I'm going to say this just because I care a lot about this novel.. (when I don't care about something, I don't lose time commenting)
Please do not focus too much on animations. The benefit is almost never worth the benefit. Particularly for sex scenes. Good renders and writing is all we need.
You already have too much on your plate to also have to animate stuff.
I completely understand where you're coming from. What has kept me from animation thus far is how clunky and miserable Daz is at it. But as my skills expand and my depth of knowledge continues to grow, things like fast, economical animation comes within reach.
The Amanda shirt animation I did this morning with my coffee while I was waking up. It took about 20 minutes to set up and another ten to process the animation. For being a total animation newb working from scratch, I found that to be an acceptable turn around.
None of this was possible a year ago. But now that I have become proficient in Blender and Marvelous Designer, I have tools at my disposal that make complex animations like the shirt pull much quicker to assemble.
Plus I have this second computer I've built that stands pretty much idle because my current system still processes the final renders so quick, that I figure I might as well put it to use grinding out a few seconds worth of animation while I stream the regular artwork on the other monitor.
I know animation isn't a must, and I'm only trying my hand at it now because I have the confidence I can produce decent animations rapidly. If I was still in a place where making an animation took four to five hours, I would't even bother. But an hour of work for three or four seconds of solid sexy animation seems like a fair trade to me.
Right now while I'm still working out the pipeline Animation is going to be a back burner thing. My priority is still new story and new images. I can always go back and add animations to older scenes at a later date. Since it's not mission critical, I'd rather continue playing around with it on the side and drop it in when it's good and ready.
Again, I completely agree and understand where you're coming from. I just hope conveying my mind a bit will help allay some fears.
