So here's the plan with the community/workshop cosmetics.
Basically the same as Rust. Once we're in a position to, we'll approve workshop cosmetics to be sold in the Steam item store. Like Rust, when a player buys the cosmetic, the author will get a cut of the sale. We're not sure whether the items will be sold for a limited period or be available in the store for purchase forever. I'm leaning towards limited periods.
In Rust we have a cycle of 5+ skins going in every week. That seems like a lot for us on s&box. But we'll be choosing community skins periodically.
How will you choose the accepted skins?
A few things, straight forward enough. Community response, artistic quality, game breaking ability. We want items that will sell, obviously, like you do. But we don't want items that are going to be huge and clip through the wall. Not everything has to be wacky, normal clothes are needed too.
Can the community vote?
Yeah you can preview the skins in the workshop section of the avatar screen on the main menu. Upvote and downvote here too. Leave a review to let them know what they're doing wrong. Can I use workshop skins in my game?
We don't care. If you're making a racing game and you want to use a racing helmet skin from the workshop, then go for it - if everyone else is happy then we are. It makes sense.
But we'd rather you didn't build your game in a way that evades the inventory system. We'd rather your game uses the player's avatar, which is configured in the main menu. But we're not going to impose rules and laws on that.
When will all this happen?
We haven't accepted any skins yet. So we have to work out the process fully. Most of it is already in place, we just need to link it all together. I would hope within the next month or so.
We're not sure whether the items will be sold for a limited period or be available in the store for purchase forever. I'm leaning towards limited periods.
Is this something that we could decide as creators or does that make it too complicated? My only concern here is, depending on when community cosmetics kick off - the engine could still be in an unreleased state with a limited player base.
What does, say, the chef hat sales (something that has been in the store rotation for a while now if I remember correctly) vs. wizard hat sales look like? The wizard outfit has both the benefits of promotion (News posts, Twitter posts, etc.), along with the fact that it's time-limited - likely resulting in high short term sales. The chef hat hasn't had any of that, but is available regularly - so might be a better long-term investment if it's something that creators can choose.
Not everything has to be wacky, normal clothes are needed too.
This is another factor I think is important - if cosmetics are on sale for only a week - people are going to buy the wacky ones over the normal ones. Normal clothing would be much better suited to a reoccurring store rotation/year round in my opinion. People impulse buy the silly/unique things if they are limited, not 'stained white shirt 04'.
Having some clarification around time limited sales would be super helpful and help us decide what it's worth putting our time into making.
After seeing a lot of really talented artists leave the rust workshop as they cannot make it sustainable to putting x amount of hours into quality work (When 5 min skins are accepted) it would be really nice to see a high quality bar for cosmetics. A strong foundation to this stuff will foster a community that wants to make work that is good and good work will probably sell better.
Also the new workshop scenes look fantastic, but the rim light seems slightly too bright and washes out all detail on the back side of the models.
edited:
Not everything has to be wacky, normal clothes are needed too.
This is another factor I think is important - if cosmetics are on sale for only a week - people are going to buy the wacky ones over the normal ones. Normal clothing would be much better suited to a reoccurring store rotation/year round in my opinion. People impulse buy the silly/unique things if they are limited, not 'stained white shirt 04'.
Having some clarification around time limited sales would be super helpful and help us decide what it's worth putting our time into makin
"skin creep" is a massive problem with all cosmetics in games. Look at what COD skins are looking like these days. The sooner the workshop and marketplace is flooded with crazy cosmetics the sooner boring (normal) cosmetics start to lose attractiveness to the community. CSGO does this fairly well by having 1 ultra rare skin released and 11 boring ones. But that only really works over there because workshoppers get % of whole case sale not % of their own skin.
With rust workshop you wanted to be the person with the glowing skin, then the glowing skin with transparency then the glowing skin with transparency and massive anime tits.
Duck After seeing a lot of really talented artists leave the rust workshop as they cannot make it sustainable to putting x amount of hours into quality work (When 5 min skins are accepted) it would be really nice to see a high quality bar for cosmetics. A strong foundation to this stuff will foster a community that wants to make work that is good and good work will probably sell better.
Hey guys, I did the shark head- when the "serious normal clothing" line came out I got generally de-motivated to work on cosmetics, because I'm not trying to work in a clothing factory, I'm trying to make fun art.
My goofy shark head being the first cosmetic to get accepted made me re-evaluate doing more cosmetics because goofy/fun stuff DOES get accepted!
It's also not like it was a low-effort shitpost, it's just something I had fun making and decided to upload.
You guys should do the same, have fun with it, make the fun ideas you've got! Clearly they have a shot at being included! Here's a frog hat I made over the last 2 days.
-First, if the items are gonna be in the store for a limited time, it would be a good idea for artists to get a share of the steam market sales as well, especially because the game is still in beta...
-as someone who made both fantasy and realistic items for the workshop i rather to see realistic stuff especially things for RP get into workshop first then fantasy stuff. (not to mention that at some point we were asked to stop making fantasy items.)
