How to Create animations.

[Syploore]

Hi everybody. Perhaps the question will seem banal, but how and in what programs to make high-quality animations for the game? I use Daz for staging scenes, but it just hurts to do animations there. What programs should I use? How exactly do I do animation? I can't find any illustrative examples anywhere to understand the concept.

I really like the animations in "Milfy City", "Being a DIK", etc. But I understand that I am far from their quality of animations, but I need to understand where to start. I will accept any tip. Thank you in advance.

p.s And even worth it? I mean, animations of course is the great part of the game, but it's my first VN and i just wanna see how good i am at it.

 

[Rich]

Hi everybody. Perhaps the question will seem banal, but how and in what programs to make high-quality animations for the game? I use Daz for staging scenes, but it just hurts to do animations there. What programs should I use? How exactly do I do animation? I can't find any illustrative examples anywhere to understand the concept.

There aren't a lot of good, inexpensive options for making animations if you're going to do your rendering in Daz Studio. You can take Daz assets over to iClone, animate them, and export BVH's that can go back into Daz, but the BVH's have to be tweaked before they will work 100%. I know that others do this with high-end packages like MotionBuilder or Maya as well. Daz stuff can be moved to Blender, but right now there's no easy path from Blender back to Daz.

Part of the issue is the two-part bone structure that Daz uses for the arms and the legs - most other packages just don't understand that the upper bone only twists, and the lower bone can't twist. That's where the tweaking comes in - transferring the twist.

I really like the animations in "Milfy City", "Being a DIK", etc. But I understand that I am far from their quality of animations, but I need to understand where to start. I will accept any tip. Thank you in advance.

You can make very decent animations in Daz Studio - it's just a pain to do. Mind you, good-looking animations aren't trivial in any package, because of the whole "how humans really move" issue. That's why professional animators make the big bucks - they have a natural talent for it. Certainly, tools more attuned to animation than Daz definitely make it easier, but it's as much the person as the tool.

p.s And even worth it? I mean, animations of course is the great part of the game, but it's my first VN and i just wanna see how good i am at it.

That's a question only you can answer. That being said, if it's your first VN, I think I would focus on polishing your skills with the stills first. A VN without animation but with good art is (IMHO) better than a VN with animations with bad art. Also, you're going to find (trust me) that doing a full VN is quite enough work without adding all the extra effort of animations. So, if this is your first time around the block, if it was me I'd focus on the basics, and leave "nice but not mandatory" stuff for my next project.

Just my $0.02

 

[Syploore]

There aren't a lot of good, inexpensive options for making animations if you're going to do your rendering in Daz Studio. You can take Daz assets over to iClone, animate them, and export BVH's that can go back into Daz, but the BVH's have to be tweaked before they will work 100%. I know that others do this with high-end packages like MotionBuilder or Maya as well. Daz stuff can be moved to Blender, but right now there's no easy path from Blender back to Daz.

Part of the issue is the two-part bone structure that Daz uses for the arms and the legs - most other packages just don't understand that the upper bone only twists, and the lower bone can't twist. That's where the tweaking comes in - transferring the twist.



You can make very decent animations in Daz Studio - it's just a pain to do. Mind you, good-looking animations aren't trivial in any package, because of the whole "how humans really move" issue. That's why professional animators make the big bucks - they have a natural talent for it. Certainly, tools more attuned to animation than Daz definitely make it easier, but it's as much the person as the tool.



That's a question only you can answer. That being said, if it's your first VN, I think I would focus on polishing your skills with the stills first. A VN without animation but with good art is (IMHO) better than a VN with animations with bad art. Also, you're going to find (trust me) that doing a full VN is quite enough work without adding all the extra effort of animations. So, if this is your first time around the block, if it was me I'd focus on the basics, and leave "nice but not mandatory" stuff for my next project.

Just my $0.02

Thank you for your quick response. I'll try to make an animation in daz, but if it doesn't work out, well, that's fine. I will focus on a beautiful story and good scenes. Thank you again.

 

[Jofur]

p.s And even worth it? I mean, animations of course is the great part of the game, but it's my first VN and i just wanna see how good i am at it.

Honestly, I think unless you go full on animations with most of your scenes, animations often ends up feeling out of place more often than not. It also leads to a lot of scenes feeling way to short since the dev had to spend all his effort on a single 3 second loop instead of a more varied image set. Along with that another negative effect is making all the static images feel less interesting and not nearly as rewarding. So now only the few animated scenes are the ones worth chasing after.

Granted these are mainly nitpicks.

 

[Rich]

Thank you for your quick response. I'll try to make an animation in daz, but if it doesn't work out, well, that's fine. I will focus on a beautiful story and good scenes. Thank you again.

The thing is - I love animations. And well-done animations certainly can add to a game. The ones you reference (in Milfy City) are definitely in that category. But Jofur is also correct - animations-for-animation's-sake can actually detract from a game. Either because they're misplaced, misused, or only so-so quality. But there's just so much work in making a half-decent animation, because you have to deal with every single joint in the body, how the hair falls, whether or not the character blinks, whether the motion is actually realistic-looking, etc. And the tools that Daz give you are, well, "less than helpful" in this respect, because you can't play the animation back at full speed inside Daz Studio. So you end up having to do baby renders, making a movie out of it, playing it, figuring out what's wrong and then starting the cycle over again. Tools like Blender and iClone are way better at this because they were designed with animation as a core feature, but, as I mentioned, trying to use them is problematic.

In addition, if you start out including animations, you're almost trapped into having them the whole way through, because the people that start playing your game will see the early ones, expect more, and ding you over them vanishing. So you can back yourself into a bit of a corner if you're not careful. Easier to add them later, if appropriate.

