l personally don't rely on these assets at all to make my game, I can make my own models. If I find something useful in there, I'll use it, but I won't spend the 10 days on that.
It's not about being spoon-fed. We can't blame Unreal or Unity for being popular, but we could blame them for using non-standard formats to keep their assets exclusive. Its also a limitation of audience for the asset creators.
As for using AI... It's a vast topic that may be on the border of copyright infringement.
Fair enough if you prefer making your own models - that's always the best way to keep a consistent style.
However, regarding 'exclusive formats' - it's rarely a lock-in, if I may trust to the Web. Most Unity/UE packs are just wrappers for standard FBX/OBJ files. It takes minutes to extract them. Blaming engines for having their own workflows is like blaming a car for needing specific spare parts.
As for AI, I wasn't talking about generating art, but using it as a search engine or a consultant to find technical solutions (like 'how to batch export FBX from a Unity project', 'how to covern A to Z', etc). That has nothing to do with copyright, it's just efficiency.
Good luck with your models though, 10 days is a tight window!
I was worried if extracting data from a Unity of Unreal pack was a copyright or license issue regarding the format itself. If not, then let's go!
IMHO, AI is a nice and polite coworker who tries its best, but whose output we need to rework or triple-check to make it usable. Even text or technical stuff; I had bad surprises at work.
Good luck for your jam project as well!
