Small questions for looking into VN creation

[Dystopianviking]

Hi all, I've been around in this community for a little bit now and figured I'd have an account more focused towards the dev stuff (why this ones brand new).
Just a little preface, I'm gonna be completely solo in this project and I don't really have disposable income, mainly just surviving right now but have a lot of free time to dedicate to something. I understand there's a lot of preference in to use but figured with a little context it might make it easier to answer. That all being said...

1. What would you consider the best program to start working with for renders/animations? I notice there's The Sims, Honeyselect2, Koikatu! and DAZ so far.
(I've been looking into DAZ but was second guessing because of how quickly I realized everything has a price tag, alongside licensing and other stuff that I'm not too read up on yet.)

2. Following up: What kind of assets (or if one of the programs is legit to use without worrying about it) should I look into if I would eventually plan on making a Patreon, but not explicitly selling the game or doing pure exclusive content?
(Wouldn't want to start a whole thing up and then potentially want to start putting money into the project and find out I cant use majority of existing assets and have to heavily backtrack.)

3. Any recommendations for starting? I know there's tons of tutorials and stuff out there (even here) but if you can point specifically to better or more concise/cleaner for said programs, I'm completely open to suggestion. I've been dabbling a bit but knowledge is everything and I'm basically a clean slate right now.

I greatly appreciate anyone that takes the time to answer these questions! I'm sorry if its been asked a lot before, was trying to search around and there's thousands of posts to look through trying to find hints of information.

 

[79flavors]

1. What would you consider the best program to start working with for renders/animations?

Ask 3 people and get 4 different answers.
The "best" rendering program is the one YOU are most comfortable with.

My personal opinion is that hand drawn artwork > DAZ > HoneySelect.
But hand-drawn is the one that requires pre-existing skill, so if you're not already considering it - you probably shouldn't attempt it.
HoneySelect is only last because it's the path of least resistance. People who can't handle DAZ, do HoneySelect. Which generally results in poor HoneySelect images overall. It's not the rendering program, it's the person. You only need to look at projects like Pale Carnations to see that done well, even HoneySelect can be awesome.
Which brings me back to my first point, what YOU are comfortable with will matter more than the package.

As a general rule, the worse your story writing skill is, the better you graphics skills will need to be to compensate. A poorly written story with poor graphics is... well, far too common. But tell the right story well, and people won't care about your graphics.

Unless you are trying to make money, just write the story you are most interested in. Writing an AVN is hard to keep going with. Real life will mess things up and your commitment will falter. Being interested in your story more than the money might be the thing that keeps you going through the bad days.

I've been looking into DAZ but was second guessing because of how quickly I realized everything has a price tag, alongside licensing and other stuff that I'm not too read up on yet.)
[...] should I look into if I would eventually plan on making a Patreon, but not explicitly selling the game [...]

DAZ's standard licencing/pricing is pretty much what you see on the store page. You buy it, you can use it. Keep in mind that as well as the standard DAZ store, there are sites like

You must be registered to see the links

.
The exception (sometimes) is 3D models used in 3D engines. That is... real-time rendering within a game (Think full 3D or VR games using Unity, UnReal3D, etc).
If you use at model to render a flat image - that's DAZ's standard. Animations are still pre-rendered flat images.

If you do go down the DAZ route, and given you are here on F95, the easiest solution would be to use the pirated assets here (There are currently 568 pages of free assets). Go easy, it's tempting to grab a whole bunch - you'll just get overwhelmed. Grab a Love-Interest model, a Main-Character model and a room. Then grab clothes, hair, perhaps upgraded eyes, etc and have a play. If your game ever makes a significant profit (it won't), consider buying the assets you've used from the original source. Prioritize paying for the assets you think your game has most benefitted from.
General rule of thumb: If you're making money, pay for the assets. If you're just making a passion game for your own amusement and posting it here on F95 for free, don't worry about it.
Personally, I wouldn't go to a platform like Steam unless I'd paid for all my assets. But there is practically no way someone can tell just by looking at a finished render whether the assets used to create it were bought or not.

3. Any recommendations for starting?
[...]
I've been dabbling a bit but knowledge is everything and I'm basically a clean slate right now.

Just keep in mind that some tutorials are older than others and things have moved on.
Also, the majority of AVN games (even some of the very successful ones) are written by people who barely know what they are doing. For most, the projects starts as a hobby. Likewise, most projects are never finished.