Finally, there's just been another big thread on "why do so many games get abandoned," and one of the things that most of the comments agreed on was that many devs take on WAY too much in their first project. Not saying that you are, mind you, because I have no idea about your background or talents - they may vastly exceed my own. But "start small" is probably the best two-word advice I can give to anyone dipping their toe into this water. Save your magnus opus for your third or fourth project after you've accumulated the scars and knowledge from your first couple.

 

[Syploore]

Honestly, I think unless you go full on animations with most of your scenes, animations often ends up feeling out of place more often than not. It also leads to a lot of scenes feeling way to short since the dev had to spend all his effort on a single 3 second loop instead of a more varied image set. Along with that another negative effect is making all the static images feel less interesting and not nearly as rewarding. So now only the few animated scenes are the ones worth chasing after.

Granted these are mainly nitpicks.

Thank you, i will keep that in mind.

The thing is - I love animations. And well-done animations certainly can add to a game. The ones you reference (in Milfy City) are definitely in that category. But Jofur is also correct - animations-for-animation's-sake can actually detract from a game. Either because they're misplaced, misused, or only so-so quality. But there's just so much work in making a half-decent animation, because you have to deal with every single joint in the body, how the hair falls, whether or not the character blinks, whether the motion is actually realistic-looking, etc. And the tools that Daz give you are, well, "less than helpful" in this respect, because you can't play the animation back at full speed inside Daz Studio. So you end up having to do baby renders, making a movie out of it, playing it, figuring out what's wrong and then starting the cycle over again. Tools like Blender and iClone are way better at this because they were designed with animation as a core feature, but, as I mentioned, trying to use them is problematic.

Sounds painful.

In addition, if you start out including animations, you're almost trapped into having them the whole way through, because the people that start playing your game will see the early ones, expect more, and ding you over them vanishing. So you can back yourself into a bit of a corner if you're not careful. Easier to add them later, if appropriate.

My plan is to release the first episode of the game without animations, introduce the player to the story, introduce the MC, and show in which direction the game will develop further, but I'm worried that if I don't add animations to the game, I may be considered an amateur and only because of the lack of animations, players may consider the game unworthy of time. It sounds paranoid, but judging by what I read in the comments to the games, this is how it happens. I really intend to show the players a well-written story that will be able to hook people. But judging by the amount of time it takes to animate, I can fall into the pit of a long wait for the next part of the game, which will cause interest in the game to fall.

Finally, there's just been another big thread on "why do so many games get abandoned," and one of the things that most of the comments agreed on was that many devs take on WAY too much in their first project. Not saying that you are, mind you, because I have no idea about your background or talents - they may vastly exceed my own. But "start small" is probably the best two-word advice I can give to anyone dipping their toe into this water. Save your magnus opus for your third or fourth project after you've accumulated the scars and knowledge from your first couple.

This argument sounds very reasonable. But I still can't help thinking that if I start small, it can become a stigma of "inferiority of the game". I really hope for the support of the community on this issue.

p.s By the way, I apologize for my English, my native language is Russian, but my English is at a sufficient level to communicate comfortably, but I still use a translator to avoid mistakes.

 

[Dark_Sytze]

This argument sounds very reasonable. But I still can't help thinking that if I start small, it can become a stigma of "inferiority of the game". I really hope for the support of the community on this issue.

I used to think this as well. But it's better to produce a well polished short game that you can actually release, than have 6 huge unfinished projects, or even worse a hastily put together rushed project.

 

[coffeeaddicted]

There aren't a lot of good, inexpensive options for making animations if you're going to do your rendering in Daz Studio. You can take Daz assets over to iClone, animate them, and export BVH's that can go back into Daz, but the BVH's have to be tweaked before they will work 100%. I know that others do this with high-end packages like MotionBuilder or Maya as well. Daz stuff can be moved to Blender, but right now there's no easy path from Blender back to Daz.

Part of the issue is the two-part bone structure that Daz uses for the arms and the legs - most other packages just don't understand that the upper bone only twists, and the lower bone can't twist. That's where the tweaking comes in - transferring the twist.



You can make very decent animations in Daz Studio - it's just a pain to do. Mind you, good-looking animations aren't trivial in any package, because of the whole "how humans really move" issue. That's why professional animators make the big bucks - they have a natural talent for it. Certainly, tools more attuned to animation than Daz definitely make it easier, but it's as much the person as the tool.



That's a question only you can answer. That being said, if it's your first VN, I think I would focus on polishing your skills with the stills first. A VN without animation but with good art is (IMHO) better than a VN with animations with bad art. Also, you're going to find (trust me) that doing a full VN is quite enough work without adding all the extra effort of animations. So, if this is your first time around the block, if it was me I'd focus on the basics, and leave "nice but not mandatory" stuff for my next project.

Just my $0.02

I know this is an older topic but i am actually pondering about animations.
DAZ has anima (or what it is called) but i am afraid of non human motions.

So i do basically slides. Dissolve in RenPy can give the illusion of an animation. Though i think anyone can figure it out that there aren't.
And so i am not sure what action you should show to have a arousing effect for the player but enough that it is clear what is going on.
Some games have just a very view slides for any sex action that takes place. Normally it is getting underscored by dialog.
Now i did a scene and i wanted to show more but ended up with many slides. So i am not sure what the right approach is. So i don't invest too much time in it but still have the result to show what is going on.

Animation itself is a lock with seven seals to me. I don't think i want to spend more time learning a new software. Seems complicated.
Do people really like animations anyway?

I played a lot of Skyrim and there are animations. But to me they looked always very mechanical.