NutinButNet@hilariouschaos.com 2 weeks ago
It depends on what you’re going for and how much time you want to spend on it.
If the bunker is far off in the distance from the player and they’re never meant to see it up close, you’re best off making one big 3D object that contains everything.
If you want to be more detailed, like you’re making a VR game and want realistic effects like what you see from Half Life Alyx, you’ll want to take your time and build the bunker into as many small pieces as you can. The player will likely be picking up objects and holding them and examining them, turning it around and looking at all sides. For best results, you’ll want each object to be its own thing built from the ground up.
But it really depends on what you’re aiming for. And Half Life Alyx is actually the exception for VR games. Most use very low quality assets and don’t put too much thought like Valve did. But if that’s what you’re aiming for, that’s your best bet.
It depends on how much time you want to spend, or money if you’re going to pay others to make the assets for you. Most solo devs aren’t putting that much effort or money into their project. A bigger team may do it.
As for the bunker itself, same deal here. Some people will build out the bunker into separate pieces. I’ve done this in some levels where I’ve taken 4 long rectangles to make a room rather than getting a solid rectangle room and then hollowing it out.
PlzGibHugs@piefed.ca 2 weeks ago
For reference, I’m coming from older engines like Source or Quake engine, where levels are unique files separate from other entities, unlike modern engines where level geometry is treated the same as any other entity.
I’m assuming this is for a fairly tight, enclosed space, but am mostly concerned with the static level geometry rather than than props or other repeated details. So if I’m understanding right, that would mean generally the geometry is broken into a number of peices, such as each room being a single model.