Animations in 3DCG games: POV or 3rd person?

[ZanithOne]

So I'm making a game, a 3DCG one. Big whoop. But here's the thing, very early in the development cycle I made a poll for my patrons on which camera angles everyone prefers, and it was a complete flop cause we had two options (mixed angles and POV-only) completely neck in neck. So I just went with mixed scenes, some poses are almost impossible to make look good in POV. But ever since I was curious what other players think.

So let's get a poll going here. What do you personally prefer? POV so you can image that it's your own cock going in and out of some juicy pussy? Porn movie-style side cam focusing on the moistest of details? Or if you are like me and like the camera to change to match the narration. Or maybe you want to be able to change the angle at will?

And to help you decide (and to flex a little, I think I got considerably better with animations throughout the development) here are some sample clips from my game, each pair is from a single scene. POV to the left, side to the right (duh).

POV	SIDE

aaaand F95 won't let me insert the 6th gfycat, so:

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[Adabelitoo]

About those specifics animations I think that the POVs animations are better but I'm not one of those guys who thinks that I'm the one fucking the girl. I think a mix of both using the best one for each animation/pose would be the best.

 

[Joraell]

So I'm making a game, a 3DCG one. Big whoop. But here's the thing, very early in the development cycle I made a poll for my patrons on which camera angles everyone prefers, and it was a complete flop cause we had two options (mixed angles and POV-only) completely neck in neck. So I just went with mixed scenes, some poses are almost impossible to make look good in POV. But ever since I was curious what other players think.

So let's get a poll going here. What do you personally prefer? POV so you can image that it's your own cock going in and out of some juicy pussy? Porn movie-style side cam focusing on the moistest of details? Or if you are like me and like the camera to change to match the narration. Or maybe you want to be able to change the angle at will?

And to help you decide (and to flex a little, I think I got considerably better with animations throughout the development) here are some sample clips from my game, each pair is from a single scene. POV to the left, side to the right (duh).

POV	SIDE

aaaand F95 won't let me insert the 6th gfycat, so:

You must be registered to see the links

If you want made good, you must mix it. There is nothing like "POV is better". PoV is very limited in many cases. But in terms of making POV is 80% faster and easy to make. Just because you see only small amount of view. Positioning good camera is 3rd most important thing in my opinion.
1/Models/ animation itself
2/ lighting
3/cameras
4/texturing
5/Good enviroment look
6/ other effects (bloom, DoF. atd.)

 

[danteworks]

Wow your animations look great man. I may have to learn VNGE one day!

 

[anne O'nymous]

If you want made good, you must mix it. There is nothing like "POV is better". PoV is very limited in many cases.

As demonstration, the first POV example, the guy need a really long neck, or to be really taller than the girl, to effectively end with this view. But making the scene like this was needed to let the player know what exactly happened below the belt. This will in the second POV example, the main action is in plain sight, and a POV point of view works great

 

[Joraell]

As demonstration, the first POV example, the guy need a really long neck, or to be really taller than the girl, to effectively end with this view. But making the scene like this was needed to let the player know what exactly happened below the belt. This will in the second POV example, the main action is in plain sight, and a POV point of view works great

Yes but if I may done pov like this I just set camera and disable visibility of guys body All animating is easy to do after.

But sure I'm talking about making in Daz or Blender. nevery tryed this honey select games, so don't know if there is problem to make it.

 

[ZanithOne]

Thanks for all the responses and votes! A bit surprised by the results, very different from what I had seen before.

About those specifics animations I think that the POVs animations are better but I'm not one of those guys who thinks that I'm the one fucking the girl. I think a mix of both using the best one for each animation/pose would be the best.

I kinda am one of those guys, I guess. I prefer POV in straight porn because there's no one here in the frame but the girl(s) who I am interested in. But yeah, mix of both usually produces the best results.

If you want made good, you must mix it. There is nothing like "POV is better". PoV is very limited in many cases. But in terms of making POV is 80% faster and easy to make. Just because you see only small amount of view. Positioning good camera is 3rd most important thing in my opinion.
1/Models/ animation itself
2/ lighting
3/cameras
4/texturing
5/Good enviroment look
6/ other effects (bloom, DoF. atd.)