-I rather to see fun/goofy/fantasy items for events like halloween or easter but after all it's not my game, you guys can do anything you want! I'm just saying my opinion
Struggling to see why people wanting to buy fun cosmetics over boring cosmetics is a problem. Ultimately it should be up to them what they want to buy, some people will want to create a more realistic character, some a more fun character — why shouldn't they be allowed to do what they want?
In fact what we're calling "fun" cosmetics doesn't seem close to any level of absurdity that differentiates it from "normal" skins. It's not like these are full anime skins with particles coming out their ass.
Rust is always gonna be a bad comparison where they only have reskins and it's a serious competitive FPS game. TF2 is a good example, a lot more unserious and had actual custom models, they have 1000s of what we're calling "fun" cosmetics and it was great.
I also don't think we should be gating based on what we deem "quality work" or hours spent on it, it should be up to the community to pick what they think is a good. Not for us to say oh we don't like the UV layout on that or whatever
If you look at games like The Finals, they have TONS of goofy cosmetics. People who play these games LOVE BUYING THEM.
And there is no "skin creep" in The Finals because everything is nuts.
S&Box is not a serious game, arguably it's even less serious than The Finals since that's played as an eSport, so I don't really see why people are so concerned about goofy cosmetics getting accepted- they'll be mixed in with batches of serious ones and it'll all work out fine.
Whatever sells, sells.
Work on things you think will sell and the community would like to buy.
Struggling to see why people wanting to buy fun cosmetics over boring cosmetics is a problem. Ultimately it should be up to them what they want to buy, some people will want to create a more realistic character, some a more fun character — why shouldn't they be allowed to do what they want?
- People can and will buy anything they like. - If the intention is to have roblox'esc cosmetics and that is consistent then it's a non point. I mainly just mentioned skin creep or whatever you want to call it because i think its ruined a lot of games art styles by them knowing its the only way they can bump their revenue. I'll use cod as an example back in the day we had gold camo as the ultimate skin you could get and you were stoked, it somewhat fit the game and didn't ruin immersion and now we have peter griffin running around with a animated theme park skin that makes the game look shit and ruins any artistic consistency. (Also I'm not referring to the shark head or anyone's art if it came across that way i did make these points in another thread a while ago also).
In fact what we're calling "fun" cosmetics doesn't seem close to any level of absurdity that differentiates it from "normal" skins. It's not like these are full anime skins with particles coming out their ass.
Rust is always gonna be a bad comparison where they only have reskins and it's a serious competitive FPS game. TF2 is a good example, a lot more unserious and had actual custom models, they have 1000s of what we're calling "fun" cosmetics and it was great.
Yeah i agree cosmetics should be fun and appealing for whoever wants to buy them.
I also don't think we should be gating based on what we deem "quality work" or hours spent on it, it should be up to the community to pick what they think is a good. Not for us to say oh we don't like the UV layout on that or whatever
This seems kind of strange to me. Why would you not govern the consistency of items that are sold by your game. From my perspective maintaining an artistic consistency and having a high quality of work is very beneficial to you. If the only metric that is important is how much the community likes cosmetics then your workshop will be full of people using ai and sketchfab models to make as many cosmetics as quick as they can.
Why would you not care about the uv layout ?
And NO quality work it not deemed by the amount of hours spent on it, it's based on the initial idea, the execution and the technical ability of the artist. Do you think people will want to devote a ton of time to the workshop and high quality unique assets for sbox if mass upvoted 20min low poly models are accepted
I don't really want to hear people saying "high quality" over and over. It's meaningless. It's just artists trying to impress each other.. and that's not what the cosmetics are for.
If someone has an amazing idea, and manages to execute it without even using textures, I don't care. In fact they get extra points for making something really small.
Let's not act like every item needs to have had 100 hours spent on it by someone who has been doing it for 10 years. Idea and execution are always going to trump perceived effort and peer industry artist scrutiny here.
I'm not an artist so I don't have much of a say, but I think the point is that people were instructed on what to do and what not to do for cosmetics and guidelines on style consistency. Months passed with no updates and suddenly the people that diligently followed those guidelines are now being told that it doesn't matter and there will be no quality bar.
I know that DXRP owner "Dimmer", biggest game on s&box ever, is already asking for ways to disable "noisy" cosmetics in his game, so that's worrysome to say the least.
I don't know what you mean, no-one has said there won't be a quality bar. There are still limits.
I think there's a bit of an assumption that the items that will get selected will be the highest technical quality, and that's not how this works. It's more complicated than that.
Items are chosen based on many factors. Popularity, impact, uniqueness. Yes, quality comes into it. Yes items will be ruled out because they don't hit a quality level, or they are too high vert, or have too many textures. Yes items will be ruled out because they're too big, or too much.
Do you want artists that are here to make good stuff? Or do you want artists that are here to make a quick buck? Rust evolved into a place for outsiders who don't care about the game to earn some fast cash. FP showing preference towards 'those' people pushes away all the talented, hard working, and committed people who are willing to invest time and energy into making high quality assets. Shunning the high quality works in favor of the quick, low-effort works turns the workshop into a race to the bottom.
I want to work hard and challenge myself. I want to be held to a high standard, and I want to take pride in my work at the end of the day. It'd be great if if the path to success was aligned with those same values.
