Looking for a starting point

[Noxusa]

Years ago I discovered porn games and immediately fell in love with them. One of my first sentiments was that I also wanted to create them. Having no technical or artistic skills, I found myself extremely limited. Then I started to learn Blender and 3D modeling in general, allowing me to create pretty much any environment from scratch.

I still want to create my own porn games, but I'm stuck as to where to start. People recommend DAZ3D often, but I honestly find that software not user-friendly and it seems like you need to spend a ton of money for good models. Being familiar with Blender and creating my own models (not characters) should give me some advantages.

Where do I even start?

 

[mom_liker]

Tell about setting, MC, what the gamee you want to create?

 

[Noxusa]

Tell about setting, MC, what the gamee you want to create?

Generally speaking a Ren'Py game. A visual novel as that seems to be the most realistic approach.

 

[ParkGDev]

You can commission your art. If you want to make 2D art without any solid artistic background, it's gonna be difficult but doable (I started this way, no actual art background), but it takes a lot of time.

Generally speaking, in case you want to commercialize your game eventually, it's better to get on either Daz or 2D (because you can't sell games made with Honey Select).

I have some experience with Daz and 3D modelling, but that's a long time ago. Once you get the hang of it, it can be very fun. There's a huge fanbase for 3D AVNs, and the Daz developer community is very active too. The disadvantage is that you need good hardware, and rendering high quality graphics takes time. If you have the hardware and skill, you can produce tons of content, renders and animations.

As for 2D, the learning curve is more open-ended, and the work can be exhaustingly tedious. You also have no luxury to produce a lot of content because each of them takes time. In 3D, you can create 10 different renders from 10 different angles and character poses. In 2D, you have to draw every single one of those 10 renders. As a 2D dev, I'd say drawing takes the majority of my time. Creating frame-by-frame animation is a living drawing hell.

However, the biggest advantage of 2D is you have the freedom to create everything you can imagine. And it also depends on your artstyle. Some opt for very simple ones. Some, a bit more complicated. Some, very polished and complex.

 

[Noxusa]

You can commission your art. If you want to make 2D art without any solid artistic background, it's gonna be difficult but doable (I started this way, no actual art background), but it takes a lot of time.

Generally speaking, in case you want to commercialize your game eventually, it's better to get on either Daz or 2D (because you can't sell games made with Honey Select).

I have some experience with Daz and 3D modelling, but that's a long time ago. Once you get the hang of it, it can be very fun. There's a huge fanbase for 3D AVNs, and the Daz developer community is very active too. The disadvantage is that you need good hardware, and rendering high quality graphics takes time. If you have the hardware and skill, you can produce tons of content, renders and animations.

As for 2D, the learning curve is more open-ended, and the work can be exhaustingly tedious. You also have no luxury to produce a lot of content because each of them takes time. In 3D, you can create 10 different renders from 10 different angles and character poses. In 2D, you have to draw every single one of those 10 renders. As a 2D dev, I'd say drawing takes the majority of my time. Creating frame-by-frame animation is a living drawing hell.

However, the biggest advantage of 2D is you have the freedom to create everything you can imagine. And it also depends on your artstyle. Some opt for very simple ones. Some, a bit more complicated. Some, very polished and complex.

I've made some amateur animations in the past with Krita. This was with my nonexistent drawing skills, but even that took time. I definitely know what you're talking about.

3D seems to be my way to go, but DAZ seems so very confusing.

 

[Synx]

I've made some amateur animations in the past with Krita. This was with my nonexistent drawing skills, but even that took time. I definitely know what you're talking about.

3D seems to be my way to go, but DAZ seems so very confusing.

Even if you mainly want to use Blender, I would still recommand learning the basics of DAZ, since you will very likely use DAZ characters for your game. Reason for this is that it's hard to find anything better for a reasonable price. DAZ characters aren't the best out there, but their availablity makes up for that.

You dont have to buy anything for DAZ; we are on a pirate website so just go to Asset Release section on here, or

You must be registered to see the links

and you can find 95%+ of all the models in the DAZ store or sold on other platforms for free. There is zero risk to using them as long as your not a complete moron (like going everywhere saying you used pirates assets). Vast majority of games and renders on this website most likely are made/started with pirated assets and I dont know of any game that was taken down because of that.

As for what you should learn with DAZ if you would use Blender for Posing/Rendering/etc. this list should be enough

• how to add your downloaded characters to DAZ (You can use the installer, or add them manually).
• How to add a character to a scene in DAZ, and how to apply morphs, etc.
• How to add hair, clothing etc.
• How to add genetelia to your model
• How to export the model using
  You must be registered to see the links

And then how to use Diffeomorphic in Blender as well. This will give you a good base to work from since it allows you to bring in characters from DAZ with clothing, hair, skin textures, a working Rig (which you can convert to Rigify if you want), and you can even import morphs for like expressions if you want.

I use mainly Blender as well for pretty much the same reason as you, but over time you will quickly realise why most people use DAZ over Blender. DAZ is very good at what it does; Setting up scenes fairly quickly in a kind of plug and play way. Its just very limited what it can do. You are pretty much limited to using DAZ assets, and even making small alterations (that doesn't have a morph associated with it) can be a pain in the ass. Animating controls is from what I have heared pretty mediocore at best, and in general if you have any experience in other 3D programs DAZ controls and interface is just mind boggling annoying at some times.

But the freedom Blender gives you compared to DAZ comes with a large drawback as well; everything is just going to take more time. Diffeomorphic can something be a bitch (It's way better than the standard DAZ to Blender Bridge, but it still has a fair amount of issues), and you often need to do a fair amount of material tweaking after importing, you don't really have acces to pre-made poses like DAZ has so posing takes more time, and in general learning Blender just takes more time than learning DAZ.