My personal suggestion for a long while has been to find a (short) story you like on

You must be registered to see the links

and recreate it using whatever rendering and programming software you've decided to use. It doesn't have to be perfect. It doesn't even have to be very good. It's purpose is to let you play with the tools without consequence. Perhaps even consider expanding it to include decisions and consequences that weren't there in the original story. Finish the project whenever you feel you are ready to start your "real" project and throw the whole thing away (don't plagiarize someone else's work).

As I've posted before, you can write a (simple) RenPy game using only 8 statements (realistically 6). For a fairly standard game, add another 6. Once you move beyond telling a story and want more game like mechanics, add dozens more.

I greatly appreciate anyone that takes the time to answer these questions! I'm sorry if its been asked a lot before, was trying to search around and there's thousands of posts to look through trying to find hints of information.

And with those thousands of posts, thousands of answers. Some good, some bad.

 

[Dystopianviking]

As a general rule, the worse your story writing skill is, the better you graphics skills will need to be to compensate. A poorly written story with poor graphics is... well, far too common. But tell the right story well, and people won't care about your graphics.

Unless you are trying to make money, just write the story you are most interested in. Writing an AVN is hard to keep going with. Real life will mess things up and your commitment will falter. Being interested in your story more than the money might be the thing that keeps you going through the bad days.

Main reason I wanted to get into all this is because I have so much energy for typing and writing, my friends kinda break my stones about how much I can passionately wordy and I've always had a good imagination, but artistic skill? bleh I'm totally gone on that front. I have an incredulous amount of free time (atleast 50 extra hours a week that I dont actually use outside of anything personal because I live a pretty secluded lifestyle like a hermit right now, bad RL experiences and stuff, yadayada) I dont really see things as a cash grab, I more or less wanted to try my hand at making a VN, but you know how it is, we all want a little financial support for the time we spend on something (especially if we stick with it) So HS2 sounds promising, I should probably pick that up and then go through the inane hoops and bounds to make it work at full functionality. Might also still try my hand at DAZ with the mentions of assets, just maybe after I figure things out. It will be mostly a passion project of a better-writer-than-artist though lol.

If you do go down the DAZ route, and given you are here on F95, the easiest solution would be to use the pirated assets here (There are currently 568 pages of free assets). Go easy, it's tempting to grab a whole bunch - you'll just get overwhelmed. Grab a Love-Interest model, a Main-Character model and a room. Then grab clothes, hair, perhaps upgraded eyes, etc and have a play. If your game ever makes a significant profit (it won't), consider buying the assets you've used from the original source. Prioritize paying for the assets you think your game has most benefitted from.
General rule of thumb: If you're making money, pay for the assets. If you're just making a passion game for your own amusement and posting it here on F95 for free, don't worry about it.
Personally, I wouldn't go to a platform like Steam unless I'd paid for all my assets. But there is practically no way someone can tell just by looking at a finished render whether the assets used to create it were bought or not.

Thank you for clearing this up, I wasn't sure about the stuff available on f95 and I didn't want to take my chances without clearing it up. It's good to know its accessible and usable without worrying about any forms of trouble. As of right now if I go into this it will be 100% free with at most a patreon support if I decide to really dive into it with everything I have.

Just keep in mind that some tutorials are older than others and things have moved on.
Also, the majority of AVN games (even some of the very successful ones) are written by people who barely know what they are doing. For most, the projects starts as a hobby. Likewise, most projects are never finished.

Yep, after playing a lot of VN titles and seeing it first hand and enjoying some of the crazy stories people come up with Now & Then, SWTA Unbroken, ARTEMIS, etc it just really made something brew inside of me that I wanted to take a shot at. I used to write on r/nosleep a long time ago with a friend, telling real life childhood stories of a depending on what you believe in haunted house I used to live in as a kid lol. The technical stuff though, new as can be so definitely appreciate the advice. The Literotica short story thing sounds great. I would like my first game to have a little bit of decision pathing but yeah its definitely gonna take time to learn how to set up flags and pathways to different branches so this would be a really good way to learn how to move into that territory without getting frustrated off my own creation and trying to fill gaps.

Appreciate the time you took to help, truly it was invaluable.

 

[Dystopianviking]

Hey again, sorry another quick question.
Recent events have made me finally eat my own words on my secondary drive and it decided to bite the dust.

