Art cost expectations for a 3D game
Hey folks! Solo dev here, working on a 3D game and trying to get my head around art budgeting before I start reaching out to anyone. I’d like to manage scope ahead of time and choose what I do carefully to keep production costs sane while being fair to anyone I take on a project.
A few things I'd love your take on:
- Are there visual styles that are more forgiving on production time without ending up looking cheap?
- Roughly, how long does a character actually take once you factor in modeling, rigging, and a basic animation set?
- How do props and environment art compare on time?
- And any scoping tricks you've seen working well — buying assets, modular kits, that kind of thing?
- Anything else I’m missing that might become a significant cost in producing visual art (outside of tech art - VFX, shaders, etc)?
Rough ranges are totally fine, I know "it depends" is the real answer. Just trying to go in with realistic expectations.