 

[AllNatural939]

People recommend DAZ3D often, but I honestly find that software not user-friendly and it seems like you need to spend a ton of money for good models...

Never forget that we're in a place dedicated to piracy. The more you keep that in mind, the better things will go for you, especially if you're just starting out...

 

[osanaiko]

Apart from the mechanics of making the art, there's two other big parts and one smaller one you will need to cover before you can make a (not shit) basic VN game

1. Story

Ideally not something totally cliche, but it's really up to you - what specific fetish do you want to see more of in the world? make that.
Note that it's not completely stupid to browse the voluminous archives of online smut fiction for ideas.
Writing a good story/script/dialogue is WAY harder than you would expect. Practice makes perfect. Proofreaders or editors you actually listen to are even better.

2. Game design

If all the player needs to do is click click click, even if there are a couple of simple choices, it's not really a "game". Kinetic novel is basically a storybook with pictures. Visual novel is the same with at least some meaningful choices.
Beyond that you can have all sorts of gameplay ideas. But beware! the more complicated you make this, the harder the design and coding becomes. We all have surely played poorly designed games where you have to do stupid repetitive tasks, or wander all over an empty map, or wait at some location for exactly the right time and day before you can progress. Don't torture your players with meaningless complexity or time consuming busywork. Make something clever!

2.1 Coding

Depending on how ambitious you are, this can be simple, to medium, to very hard. Renpy is great for an inexperienced coder making a KN or VN. It IS something you can start simple and then improve over time - hell, there's dozen and dozens of games that started that way and then improved. RPGM is the choice for that specific genre of JRPG styles, else it's a nightmare to beat into submission for other game types. All the other platforms are not ideal for a beginner (Godot, unreal, unity) because they are not "batteries included" or specifically designed for VN creation, so you really need to understand what you are doing and spend time putting together the tools. It's *possible* to use these more esoteric platforms for a VN, but why bother when the result is going to nearly always be a worse experience for players. (ignore the Godot fanboys, they know not what they say)

 

[Noxusa]

Apart from the mechanics of making the art, there's two other big parts and one smaller one you will need to cover before you can make a (not shit) basic VN game

1. Story

Ideally not something totally cliche, but it's really up to you - what specific fetish do you want to see more of in the world? make that.
Note that it's not completely stupid to browse the voluminous archives of online smut fiction for ideas.
Writing a good story/script/dialogue is WAY harder than you would expect. Practice makes perfect. Proofreaders or editors you actually listen to are even better.

2. Game design

If all the player needs to do is click click click, even if there are a couple of simple choices, it's not really a "game". Kinetic novel is basically a storybook with pictures. Visual novel is the same with at least some meaningful choices.
Beyond that you can have all sorts of gameplay ideas. But beware! the more complicated you make this, the harder the design and coding becomes. We all have surely played poorly designed games where you have to do stupid repetitive tasks, or wander all over an empty map, or wait at some location for exactly the right time and day before you can progress. Don't torture your players with meaningless complexity or time consuming busywork. Make something clever!

2.1 Coding

Depending on how ambitious you are, this can be simple, to medium, to very hard. Renpy is great for an inexperienced coder making a KN or VN. It IS something you can start simple and then improve over time - hell, there's dozen and dozens of games that started that way and then improved. RPGM is the choice for that specific genre of JRPG styles, else it's a nightmare to beat into submission for other game types. All the other platforms are not ideal for a beginner (Godot, unreal, unity) because they are not "batteries included" or specifically designed for VN creation, so you really need to understand what you are doing and spend time putting together the tools. It's *possible* to use these more esoteric platforms for a VN, but why bother when the result is going to nearly always be a worse experience for players. (ignore the Godot fanboys, they know not what they say)

Knowing myself, coming up with a decent story is actually one of my strengths, so I'm not too worried about that. Since I have to learn DAZ or learn how to draw 2D, I need to know my own limits first. I would base the story on what I feel I could handle. So if I feel that a story with 4 characters is my limit at the moment, I would adjust the story accordingly.

Coding... Yeah I was never good at that. But again, it's something I can learn I suppose.

 

[osanaiko]

Sounds like you are taking a more realistic approach than some have done before (and mostly crashed and burned).

Keeping your first project as small as you feasibly can while still telling your story is definitely a good idea - there's so much to learn, so much to do, that unless you are able to dedicate yourself full time it's still at least a year-or-longer project.

And as far as coding goes - luckily this skill is the easiest thing to get help with (in my opinion). There's a like a 1-1-8 ratio of writers - artists - programmers handing around this board. And unlike art, once you get a small piece of working example code from someone you can largely "duplicate" it (or use the functionality it provides) through your game even without much experience, just by taking a logical approach.

 

[twinxed]

Itch has great resources, you can also check github there's base sources there that could help maybe?

 

[osanaiko]

Itch has great resources, you can also check github there's base sources there that could help maybe?

For renpy, finding games you like and pulling them open to see how they work inside is actually a very valid approach. use "unren-for-all.bat" to decompress/decompile the script and asset archives, and then just start looking around inside.

 

[twinxed]

For renpy, finding games you like and pulling them open to see how they work inside is actually a very valid approach. use "unren-for-all.bat" to decompress/decompile the script and asset archives, and then just start looking around inside.

I assume RenPy is another game engine? I've only heard of Unity and Unreal [ both I work with personally]

 

[AllNatural939]

I assume RenPy is another game engine? I've only heard of Unity and Unreal [ both I work with personally]

RenPy is made specifically for visual novels, which is why it's so popular, especially on this site. If you browse through all the games here (over 20,000) you'll find that more than 7,000 were created with RenPy.