It was originally a 3tb seagate barracuda, right now i'm a little tight on money so my question is-
What size allocation am I looking at for a single project? Would I be able to get away with a 2tb or should I put a little extra out for a 4tb? Probably going to be using HS2 (so around ~400gb w/ studio)

Granted it's all temporary, my PC doesn't have a huge SSD so I'm gonna need to fill that slot in faster than I'd otherwise like to. Eventually of course I'll also pick up an external just for extra layers of backup and a bigger drive and possibly even keep a spare on hand. But at least for the time being.

Thanks again.

 

[MissFortune]

79flavors already gave a very strong answer (as usual), just going to chime in with some of my own experience(s).

1. What would you consider the best program to start working with for renders/animations? I notice there's The Sims, Honeyselect2, Koikatu! and DAZ so far.
(I've been looking into DAZ but was second guessing because of how quickly I realized everything has a price tag, alongside licensing and other stuff that I'm not too read up on yet.)

There's going to be a number of factors here that decide which way you go. Hardware, namely. Then there's stuff like time taken to render, the style of graphics you're after, graphic fidelity, and so forth. All of which bring their own downsides and benefits.

The Sims should be a last/worst case. New players are starting off with stuff like BaD, Eternum, Race of Life, and so forth. All of which lean toward a higher end of graphic fidelity. You won't find too many well made games with The Sims, and you'll find even less willing to play them. There's too many games, and players are being spoiled by very high-end graphic quality from 0.1s. There's zero profitable future with a Sims-made game. No Steam, and an infringement report away from no Patreon.

If you're making more of an anime-focused/styled story, than HS/KK is going to be your choice. There's a lot of experience in the Illusion community, with some super nice people that are always willing to help. TheMagicalGurl, DiPeppo, just to name two of very many devs. Just be aware that the future around Illusion-made games is somewhat dim, similar to Sims. You're fine on Patreon and SS, but no Steam. Which is where the long-term money is for this space. If you do go this route at first, either due to hardware or lack of funds, and you make some money off of it, I'd set it off to the side for a higher end system in the future along with some time to learn Daz while making your first game in KK/HS.

Daz is the best happy-medium. With some work, you can get it working with lower-end hardware just fine. Either via something like LOD or Scene Optimizer. There's only two real licenses you have to worry about with Daz. The regular license you get when you buy an asset (a figure, house, environment, clothing, etc.), and the Interactive License. The former is fine everything you'll need it for. As long as it remains a 2D render in Ren'py, you're good. If you're making a game with a controllable character in Unreal, you'll need to pay the latter license. Daz can get pricey, but a rule of thumb is to never buy full price. There's always a sale for the asset you're looking for. Just practice some patience. I'd also recommend trying the asset before you buy it. It stops from having to deal with the shitty return process for Daz. There are other licenses with Daz, but unless you're 3D printing you won't need it. Then there's the Editorial License, which is only allowed for informational/non-commercial usage. The reason for this is that there's IP being featured on the asset, such as a car logo or a recognizable character from a shot (e.g. the more recent Jon Snow stuff on the Daz Store, or the Japanese car bundle that featured the car from Initial D.). Just pay attention to what you're buying and all should be good.

The other option here and by far the hardest is Blender. While it's the hardest, it's also the most professional. I'd recommend sticking away from this at first and starting with Daz. Learn the lighting, composition, angles, and stuff like that in Daz. Knowing all that can make the transition to Blender a bit easier. Especially when you're getting used to the lack of handholding the other options offer. Especially the Daz and Illusion offerings. Though one could argue that you might be better off learning Blender while you're still new, then picking up Daz as a character creator of sorts.

For Beginners? It's Daz > HS/KK > Everything Else. Daz is the de facto option, unless you're limited by hardware.

2. Following up: What kind of assets (or if one of the programs is legit to use without worrying about it) should I look into if I would eventually plan on making a Patreon, but not explicitly selling the game or doing pure exclusive content?
(Wouldn't want to start a whole thing up and then potentially want to start putting money into the project and find out I cant use majority of existing assets and have to heavily backtrack.)

For Daz? Just stick with the main storefronts and you'll be good. Renderosity, Daz Store, Renderotica, CGBytes, and RenderHub are going to be the main ones you'll be using. Rule of thumb for is to just go in the other direction if you see anything with a real-life logo on it.

For HS/KK, you'll want to avoid the word "selling" anywhere with them. It's a bit of a gray area. On Itch, you'll want to post the game as "Name Your Own Price" or whatever it's called there. For Sims? Can't help you there.

