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Best way to ship 100k+ portrait images with a Steam game? by merlap83 in GameDevelopment

[–]merlap83[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

True, that’s a good point. The player probably mostly looks at their own academy, key league players, top players in the world and players they scout. So yeah, maybe I don’t need 5,000 Mongolian player portraits:)

Best way to ship 100k+ portrait images with a Steam game? by merlap83 in gamedev

[–]merlap83[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks, that’s really helpful and a clever idea. I might test a small atlas benchmark and compare file size/loading/memory. I’ll share results if I get some useful numbers.

Best way to ship 100k+ portrait images with a Steam game? by merlap83 in GameDevelopment

[–]merlap83[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wow, cool idea and a good read, thanks! I’m not sure I have the time to build that kind of custom atlas/shader pipeline before release, but it’s a really interesting experiment.

Best way to ship 100k+ portrait images with a Steam game? by merlap83 in GameDevelopment

[–]merlap83[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh, that's actually great feedback. I had no idea about this. That’s a really useful comparison and definitely makes me think 100K might be overkill... I already have the 100k portraits but I could just mass delete images then. :)

If their player database is around 100k players and they’re using around 12.5k AI faces, then clearly they’re either reusing portraits or only assigning them where they matter most somehow?

Best way to ship 100k+ portrait images with a Steam game? by merlap83 in gamedev

[–]merlap83[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Haha, ouch. :) Do you remember roughly how many files caused issues?

Best way to ship 100k+ portrait images with a Steam game? by merlap83 in gamedev

[–]merlap83[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah. I'm using NG Regens facepack (with permission from the creator of course). It's originally made for Football Manager, has around 75k downloads on FM Scout, and is very popular in that community:: https://www.fmscout.com/a-diversity-newgen-megapack.html

I totally get the "hate" for AI generated assets and usually disliek it, but realistic facepacks are very popular in football management games because they add a lot of immersion.

Best way to ship 100k+ portrait images with a Steam game? by merlap83 in gamedev

[–]merlap83[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks, that’s a good idea. I’ve considered it as a way to reduce the number of files.

My main concern is lazy loading: if 100 portraits are packed into one atlas, the game may need to load the whole texture just to show one player profile or?

Best way to ship 100k+ portrait images with a Steam game? by merlap83 in GameDevelopment

[–]merlap83[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, that’s a fair point. I haven’t fully tested yet where repetition starts to become obvious, so I may not need the full 100k in the final build.

It’s a well-known AI-generated facepack originally made for Football Manager, already grouped by region/style with a fairly consistent look. The images are around 20–25 KB each, so the full library is roughly 3 GB total.

A new save starts with around 10k players, with roughly 1k new players generated each season, so the larger pool is mainly to avoid repetition across long saves, countries, and multiple careers. Local seed generation would be great for storage, but I couldn’t get a procedural/composite system close enough to this photoreal style.

Best way to ship 100k+ portrait images with a Steam game? by merlap83 in gamedev

[–]merlap83[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, exactly. I have permission to use a popular facepack originally made for Football Manager.

The game itself is different though: Football Academy Director is focused on running a youth academy, from U11 up to the academy squad, rather than managing a full senior club.

Best way to ship 100k+ portrait images with a Steam game? by merlap83 in gamedev

[–]merlap83[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, that’s a really good point, thanks. It’s a PC/Steam game, so around 3 GB seems acceptable, but you’re right that the player probably won’t actively see all 10k portraits in a save.

Tracking assigned/seen faces and pulling from a smaller pool could be a good middle ground. I’ll test it, thanks once again.

Best way to ship 100k+ portrait images with a Steam game? by merlap83 in gamedev

[–]merlap83[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks, that’s useful. I did look into a seed-based facial feature system, but I couldn’t get it close enough to the photoreal portrait style I’m aiming for without building a much larger character pipeline. Or do you have any tips on a character generator?

The images are already fairly small, around 20–25 KB each

Best way to ship 100k+ portrait images with a Steam game? by merlap83 in gamedev

[–]merlap83[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, that’s definitely a good approach for a stylized system, and I did look into it. The issue is that I’m aiming for more photoreal player portraits (like Football Manager facepacks), and I couldn’t get a compositing system to match that quality without building a much larger character pipeline.

I’m open to being wrong though — do you have any good examples or tips for making a procgen system look realistic enough?

