Why not make a random portrait generator for the game, and throw in some assets for it to pick out of?
The first example that comes to mind is Battle Brothers, they generate their characters using several layers - face, facial hair, hair, head gear, armor, damage, weapon, shield. Really you can make it as complex or as simple as you would like, but it would be a whole lot easier to draw several items in each category, and use a random generator to create random portraits. Would require less resources to be stored in the game as well.
To prove the point:
Say you have 3 eyes, 3 noses, 3 mouths, 3 chins, 3 ears.
That's 15 assets.
But using those 15 assets you can make 3x3x3x3x3, that's 3^5, that's 243 portraits.
To draw 243 portraits, you would need 243 assets that are 128x128, but all of the above assets can have smaller dimensions.
For instance, there's no reason to have the eye layer be 128x128 if you can make it 60x30 and paste it on the face at coordinates x=34,y=60 (or something).
This way you save time drawing individual portraits, you save on resources by using random generation, and save resources again by making each of the assets smaller.
Some ideas for layers
- You have a base head
- You add facial features (eyes, ears mouth, etc) from a selection of 3-5 mouths, 3-5 eyes, etc.
- You add accessories (Piercings, tats, etc)
- You add hair
- you add head gear/masks
- For each of the above, you change the hue/color/theme
- Throw down shading (again - could be 3-5 shading variations)
- Throw in a background
- Add background accessories
- Base uniform (i.e. armor, uniform, civilian clothing)
- Uniform accessories (Armor plates on shoulders, ranking chevrons, civilian bdazzle)
- Uniform colors/themes/etc
- Other accessories (something the character is holding, a pet, etc)
That's 13 categories. If you have 3 assets in each, that's 3^13 = 1594323 possible portraits, but you've only drawn 3*13=39 assets.
Cheers,
RusMolot
P.S. you could also configure the portrait generator so that certain factions only use certain assets. This way, your random portrait generator will still stick to making faction-themed portraits.
P.S.S. Alternatively, you could have a faction theme (uniform/background) and have the generator focus on the face. Just throwing down ideas...
P.S.S.S. Now that I think about it.... weapons can be done the same way... It needs way more thought about balancing though. You could for instance balance DPS vs energy drain per shot vs turret rotation speed vs rate of fire vs range using some balancing formula. The turret base and turret "barrel", and projectile can be chosen by the generator based on the specs of the weapon. For instance high damage per shot would require a rather large projectile, something with long range generally means a longer barrel, something that shoots rapidly would need a beefy base, etc. You could get a lot more bang for the buck by drawing weapons in this manner - more weapon varieties, a lot more weapons in general, without putting so much work into drawing the assets for them. Would allow players to finesse their ships better as well.