I'm not a big fan of this realistic 3d aesthetic, 2d drawings and stylized 3d are almost always superior in my opinion, they feel expressive and thus more erotic due to being less "real", i can't quite explain that. Opinion coming from a guy that is making a low poly monster porn game, so take with a grain of salt.
This is indeed an example of a good anime/cartoon style, proof that Koikatsu is not the issue, it's laziness, as with everything really.
I personally think there's a charm to 2D art in general, but there are cases in which 3D proves to be really good, both in realistic and cartoony styles.
I would absolutely play a game if it looked like the one above, yes, but also like the ones below here: View attachment P2_0527.webp
It's more a matter of preference than quality sometimes really.
The thing is that a simple, somewhat crude 2D image will always look way better than a barely decent 3D one as the latter requires a lot of effort to look just right and not land in the uncanny valley territory. However a good 3D model can be moved around and will (should) always look the same anatomically, which is something that doesn't happen in 2D unless the artist has completely nailed down the character's anatomy.
So I have to disagree. I would not say western 3DCG games look ugly and there are examples of that. If anything they are looking better now than they did before.
It can be, but speaking from experience, the resources available to give you what you need to make Koikatsu look good are practically non-existent. I've got enough DMs about it that I'm making a guide. (Slowly)
But if it's a dev that's been using it for a year or two, yeah that's laziness.
A lot of the 3d western stuff has these weird lighting and shadows, which make characters look way too old or young. Also bad hair and fugly haircuts. And frequently features characters that are way old to be attractive to most men regardless tbh. Some stuff like Masters of Raana looks good though.
It can be, but speaking from experience, the resources available to give you what you need to make Koikatsu look good are practically non-existent. I've got enough DMs about it that I'm making a guide. (Slowly)
But if it's a dev that's been using it for a year or two, yeah that's laziness.
My issue with Koikatsu and other Illusion based stuff is that, sure, you can put more effort to improve the render quality but, afaik, you will always be quite limited with what you can do with the models. However, it's not like many people using Daz for their games go out of their way to do the things you can't in Koikatsu, so I suppose it's probably fine for most use cases.
Still, I don't know, I have a hard time picking up a game made with Illusion stuff.
Personally, I'm fiddling around with the FilaToon shader in Daz to see if I can get something I consider good looking but until then, I'll stick with this.
(Slowly)