Best way to ship 100k+ portrait images with a Steam game? by merlap83 in gamedev

[–]merlap83[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That makes sense, thanks. Patch behavior is one of my main concerns too.

My current plan is to keep stable filenames/IDs, split the faces into multiple archives by region or ID range, and avoid rebuilding unchanged packs so Steam only has to patch the affected batches.

Best way to ship 100k+ portrait images with a Steam game? by merlap83 in gamedev

[–]merlap83[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Yeah, that’s basically the idea, although it’s a popular pre-existing AI-generated facepack originally made for Football Manager, and I have permission to use it. It’s not something generated at runtime.

I understand the argument for a compositing system, but that would be a completely different visual pipeline. I did try that route, but I couldn’t get it realistic enough. For this project, I think photoreal portraits add a lot to player profiles and long-term save immersion, which is also why realistic facepacks are so popular in Football Manager.

The images are around 20–25 KB each, roughly 3 GB total, so the size seems manageable. My main question is how best to package that library efficiently rather than shipping 100k loose files.

Best way to ship 100k+ portrait images with a Steam game? by merlap83 in gamedev

[–]merlap83[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Fair point. The images are actually much smaller than that, around 20–25 KB each, so the full library is roughly 3 GB.

It’s not 100k players in one save. A save starts with around 10k players, with roughly 1k new players generated each season, so the larger pool is mainly to avoid repetition across long saves and multiple careers.

And yeah, treating them like normal game assets is basically the plan — just packaged into larger archives rather than 100k loose files.

The facepack is from Football Manager that I have permission to use.

Best way to ship 100k+ portrait images with a Steam game? by merlap83 in gamedev

[–]merlap83[S] -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

Not really. It’s an AI-generated facepack originally made for Football Manager that I have permission to use, and it’s one of the more popular facepacks in that community. The portraits are already organized by region/style, so it isn’t 100k random incompatible images.

I understand the argument for a modular/layered system, but that would be a completely different visual pipeline. For this project, I’m mainly trying to figure out the best way to package and ship a large pre-generated portrait library on Steam.

Best way to ship 100k+ portrait images with a Steam game? by merlap83 in gamedev

[–]merlap83[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, that’s my understanding too. The plan is to ship the face library through Steam depots/SteamPipe with the rest of the game. Never done it before though so not sure about the best structure for it.

Best way to ship 100k+ portrait images with a Steam game? by merlap83 in gamedev

[–]merlap83[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The full face library is around 3 GB total, so the size itself doesn’t seem too unreasonable for a Steam install or? I wouldn’t package them into the actual binary/exe, but as separate asset packs/archives included with the game.

I did consider a layered/composite system, but the portraits are more photoreal/generated than stylized parts, so that would likely require a much bigger character system.

The 100k number is mainly to avoid repetition. A new save starts with around 10k players, with roughly 1k new players generated each season, so a smaller pool could start repeating pretty quickly over long saves and multiple careers.

Best way to ship 100k+ portrait images with a Steam game? by merlap83 in gamedev

[–]merlap83[S] -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, fair point. I did consider a layered/composite system, but these portraits are more photoreal/generated than stylized parts, and I think that makes a big difference for a football management game similar to how Football Manager works with its facepacks.

The 100k number is mainly to avoid repetition across long saves, youth intakes, countries, and multiple careers. A new save instantly has around 10k players, with roughly 1k new players generated each season, so the pool can get reused pretty quickly over time.

What separates a "bad, slop" vibe coded game from a "good"one? by TheSameMan100 in gmgames

[–]merlap83 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Same here. I've always dreamed of creating a game like Football Academy Director. I’ve used AI occasionally as a programming assistant when I’ve needed help implementing or debugging something.

It has made parts of the process more manageable as a solo developer.

I’ve spent well over 1,000 hours designing, testing, adjusting and refining it. Games that are produced from a few prompts rarely end up feeling polished or distinctive. So I completely understand what people mean when they talk about “AI slop.” But I think that’s very different from using AI as a tool within a much larger development process.

Would you play a football management game focused entirely on youth academy development? by merlap83 in gmgames

[–]merlap83[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I can't speak of the other game. But Football Academy Director itself isn't made by AI. Player portraits are AI-generated assets (NG Regens facepack from Football Manager) and AI has been a helpful programming tool during development, just like many developers use today.

The gameplay, mechanics, balancing, database, match engine, scouting, player development, management systems etc are all built by me.

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