I’m working on a retro inspired survival horror game with a kind of psx / ps2 inspired visual style (ps2 resolution with a psx vibe). I have no drawing skills whatsoever so for texturing I just sculpt high poly creatures, then take some renders and use projection to give that retro, fake lighting and shadowing look.

I’ve never really done low poly art before so it’s been a learning curve for sure but with this one I think I’m finally getting the hang of it. Og sculpt has about 2M polys, final high res mesh is about 180k with a full set of 4K textures.

Final in-game mesh has just over 1400 polygons (800 are just the teeth, I could have optimized them more but honestly got lazy) with a single 512x512 texture. Uv’s are awfully optimized (again, got lazy) so the actual textel density is closer to a well-optimized 512x256 texture.

There are some topology issues for sure that I’m worried are going to bite me in the ass when it’s time to animate but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it!

Given this is my fourth ever attempt at this kind of thing I’m pretty happy with how it turned out, was able to capture most of the detail in the low poly version and it’s the first time I feel like I really accomplished that but what do we think? I’m sure there’s plenty of ways I can improve for future reference, this is far from the last one I’m going to need to make so I’d love to hear people’s thoughts on it!

(Also, going for a kind of Silent Hill meets Dead Space sort of vibe, mixed a bit of Metroid Prime in this one too for good measure lol. Am I hitting that vibe or nah?)

I know this question gets asked like a billion times, but i couldn't find a right answer, so i guess giving some context about my case might help me get more specific answer

i want to learn art with end goal of making my dream game, i am already naturally decent at drawing so learning it won't be much of an issue however its very limiting especially since i want my game to be a first person game, i can just compromise and make it in a 2D compatible format but yeah its not ideal,i also thought about doing it in a boomer shooter style with 2D sprits and 3D environment, but the game is not a shooter, and if i am required to make 3D world environment might as well just make everything 3D.

3D seems so easy to me, maybe i am blind to the other things that go into making a 3D asset, but for example having a chrome like object with light from above in 3D seems way too easy compared to doing that in 2D, maybe because i am used to 2D and never done 3D but not having to deal with lighting/shadows, perspective, drawing textures, animation, seems so good to me.

if 3D is easier and takes less time then 2D, does 3D programming tip the scale back to it being equally time consuming ?