to give you a few forum posts as examples of those asset creators who have started off well but crashed and burned—there are so many to choose from—but that would be cruel. Although we can't throw stones; we're all just as susceptible. This chapter is there for all of us when we hit the wall. We realize we overestimated our abilities, time, and dedication, and we're prepared to admit it. So, what do we do now? Well, that's easy. We do what we always do in situations like this.
We cheat, of course!
Now I know that your dad told you cheating was wrong, but hey! We all know there are different kinds of cheating. There's the wrong kind and then there's the kind of cheating that's not really cheating at all. The thing is, if people leave their stuff lying around on the Internet for all to see and download, why would it be so wrong to stick some of it in your game? Actually, it can be very necessary. If you don't do it, often your game level won't get finished, and then no one gets to see how great your skills are. Assets taken from the Internet can provide much needed "context" to your own modeling. Just make sure you don't claim to have created anything that was actually created by others.
Note
Assets that you find on the Internet were once created by somebody, and that person owns the copyright. Don't ever stick assets into a game if you don't know where they came from and have permission to use them. When creating a sample game for your portfolio, or testing a game level with some sample assets, using what you find on the Internet is unlikely to be a problem.
Everyone in the game industry has a specific job. In big games, their job might be just to do lighting all day. That's all they do for the whole game. They also might model terrain assets and nothing else. Even the texturing will be done by a colleague. Here we have a quandary. If you are to realistically test out your skills as a game artist in a close-to-real life environment, it will only happen if you are part of a team. There's no way someone would let you loose on a whole level like I'm doing in this book. To be honest, it's just too much work for one person. The skill you really need to learn next is how to make use of someone else's assets. It just so happens that it'll also noticeably speed up your own job! Everyone's a winner when we cheat (in a good way).