'Out of the box' Characters. Why are they not used very often?

[Deleted member 5707363]

Long and short of it is: Do content creators go after devs using their models in porn games? I ask this because I'm surprised at the lack of variation in characters when I peruse/play these games.

So I use Daz characters. I generally customize bodies bc I like the girls with the boom but a lot of the characters I buy look great out of the box as far as their faces. (It's a video game ffs. If you want realism, go on a date.)

I've made like 40 characters for shits and giggles. Three of them are dudes.

I've noticed that, with all of the time and effort that devs put into writing their stories, putting together the game structure, coding, and making renders/animations, there is shockingly little effort put into the the characters' appearances in comparison. I see basically the same ones all the time, with the same hairstyles; there's the pony tail ala "The Awakening" and the side bangs short haircut ala IDFK how many games, etc. And the devs don't even take the time to get rid of the 'shrinkwrap' effect with clothes in Daz that is especially bad on large breasted characters. Seriously, with all of these games with fantastic renders and a decent story, why is this? There's gotta be a reason other than, "I couldn't afford the $50 that it costs to get three more characters and options".

I'm confused about why this is, and when I'm perusing AVNs, the lack of eye-catching characters is a deal breaker for me, regardless of the game's great reviews.

 

[Meaning Less]

I'm sure some like you mentioned might just be playing safe and not wanting to spend extra money or pirating better assets.

But in general I'd say it is mainly a combination of lack of knowledge and lack of planning. People often do the bare minimum to have their idea running, and once you are hundreds of renders in it is already too late to go back and change things.

 

[anne O'nymous]

But in general I'd say it is mainly a combination of lack of knowledge and lack of planning.

There's a bit more behind this.

They generally choose the model because it pleased them. They were browsing the store, saw the screenshot and thought "yeah, it's her, it's my character". It's the reason why the said characters generally also wear the same hairs, and tattoos when they are separated assets, than in the promotion screenshots. It's the character presented that way that they want.
Starting there, their opinion is biased and they just don't even think about doing a bit of tweaking. The model already fit their vision, why trying to change it ?

 

[Meaning Less]

The model already fit their vision, why trying to change it ?

Well, you just described what doing the bare minimum is: "Finding a random model that fits".

As to why change it, well, every choice has an impact on the final product. And sometimes all it takes is doing a little bit extra than the bare minimum for your product to grab some attention.

 

[HarveyD]

You really wanted this question answered huh? I see there's a similar thread about this from you in May.

Also, "out of the box" characters are almost always used, those are the ones straight out of the Daz storefront. Perhaps you were thinking of "outside of the box".

But why? They probably go looking for a hot female model and find one, similar to what Anne said. That and I'd argue that with a limited number of hair and skin textures, a lot of models will look very similar even if the dev has made some changes.

 

[Deleted member 5707363]

You really wanted this question answered huh? I see there's a similar thread about this from you in May.

Also, "out of the box" characters are almost always used, those are the ones straight out of the Daz storefront. Perhaps you were thinking of "outside of the box".

But why? They probably go looking for a hot female model and find one, similar to what Anne said. That and I'd argue that with a limited number of hair and skin textures, a lot of models will look very similar even if the dev has made some changes.

Yup. I did.

I actually did mean "out of the box" because I see a shit ton of characters that make me think, "How the fuck is she not a character in an AVN??"

(One example would be a Genesis 3 character named Cathy. She's all over Daz clothes and hair promos and she'd be great in a bitchy-hot mean girl type role.)

The reason I asked is because right now I'm doing a moratorium on making characters and starting to pare down. I'm figuring out who I'm going to use, who's a primary or secondary character, what their roles are, etc. I'm also trying to figure out which environments I'm going to use.

I've done renders and series of renders in one environment or another with characters I'm wanting to use. There's so many more renders to do in painstaking detail, doing convos with facial expressions, lighting the environment, posing the models, all that shit.

I've got a fair amount of OOTB (face-wise) models as well as customized ones with different morphs/ingredients mixed and matched. I don't want to waste all that work because there was some issue with me using this or that character OOTB.

So that's why I really wanted an answer.

 

[Doorknob22]

1. Re: hair. I think it happens to more inexperienced developers. The veterans know which hairstyles to avoid as they are being overused (Voss hair, Tempest hair on a black girl, MRL gem hair on the punky little sister etc).

2. Re: customizing characters, I rarely do it. Why? The people who design 3d models are the best of this, this is what they do for a living. I don't think it's good time investment for me/my patrons if I tried to beat them at their own game (instead of writing code, writing story, rendering etc). When waiting for the right discount, a model rarely costs over $5-6, and I personally have the patience of an alligator to wait months for a price to drop. I simply buy the ones I find the prettiest and use them.

3. Finally: I almost always change the Materials of the cloths my characters wear from default. And again, I stalk patiently for price drops. Also: mixing cloths between sets.

 

[Deleted member 5707363]

1. Re: hair. I think it happens to more inexperienced developers. The veterans know which hairstyles to avoid as they are being overused (Voss hair, Tempest hair on a black girl, MRL gem hair on the punky little sister etc).

2. Re: customizing characters, I rarely do it. Why? The people who design 3d models are the best of this, this is what they do for a living. I don't think it's good time investment for me/my patrons if I tried to beat them at their own game (instead of writing code, writing story, rendering etc). When waiting for the right discount, a model rarely costs over $5-6, and I personally have the patience of an alligator to wait months for a price to drop. I simply buy the ones I find the prettiest and use them.

3. Finally: I almost always change the Materials of the cloths my characters wear from default. And again, I stalk patiently for price drops. Also: mixing cloths between sets.

Yeah that makes sense. And I gotta start changing cloth materials for my male characters because there's so little offered in terms of their clothes. Everybody's looking so hard at the girl. With Joe Average, there's only so many everyday t shirts or clothes in general that look nice it seems.

Some sort of fantasy or sci fi seems like it would be easier, though I don't know bc all of what I've bought is geared towards "realism" (with seriously unrealistic bodies).

That said, I think that some of the custom characters I've created mixing and matching skins and sliders and morphs are as good or better than a lot of what's out there. When I'm bored and I can't think after work, I fuck around and make a new doll. I'd be happy to show you a few that I'm really proud of.

I have nobody to answer to and no pressure and all the time in the world, so I've found I get too OCD about female characters and overthink environments, and I end up spinning my wheels because of this.

I hear you about the hair, though I do have someone who I plan to make a minor character in a harem game who has that Miranda hair.

 

[MissFortune]

3. Finally: I almost always change the Materials of the cloths my characters wear from default. And again, I stalk patiently for price drops. Also: mixing cloths between sets.

Having knowledge with Photoshop, and the Adobe Substance Suite is super nice to have, though. Can make the textures/designs of clothes look completely unique. Can even just use Photoshop and textures from Unsplash if the PA gives you a good template to work with.