I agree and disagree at the same time. Mixing angles allows you to show everything, but there is a certain subset of players who really want to be in POV all the time. I myself prefer POV-only, but it's not a dealbreaker for me personally. And also I find that making good, hell, even passable POV shot can be a pain, especially if you want to show the action, not just the back of the head of the partner.
And I've had some feedback that leads me to believe that the camera work is at least as important as the lighting. I think I still suck at setting up lighting, but had quite a few good comments about the fluidity of the animations, and I believe that's at least 50% due to the camera movement.

Wow your animations look great man. I may have to learn VNGE one day!

Thanks! And you absolutely should try VNGE, it won't take too much time to set up the basic stuff, but can make your animations much more varied.

As demonstration, the first POV example, the guy need a really long neck, or to be really taller than the girl, to effectively end with this view. But making the scene like this was needed to let the player know what exactly happened below the belt. This will in the second POV example, the main action is in plain sight, and a POV point of view works great

Absolutely true. Had to take some creative liberties with framing and anatomy to make the first shot look sorta good. And I still don't like the last POV animation because there's just so much wasted space. But it was either this or focus on the ass only.

 

[ZanithOne]

I am a bit curious, would anyone who voted for the "ability to change angles" care to share, do you prefer to be in direct control of scene progression, too? Like, changing the speed/pose, and do you care for narrative elements or animations by themselves are enough for you?

 

[Iramis]

(from a players perspective) I voted Mixed but only because I think multiple angles would require much more resources, but I don't know how these are made so if it's not too much extra work that hampers development I would prefer ability to change angles. I don't mind if most scenes are limited to POV but if every scene is limited to POV then the game starts to feel limited, and I get the feeling that I'm missing out. I think it depends on the position. Some positions lend themselves better for POV (cowgirl, Blowjob, titjob), but some don't look good at all like normal missionary, I think I remember seeing one in mythic manor and to me it looked useless (personal opinion), so instead of finding ways to make it look good in POV or not do those scenes at all I think it's much better to rely on 3rd person view. Also 3rd person provides more freedom and variety, if you get the same angle and positions with every girl it might get stale and repetitive, different angles help switch things around.

In the examples given, in the first scene both angles seem like 3rd person to me, because even though it's not impossible it's difficult for me to imagine that position in my head unless the guy is comparatively huge. The second scene is where I think I much prefer the POV over 3rd person, scenes in that position lend themselves more to POV. In the third I really like the camera movement, it makes both scenes great, If I had to choose one I would choose POV because I see that specifc type less often (I would choose 3rd person without the camera movement) but both offer something different and If possible I would like the option for both. All of these animations look great by the way.

Speed if it's there, I try every one, but it doesn't add too much extra for me. Narrative wise, I'm not sure what exactly you mean by narrative elements but I'll try to answer the way I understand it. I prefer a well written scene more than control, if there are multiple ways to go I just end up reloading saves to see every single option even if it's not something I particularly like (feet fetish/watersports), so I would rather not have to do that and everything be seamless, well tailored scene from the developer, like a theme park ride. I like seeing progression in a scene in both text and visuals, with build up, and slow progression, multiple positions and angles etc. It's mostly a problem I find in 2D games (like warlock and boobs, Town of passion) where there will be a lot going on in the text but there are no changes in the visuals, just a still with some animation, I would prefer multiple stills along with good text over animation, or lots of stills with one or two animations (this is how it mostly goes I think), also if the choice is between different angles and different positions, I would choose positions.

 

[ZanithOne]

<snip>

Thanks for the detailed answer! My own thoughts are almost the same, but I couldn't lay them out this good.

About the narration thing, I was thinking of games that do not do narration in the sex scene at all. You know, like those older flash games and some others where you don't have any text within a sex scene apart from maybe ahhs and ohhs and just switch between poses/speeds and angles until either you yourself are done with the scene or some meter fills up. But I'd guess that no one really wants that if there is an alternative.

And about pose/angle thing, that's a tough one. Another angle usually means that you have to change the lighting setup, and sometimes adjust the animation so it looks good (there are two almost completely different penisi in the boobjob scene, for example), but another pose is even more work. But then again, another pose probably adds more "value" to the scene. Tough one.