Well, I've always wondered, and now that I've started learning opengl, I think I better ask. For almost every single homemade project I've seen, the graphics are very much substandard when compared to most commercial games. What I'm asking, is there any reason other than the actual quality of the artwork and models that contributes to this? Or is there some other reason which makes writing high polygon models and high quality textures into the game more difficult/too slow?

A few things, I'd guess.

* Lack of a polished GUI. I understand that it's boring to make a main menu. It's boring and complicated to make a save-game feature. It's boring to make an installer. It's boring to integrate controls help into the game rather than sticking it three pages down in README.TXT. That doesn't mean you shouldn't do these things. If you don't, the rest of the game seems cheap.

* Lighting. I have no idea why this is the case, but 75% of the indie projects out there were apparently programmed by people who think that ambient or ambient+directional light and no shadows are perfectly fine. Combine that with the badly scaled, conspicuously tiled "grass" ground textures, and you've got the makings.

* Sloooooow animation. I tell all my students specifically not to do this. Many, many indie games would be improved if the guy could run about 50% faster.

So tehre's no real performance reason behind it then? It's just the lack of proper models/textures/shadows?

I think there's also the fact that a lot of indie projcets are done with free textures and models, because they're done by programmers. Projects that have artists show.

There's a lot of problems with working on an indie project, the biggest, I would think, is scale. I've worked with and for several projects, so far none, but my own small tools project, has succeeded.

Why do you think this is? I wrote several papers for school on how groups work together, and why they fail. It's a very complex topic that I would wager many teams and team leaders fail to take in to consideration.

The fact is that people need to feel vested in a project, and they need to clearly see that it is going somewhere. This is easier for people who've seen this done before and can visualize a finished product, these people, however, tend to be professionals, and they tend to already have a job. Group members can have a different vision of the finished product, and get frustrated when it doesn't turn out their way. It's fine to have input on the project, but it's not fine when people throw tantrums and threaten to walk out over small details. This causes people to lose interest and walk away in frustration.

It's hard to maintain realism when there's creativity involved, because creativity is a double-edged sword - it can make your project, and it can break your project.

This alone, is why I think MMORPG's is no place for beginners and hobbyists to start. I think that the maturity and technical abilities it takes to make such a huge project are far beyond what many hobby and indie studios are capable of, let alone many professional studios. This doesn't mean it's impossible.

With the right people, any project can be finished.

Simple, money talks.

Most artwork for professional games comes from full time employees. Without a job, the artist would have no food on the table, no money for rent and bills. If he does not product quality work on time, he's fired. He could lose his car, house/apartment and even his wife/girlfriend.

But on an indie project, an artist is not dependent on the pay (if any). He can come and go as he pleases and it won't have any effect on his life or well being.

It's as simple as that.

Bob