I also don't think we should be gating based on what we deem "quality work" or hours spent on it, it should be up to the community to pick what they think is a good. Not for us to say oh we don't like the UV layout on that or whatever
For context, my response is primarily to Matt's comment here. We've been making cosmetics over the past few months with a focus on proper workflow and high quality/attention to detail - in part because the instructions in wiki asked that of us. Some of that effort was done simply to test the capabilities of the engine/workflow and not necessarily because that's what was required to support the designs. But there is language in the wiki, emphasizing that UVs are an important part of the workflow - and now we're hearing that its maybe not as important as we thought. So ultimately my issue is that there is a bit of a contradiction forming, and it's not clear which is the prevailing guidance. If it's as simple as Facepunch not being sure which direction they want to take things, then that's fine. I was just really surprised by the comment suggesting proper modelling technique is not considered as criteria for acceptance.
I'd rather see the bar go up as we go forward, not have it go down. My perception (which may be incorrect) is that the bar is already dropping, and that makes me worried. But maybe that's just me in my own head making a big deal out of nothing.
if you perceive it as such when a funny hat gets added I think you might have deeper issues
Don't put words in my mouth.
And dont take my comments to heart. I think your shark hat is cool, and congratulations to you for being the 1st. Please don't take any of my comments to be in response to your shark hat being accepted.
My comments were based upon my experience with Rust, and observing the direction that workshop took. About a year ago, we were told there would be a focus on accepting high-quality works. And then the VERY next Rust store that we saw just a week later had 2-3 items that were 5 minute smart material skins. Super low effort. It was just a massive contradiction to the instructions we were given, and it felt like a slap in the face.
If the quality standard for UVs are dropping in week 1 of the sbox workshop, what standards will have dropped by week 2? Year 2?
No need to take things personally shadow, this is nothing to do with your art. I'll only speak for myself but the feedback in this thread is more meant to be sharing a perspective of workshops after having experience in a few of them. Obviously it's been made fairly clear where we stand by garry and matt and that's fine.
I think the main takeway is that it could be worth giving Danduw, the lead artist on cosmetics, a say for consistency and maybe any tweaks for the models (because it's going to happen in the future that some cosmetics need tweaks).
This would probably have been avoided if actual artists were consulted beforehand, they definitely need to be present in the process.
Example: As Shadowbrain (of shark head fame) pointed out here, one of the cosmetics in the workshop has some layering issue If no artist is present during the process, this would go unnoticed and sold to customers, so in general it is just worth having an artist look them over and give the ok.
I would think garry tests items at least a little bit before deciding "yes, this should be sold"
When I got contacted, he asked me to work with them on it, I explained that it adhered to all the technical requirements set by danduw and was ready for sale. If there was anything else wrong with it, I was there to fix it. I'd expect most selected items to take a similar path.
I do think there should be some artist involvement but it should never be more than a basic check if a model has LODs, if the triangle and material counts are decent, and that's it. Maybe a quick skinning check? Like having citizen and human models run around with it on for a bit?
The item is already selected based on if it is well-liked enough and visually appealing enough, so that should be enough to let an item go on sale, it shouldn't get a bunch of extra artist scrutiny over polygon distribution or UV layout, the only polygon distribution that matters is around deformation areas.
I do think there should be some artist involvement but it should never be more than a basic check if a model has LODs, if the triangle and material counts are decent, and that's it.
Yeah, 100% it needs the input of an artist, even if just to say "yeah looks good", then any tweaks can be passed off to the creator of the cosmetic, who I'm sure would be happy to fix them if it means getting sold on the market.
We don't need to invent processes to fix theoretical problems. We'll nudge the process when problems occur instead.
I think what happened here is that a few people got upset because their item wasn't chosen as the first one. They think their item is better than the one that is chosen, and they want to create rules that favour their items being chosen in the future.
We see the same thing in the Rust workshop ecosystem too. I think I've explained why I chose Shadow's Shark Hat (because it's unique, it's iconic, it's cool, it stands out, it works, I know and trust him, so can work with him to make sure everything works, and because he's been a constant, positive, helpful member of the community). I know people will disagree and say it doesn't fit the art style of the game.. but I think I'm a pretty good judge of what I want and don't want in my game.
Part of making decisions is knowing that people are going to disagree with you, and they often do. Especially when the decision is against their self-interest. Feedback is always taken on board, but what you have to understand about this shit is that unless someone is strong-minded, pushing things forward, willing to make decisions, it doesn't move. Designing by committee doesn't work.
Another thing to keep in mind is that the way you act DOES affect whether your items get chosen or not. If you're always moaning that you haven't been chosen, always slagging off everyone else to make yourself look better, you're going to become known as an arsehole who we don't want to work with. No one has reached that level yet, but it's definitely happened in the Rust community. So maybe keep it in check.
Although it seems everyone is in agreement that, mad or not their cosmetic was chosen or not, an artist should be involved in the process and give the ok, it is such an uncontroversial opinion that I'm not totally sure that wasn't the plan in the first place, so sorry if we all assumed it wasn't
