Does anyone else think animation is a complete waste of time?

[JohnJacobs]

Honestly, the whole thing was bugging me so much as I thought about that I even ended up putting it in my sig as a PSA. I think the onset of animated 3D sex scenes and people thinking their games 'need' to have animation or they'll be considered outdated has done truly incredible damage to western erotic game development. Hear me out.

While at first blush animation would appear to be a straight upgrade over still images, in truth it's anything but. Let's be frank here: in the best case the animated scene will be some absurdly extravagant SFM you just know it took the dev a calendar month to visually compose and animate, where in the same timeframe he could have crafted five separate normal sex scenes instead, and that's in the BEST case. More often, like I say in my sig, it's some stiff five frame loop that's awkward as fuck and strictly inferior to a good still image. Being able to compose a visually well designed, erotic still is already something that takes a lot of work to master, and animating it is geometrically harder to do for not much more erotic gain. It raises the barrier of entry for game dev so much higher and discourages creators that could have maybe made a good, satisfying game otherwise but think no one will care if it's not animated from even trying. It makes scenes monumentally more complex to design and render, massively slowing down development, and I have no doubt it makes devs subconsciously think twice about casually adding any sex scenes because of what a labor animation makes them, yet it's exactly those not-strictly-necessary extra sex scenes that makes games so much more satisfying.

All in all, I really think animation is nothing but a shiny trap that's done nothing but harm to the scene. I deeply wish devs would stop falling for it and that people would stop pushing for it.

 

[Pretentious Goblin]

Yeah, not worth it to me unless the team has a dedicated member with dedicated hardware for it. Wouldn't want the development of any of the games I follow to be slowed down just so it can be animated instead of still 2D/3D images. Only exception I can think of is Honey Select, for obvious reasons.

 

[PrinceOfShades]

I never play games without properly animated scenes (at least 20-30 FPS and decent angles) simply because that's one of my biggest preferences. And it's the same for a lot of people. We can conclude that animated scenes do give a boost to the game, but it's up to the developer to decide whether they're really worth it in the end.
For Daz, it takes a considerable amount of time to render animations. For games using KK or HS, however, rendering animations is done in real time and it takes minutes. More time is spent arranging the scene, finding the right animations or creating ones yourself.

In short:
1. if you're a new developer and are using Daz, you don't need to do animations necessarily if they take too much time
2. if you're the developer of a popular game using Daz and you can just leave animations to render on a different GPU, they positively affect the game as long as they're well-made
3. if you're using HS or KK, animations are pretty much the standard

EDIT:
To add to all of this, it's possible that HS/KK have contributed a lot to normalizing animations in games. Daz games might suffer a bit from this and that's why some devs probably feel pressured.

 

[cold_arctus]

Animation are a pure waste of time because DAZ 3D is a nightmare for creating animations.

People who demand full animated sex scene are the one who don't read and/or play the game. They either use the gallery or skip the entire game to see the sex scenes and then complain about a 5 min. update with no sex in it.

 

[GreenGobbo]

I'm just gonna have to say I'll agree to disagree with you.

Sure, there's games out there with bad animated sex scenes, and if I end up stumbling across them I'll stop playing/paying attention to those games.

On the flip side though, there's games out there with amazing animated scenes. Like the first game in my signature Harem Hotel, or MIST, or well... Actually there's a ton of games out there with great scenes in them now.

Does it slow down updates? Yeah. Yeah it does.

Would I want it stopped? Hell no.

I wish the exact opposite of what your post is stating actually.
Personally I wish all games had them.
But neither of us are going to get what we want.
Some devs will keep making games with them, some devs will keep making games without them.

And that is perfectly fine.

Also:

All in all, I really think animation is nothing but a shiny trap that's done nothing but harm to the scene.

That's just a hyperbolic fallacy.
Hell, statements like it have more potential to cause "harm to the scene" since it's an actual attempt at creating a divide.
Just keep liking what you like, there are plenty of devs out there who still make unanimated games.
And keep in mind that no matter how much you need to vent (which hey, venting your frustrations is perfectly fine) there's no need to alienate a subsect of the scene who likes something just, especially if your whole reason is that you dont like it.


Edit:

I never play games without properly animated scenes (at least 20-30 FPS and decent angles) simply because that's one of my biggest preferences. And it's the same for a lot of people.

Yup, same here. What this person said basically. I don't even bother playing games without animations in them either.

 

[Jofur]

Personally I don't care about animations. I'm never gonna decide to play or skip a game depending on if it has them or not. I think in DAZ game they often outright hurt the scenes since they end up rather stiff and wonky, like an early days SFM clip. I'd rather have a well paced scene with a lot of varied poses than a 2 second loop. It also kind of cheapens the rest of the game if you mix both animations and still images and I think if you go down that route pretty much everything needs to be animated.

For games using KK or HS, however, rendering animations is done in real time and it takes minutes. More time is spent arranging the scene, finding the right animations or creating ones yourself.

I'm a bit curious since I've never touched the "studio" part of KK and HS, but how does custom animations in that work? Does it have a built in animation tool or do people use blender and export?

 

[Sole]

It's very rarely worth it, a well made comic style scene where it fakes the movement is often preferable to a mid range actually animated scene in my opinion, and anything animated bellow mid range tends to actually make scenes worse in my opinion.