3. Any recommendations for starting? I know there's tons of tutorials and stuff out there (even here) but if you can point specifically to better or more concise/cleaner for said programs, I'm completely open to suggestion. I've been dabbling a bit but knowledge is everything and I'm basically a clean slate right now.

For Daz, anything you can find on YouTube will be a decent start. Rauko, Game Developer Training, any of the archived IT-Roy stuff, The WP Guru, Jay (WP Guru) on the official Daz 3D channel. When you start getting into the more advanced stuff like lighting, Dreamlight is probably a pretty good place to look either via his stuff on the Daz Store or his personal website (for both full lighting courses and more adult-focused stuff.

Focus on learning the basics first. One thing at a time. You know what they say about foundations. Learn > Apply > Learn > Apply > Learn > Apply. Keep yourself out of tutorial hell.

What size allocation am I looking at for a single project? Would I be able to get away with a 2tb or should I put a little extra out for a 4tb? Probably going to be using HS2 (so around ~400gb w/ studio)

Granted it's all temporary, my PC doesn't have a huge SSD so I'm gonna need to fill that slot in faster than I'd otherwise like to. Eventually of course I'll also pick up an external just for extra layers of backup and a bigger drive and possibly even keep a spare on hand. But at least for the time being.

The bigger the better. Don't sacrifice real life stuff for something that may or may not work out, though. Get your bills in order and see what you can afford. But all things being good, go as big as you can.

I'd also set up a Google Drive account or two for storing key/important files and/or backups of the most recent copy of your game. 15GB is a lot, and it's free.

 

[Dystopianviking]

The bigger the better. Don't sacrifice real life stuff for something that may or may not work out, though. Get your bills in order and see what you can afford. But all things being good, go as big as you can.

I'd also set up a Google Drive account or two for storing key/important files and/or backups of the most recent copy of your game. 15GB is a lot, and it's free.

Man I am so absolutely grateful for all this information from top to bottom from both you and 79flavors. I love the depth you went into replying to me too, thank you so much. I ended up purchasing a 4TB Barracuda, I need it as badly as anything since I'm running only a primary 512gb samsung m.2. Doesn't leave any wiggle room for personal PC usage lol (and being a gamer through and through.)

HS2 probably has the best style and looks more up my alley, as I absolutely love the models for HS2, but I also really like the DAZ Options too. Hardware wise I run a MSI Ventus 2070 Super, I9-9900k, 32gigs ddr4 3000mhz Ram. My PC isn't the best by any means but I think for a starting point it probably can hold its own? I would hope anyway lol.

So far I've just been working on my narrative and laying out the foundational works for my story I already think I have something cooked up and just taking alot of notes and discussing it with some close friends that I trust that give me proper feedback and ideas. Trying to make sure my writing doesn't slouch because I do want to tell a good story, thats mostly what I've been influenced by from my time here. Google Drive sounds good, will get ontop of that.

For HS/KK, you'll want to avoid the word "selling" anywhere with them. It's a bit of a gray area. On Itch, you'll want to post the game as "Name Your Own Price" or whatever it's called there. For Sims? Can't help you there.

Just to touch on this quick, most I would ever do is a name your own/patreon. The main goal of both would just be to get a more modern PC as its just out of my RL financial budget for a while. Have 0 intention of ever selling something on steam or putting paywalls up. This is peering way into the future for me but I feel pretty confident that if I were to open a patreon it would probably be a discord with special privs and maybe an update log more than anything. Being on the lower end of the dollar bill myself I would never want anyone to feel forced to pay for something, I'm more of the mindset the option to support ends up working out better than forcing people to pay. (especially if you want to retain a somewhat decent reputation lol) Just definitely wanted to avoid pissing the wrong people off if that becomes a potential future.

Though one could argue that you might be better off learning Blender while you're still new,

Blender scares me haha, I have 0 artistic talent and I'm not sure where I'd even start there. I've been decent at writing and I can type 120 wpm on a lazy day but as far as creating goes I'm down bad in that department. Couldn't even draw up my own tattoos

Also taking 79flavors words to heart with the rules and the literotica tips soon as my new HDD comes in I'm going to get started on that project and feel my way around DAZ/HS2 and find my comfort zone. The guides on the website for both are pretty great. I will check out those YouTube channels though too, also appreciate the extra resources.


If anything I said here influences anything differently feel free to let me know but otherwise thank you so much again!