Sure, that'd work if the medium progresses to the point where models aren't based on triangles and colour maps but actual simulated materials shaped and assembled using real-world methods and rules, with vectors instead of polygons and actual bumps and creases instead of normal maps. But as long as we need to abstract and simplify these things into assets made out of triangles, colour maps, normal maps, and specular maps, there will be many different ways to approach that process, and the way you go about approaching that will very much change the look of your assets. The Payday 2 and Modern Warfare 2 carbines aren't just different because they have different parts, they're also different because the detail level in the model is different, the texture style is different (one is much darker), and the normal and specular maps have been "tuned" differently. There was a process of interpretation that took place when the artist recreated the real-world weapon digitally for use in the game, and that interpretation is more significant than you as a non-artist might think.AEmer wrote:you simply modify it, and boom, your gun is right there, 'maximum def', as it were. After all, gun parts are mechanical: They have strict specifications that, if you adhere to them, make them virtually identical. Like screws or nails. It's therefore possible to make 'prototypical parts' that are essentially real world replicas.
This is also one of the main reasons why it's often faster and easier to just remake an asset from scratch rather than tweak an asset that somebody else made in a different style to suit the style you want. Again returning to Clandestine as a case in point, we had an intern in the first months of the project who was not actually an artist, he was a designer, but he could do 3D stuff and we needed a modeller waaaaaaay more than we needed a third designer, so we had him on environment asset production duties throughout his internship with us. His work was not very good, it was far too simple and the textures had no normal maps or specular, and not enough detail to make normal and specular maps out of. We've been gradually replacing everything he did since then, and it's been faster to just remake it from scratch instead of working with his source files to try and bring them up to snuff.