Remaking your assets?

[arsMori]

Since making stuff for my game is only a side hobby of mine in between schoolwork and other important activities, some assets like sprites are finished weeks or months apart. Naturally, I'm going to see some improvement between earlier and later stuff, which is technically nice, but creates this sort of inconsistency between their quality, which is a little jarring for me. While I'm most likely gonna remake some of the older sprites and stuff, at the back of my head, it feels like I'm "wasting" my older assets.

Anyways, what are your experiences and opinions on remaking older assets?

 

[VegaKotes]

Sometimes I get to look back at the old work and smile at how much better I've gotten.
And sometimes I get to look back at the old work and try and wrap my head around how in the world did I even do that back then and why can't I make an improved version, heck forget improved I can't even seem to do the same thing I did a month ago why brain whyyyyyyyy.......

I do also feel that "Wasting" older assets feeling. But such is the life of art. Art is not beautiful because it lasts but becau...wait wasn't that life? Well whatever. To improve is just something that comes to all artists eventually.
It's a pain in the ass but it is what it is. Though there is also a point where I have to just let a piece of art....be. Constantly trying to improve the same piece or redoing it indefinitely will only paralyze me and there's always so much more art to do.

 

[Sullien]

If you're making a new game(think of a sequel), it certainly feels fresh to remake assets in order to make them more modern and lively.

Remaking art during a project is fine but if you're constantly doing it the development time for your project might snowball and increase drastically, it's good to always aim or high quality, but if progress in other areas of your game become slower don't be surprised.

It's a matter of priority I'd say, but making use of previous experience to build something better is never a waste.

 

[ericv00]

This is advice I should take but don't:

We all improve as artists. A project often takes long enough to improve drastically in the time it takes us to finish. This creates inconsistency in the quality of various assets. We can't work forever on bringing older assets up to the quality of newer assets, ...so... the best of us actually temper our time and skills on later assets. Work faster for similar quality to the old stuff.

Ultimately, finishing is more important than a perfectly animated stagnant pond in the final dungeon. Save the bulk of technical skill improvements for the next project.

 

[Nenen]

Unless they're something that you don't like at all, you may want to consider sharing your older unused assets. That way it's not so much a waste as it's just not for your current project. (Naturally you decide what you want to share, but I feel that's a good way to give those things life beyond just being unused, or worse, deleted.)

My own experiences are mixed. Some of my original stuff (as well as edits of other's work) do become disappointing to me, so I feel the need to rework it for a usable 'definitive' version...
But other stuff is at least good enough to be used for something! (And if I don't, I again, think I should share it)

Regarding my own sharing: As-so-far I've only shared edits of other's work. I feel that my original stuff isn't ready for sharing or used yet. edit: I managed to decide to do this once... But have been having trouble on sharing my more recent stuff.
And so, recently, I've working on some VX ACE RTP that I'm, again, unsure about it's quality...

Ultimately, finishing is more important than a perfectly animated stagnant pond in the final dungeon. Save the bulk of technical skill improvements for the next project.

Orson Scott Card wrote something similar (regarding finishing) but targeted towards novel writers. In that you're always going to be improving. So just publish your current work and move on to the next work rather then getting into a never-ending cycle of trying to re-write the same thing forever.

 

[alice_gristle]

Ya, what everybody sez about finishing rather than honing yo things to perfection. Buuuut also... this is sumthing like a fav topic of mine, so I try to keep it short...

Everything you do has, like, a life of its own. I dun care if it's a novel, a song, or a game - they got rules of their own, and they live. Like, we think our work goes to waste sumtimes, but the work doesn't care. It jus' wants to be complete, good, and follow its own rule. Ya know? Like, I dun care if I have to redraw this sprite a hunnert times, as long as I know the work needs it.

Think about it like yo learning kung fu. It's not, "Waah, why am I wasting all these good punches in training?" It's more like, "I gotta be good, for that one moment when it's really gonna count."

 

[greenrivers]

I wouldn't consider them a 'waste' so much as a stepping stone in your own growth as an artist. Even if you go back and rework them, you can still use them as placeholders.

 

[Milennin]

For the more important things, I do remake my assets. I've gone through several different versions of my main characters' facesets and overworld sprites. Improving upon them with each new iteration. For small stuff like decorative map objects, I will leave them as they are, unless they start looking very out of place or feel like I can majorly improve them without too much extra work.

 

[CraneSoft]

I pretty much spent the past few years "remaking" my characters, sprites, UI etc. as my artistic skills improve and my previous "assets" became unbearable to even look at. It sucks not being able to make actual progress, but I do think the skills and experience gained was worth it especially when you start out as an amateur with zero artistic experience. After all, knowing your that old assets suck is a sign of improvement you can take pride in.

 

[Sharm]

I don't allow myself to remake anything until I've completely finished drawing all the assets, that way I don't get caught up in an endless revision loop. Plus, if I don't revise in one go it won't look consistent anyway.