The only time animation tends to be worth it is when it's really well done, but that's hard, time consuming and probably resource intensive, so yeah, if your not confident in your ability to animate scenes don't bother, you'll probably get a better result by not trying it. It's fine to try it if you want but don't force yourself.

 

[xxx3me]

To produce? For sure. I did some tests with animation in Daz and it's not feasible for me as a single developer to finish my project if working with lots of animations. It can take hours to produce a simple 2 seconds loop, so it's a no deal for me, at least for now.

Only one planned for my intro/titlescreen and maybe more much later into the project.

 

[Red-Cat]

I'm not sure where this requirement for animation is coming from, but I will always choose a porn game that can make me fall in love with the characters before one with animations, regardless of the quality. Same with games that depict an interesting fetish well. Good ambiance, mood setting, and unique execution or ideas are all big + from me. Teraurge, for example does everything I just stated.

 

[desmosome]

If your main selling point is in the writing (overall narrative, sex dialogues, etc), animation is almost never worth the time sink in development. If your main selling point is in render quality and visuals, sure, I guess animation might be worth it.

 

[PrinceOfShades]

I'm a bit curious since I've never touched the "studio" part of KK and HS, but how does custom animations in that work? Does it have a built in animation tool or do people use blender and export?

There are two options: VNGE or Timeline. They're both plugins.
The primary way it works is
1. you choose a certain attribute of a part (for instance elbow rotation or torso position)
2. you set a point at 0 seconds with the current value (say the initial position is 0, 0, 0)
3. you set a point at 2 seconds with the next value (10, 0, 0 for instance)
4. you have settings for smoothness (if it snaps directly to the next value OR if it slows down next to one or both ends etc.)

And that's pretty much it. There are some quality of life features that make it easier.
Timeline I know can also be used to make things invisible or create sort of a zoom in effect. You can also move the camera with it, make boobs bounce and other fun things.

And once you hit play it just loops.

Some people also use other programs to make animations and import them.

 

[I'm Not Thea Lundgren!]

Yes and No.
5 frame looped animation is an abomination and shouldn't be used unironically.
Properly done animation is superb and can really add something to a game.

Examples of animation done well are Heavy Five and A New Home (part 2).

 

[Vechernyaya]

I wouldn't go as far as saying a complete waste of time, good animations are clearly a plus, that won't make a poor game become good, but it's still a plus.
A good game absolutely don't need animation to be good.
But poor animations can waste a good game, and we see lots of poor animations..

 

[Doorknob22]

"Complete waste of time" seems a little exaggerated, but I do think that animations carry a terrible ROI. The resources invested in creating them could be spent elsewhere with better return where "elsewhere" can be more camera angels, additional sexual positions and more.

 

[Fatalmasterpiece]

I agree with OP however I really enjoy animation. As someone who has studied it professionally it is worth it to some of us. That said I really think people need to temper their expectations and learn some patience, especially for something they often didn't even pay for. Good quality art takes time. Rushing it is how you end up with Cyberpunks.

 

[moskis22]

IMO animations are a bonus, but they don't worth the time needed

 

[imelman]

It's a fairly a subject of "whenever you can do it well, then do it, otherwise don't bother" thing, like many other parts of the product, like writing, sound design, artistic creativity and such...But honestly, I have both yes and no - if the animation is a terrible loop at terrible FPS like 10 frames where you can see the cheapness, heck no, better off with a still image depicting the situation, to save the embarrassment of that element. If an animation is a loop/actual motion at 30 FPS+ that depicts the situation properly, sometimes without any word requirement, basically show don't tell, then its something that can actually really improve the product, and a proof of a talent at that category.

Nonetheless, they are also more expensive and require more effort than a still image, so there's a good reason to make good quality imagery that portrays situations rather than resorting to animations, but everything has its own merit.

 

[Sshar22]

hmmm...
I might be old-school but for me a game is a game, it has to have an interesting loop and an interesting character/story arc.
If I want simply porn action, I look for sites that offer that. I'm not usually searching that in a game.

In VN I have seen often great graphics that went nowhere because I was put off by how bad the characters were fleshed out.
Mind that one does not need 10000 lines of character introduction. But all the graphic in this world goes down the flush if the first impression you get fron the characters in the story is "piss off", and you reach for Alt+F4.
Animation may enhance a VN but it can't be the only good thing else you'd be better off dl'ing the graphics pack.

In 3D (engines like UE4, Unity, HS), Depending in the type of game you are building, Animations might be part of the game loop. So, I wouldn't say that it's a waste of time. In this type of games even the simple walk/run cycle can be such a sore sight that it puts off the player.

In conclusion it all depends of the product and the impression of it you want to give.

'There is never a second chance to make a good first impression'

Cheers

 

[Kionashi]

In my opinion all depends on the focus of the game...if you are making game with sex as the main theme of the story, then I think animations are very important, by example, trainers, or sex focused games like Femdom city Mantis, Twisted World or Fetish locator need to have high quality sex scenes because that's the main reason play those games, now if you are making a story that has sexual scenes but is not a porn game like Light of My Life, or Summer Scent, I believe is more important to dedicate your efforts to continue developing the story and maybeeee think on adding animations if the story is done and you want to give the game some extra polish in order to release it on Steam or something like that.

 

[I'm Not Thea Lundgren!]

Of course, there are many other games where the animation is done well.

Bad Memories by recreation springs to mind for some reason.