Tereza "Teya" Rozumkova@TerezaRozumkova
My previous post sparked questions about what “3D Character Outsource Management” means in game development - it’s not talked about much publicly, but it’s a massive part of most games nowadays (used everywhere from Riot, Epic, Blizz to Expedition 33), and I think it's good we get to talk about it, so here’s an explanation coming from my personal experience.
Imagine a studio needs to ship ~70 character/mount skins in less than a year.
One 3D skin can take ~50 production days to complete (depends on the game and art/tech fidelity). A small internal team physically cannot build that many assets alone in that time, so multiple external art studios work alongside the internal team. (imo, this is not ideal, and I wish game studios invested more into growing their internal teams, but this is sadly not the reality in the industry right now)
Someone still needs to ensure all of that work becomes one cohesive game.
That means making sure every asset:
- matches the game’s 3D art style
- works with rigs and technical constraints
- meets quality standards at each milestone
- integrates correctly in-engine
- stays on schedule
That means reviewing every stage of the asset, giving daily hands-on feedback on 3D models, matching art direction, doing paintovers/sculptovers, fixing broken files, fixing issues in Maya/UE5/Marmoset or the billion other softwares you need to master to create 3D assets (I could go on about this lol), troubleshooting production issues, giving feedback on concepts, coordinating with tech art/animation/design, and stepping in when vendors get stuck or timelines slip. All that and more (for up to 32 characters at once, in this case).
Now, most games already have an established outsourcing pipeline, but imagine doing this while the outsourcing pipeline itself doesn’t exist yet - building documentation, workflows, onboarding, putting together quality benchmarks so vendors know what the final asset should look like, building vendor communication structure, review structure, feedback loops and integration processes while production is already underway.
All that is the kind of Character Outsource Management work I did last year.
At Highguard, I helped build that pipeline from zero and ship 30 skins for Season 1, 18 skins for Season 2, and a lot more for seasons that might not see the light of day.
I'm honored I got to work with the amazing vendor artists who put so much hard work and time into creating all of those skins - we were lucky to work with some incredible people, and their art and passion is the main thing that should be celebrated. I was just lucky I got to help get everything shipped.
I haven't gone through all my feedback on Highguard yet, but I'm attaching some examples of the feedback I did on League to enlighten just a small, more visible part of what I get to do daily.
