Let's make our own models (and maybe even animations)

They just drain all your energy at work with all sorts of nonsense + pressure, and as a result, you get terrible headaches + your eyes get tired... It's too late for me to retrain for game development as a professional activity (although I like this kind of creativity), but as a hobby, I still want to do it during my vacation...

Yes, I understand that it's often difficult to find time for all of this. I didn't mean to pressure you in any way. I'll be waiting for news about your progress during your vacation.)

Added 13 minutes ago

I didn't say that it's not needed. All I want to say is that visuals don't offer much benefit on their own; they should be created "for something," if the goal is to specifically develop the community. If it's for personal development, then it doesn't matter, of course.

Well, it depends. If a ready-made visual mod is created, it can be used in map projects.
It would be even better if the visual artist specifically stated that they would be happy if other modders used this mod in their custom maps and projects. So, it's still useful for the community. Another advantage is that these materials become available not just to one person, but to everyone. And anyone can create a map with new models, for example. Therefore, in theory, the map itself should be good in order to stand out.

But, of course, it's also good to have interaction from the very beginning and to create resources specifically for a project. It's just difficult. As always, everyone wants everything at once, but this will require a lot of patience. In short, it will be easier and more useful for you as a mapmaker to gather the necessary resources from everywhere than to wait for a specific person who is working with you to complete a lot of work. This is a good, but somewhat challenging scheme at the moment.

So, to be honest, the osp model (packs of free resources) seems more viable for our community. Especially considering that the concept of "non-free access" doesn't exist in our community, and everyone is grabbing everything that isn't nailed down anyway. The only way to fight this is to make it easy for everyone to grab things, so that it stops being something noticeable. So, the osp scheme is even more relevant for us.