Some thoughts on gamedev

[Echox2]

Hello everyone. I'm starting to work on some game dev stuff using Renpy to make an interesting game.

I'd like to focus on making a really great story and world, populated with some sexy scenarios based on fantasy tropes like elves and fairies and such. I would like the game to focus on magic and it's real-world applications and effects, all surrounding a sexy, adult story.

Anyway, I started a similar project two years ago, and I got caught up on art assets. I was using Honey Select to get general ideas about the characters' appearances, as I really like the style of it as a platform. But I thought it would end up looking cheap and boring if the models were Honey Select, though, and I feared what would happen if I continued using it, and being accused of "stealing art" and "laziness".

My question: does anyone CARE about using Honey Select models as long as the final product looks alright? I think it's better than some of the daz models I see, and I like to make all my characters really look different from each other, which is a trap I see many devs fall into when using Honey Select: everyone looks the same, just different hair/clothes/tits.

I'm not very good right now at drawing. I have a new Huion tablet I've been using, and I'm literally JUST learning how to draw. If I were to make my own assets, it would look like hot garbage for a long time before it gets even remotely alright.

Attached are some images and characters I whipped up a few years ago for the project.

Good vibes out,
EchoEcho

 

[u z i]

i don't see any problems using HS models. if the game and story is good, people will definitely like it. and there are a lot of good games with HS models(Waifu Academy being my favourite)

 

[Echox2]

i don't see any problems using HS models. if the game and story is good, people will definitely like it. and there are a lot of good games with HS models(Waifu Academy being my favourite)

Thank you for your input! I have lots of fun doing things with HS. I think I can get some really good poses and such out of it, and with good writing, I think it can turn out well.

Thank you, uzi! When I get stuff ready for a build, I'll be sure to send you a copy to see how you like it!

Good vibes out
EchoEcho

 

[riktor]

the art is really tertiary to a good story / mechanics for me. No issues with HS models.

 

[fitgirlbestgirl]

I've never seen a Honey Select game that appealed to me on any level, the art style is just off-putting to me. Even when it's "done right" the characters just look weird to me and I'd prefer even mediocre Daz renders to them. That being said there are successful Honey Select games, so it's just a matter of taste.

 

[Echox2]

the art is really tertiary to a good story / mechanics for me. No issues with HS models.

Thanks for the input, riktor. I appreciate you taking the time! I would also like to focus more heavily on story/mechanics. Even games that are really image-light have lots of popularity in this community, so I feel may people share your thought process.

I'd really like to focus on making an interesting, wonderful world for people to explore, which includes having some characters to "latch on to." I think having a good sense of the characters are helpful for getting the story out, but unfortunately my skills may not be well-suited to good physical humor. We'll have to see, of course!

Thank you again so much for responding, it means a lot to get some input.

Good vibes out,
EchoEcho

 

[Zachy]

Weeelp, I feel kinda identified with your post heh.
I'd say go ahead, try to design your characters in an unique way, messing up as much as you can with the sliders on the character creator. Also do your best on doing your character poses, and trust me, everything will be just fine.

Good luck!

 

[Echox2]

I've never seen a Honey Select game that appealed to me on any level, the art style is just off-putting to me. Even when it's "done right" the characters just look weird to me and I'd prefer even mediocre Daz renders to them. That being said there are successful Honey Select games, so it's just a matter of taste.

Thank you for responding, fitgirlbestgirl.

I know the HS models aren't for everyone. There is of course an audience for it, but it can't really be the same for everyone. I think that's how I feel about some of the bad daz work, to be honest. Especially when I see the same free characters that everyone seems to have. I tried noodling around in daz, but I never got anything to my liking. Didn't have a great user interface that I could understand. I'm sure it's really powerful, and I've seen some AMAZING work with daz. Though I personally haven't seen AMAZING work using HS... Maybe that should say something! haha

Thank you very much again for your input! I'll be sure to keep it in mind.

Good vibes out,
EchoEcho

 

[Echox2]

Weeelp, I feel kinda identified with your post heh.
I'd say go ahead, try to design your characters in an unique way, messing up as much as you can with the sliders on the character creator. Also do your best on doing your character poses, and trust me, everything will be just fine.

Good luck!

Thanks, Zachy! It's always good to speak with someone who can commiserate!

Yeah, I think as long as the characters don't look copy-pasted, and have personalities that can show in their poses, I shouldn't face TOO much of an issue. I can always edit some assets in and fiddle with the product, too. I have some Photoshop experience, so that should help me with editing.

Thank you again for your input, Zachy! Best of luck with your project! Infinity Dungeon looks interesting! Monster girls are always nice!

Good vibes out,
EchoEcho

 

[Zippity]

Hello everyone. I'm starting to work on some game dev stuff using Renpy to make an interesting game.

I'd like to focus on making a really great story and world, populated with some sexy scenarios based on fantasy tropes like elves and fairies and such. I would like the game to focus on magic and it's real-world applications and effects, all surrounding a sexy, adult story.

Anyway, I started a similar project two years ago, and I got caught up on art assets. I was using Honey Select to get general ideas about the characters' appearances, as I really like the style of it as a platform. But I thought it would end up looking cheap and boring if the models were Honey Select, though, and I feared what would happen if I continued using it, and being accused of "stealing art" and "laziness".

My question: does anyone CARE about using Honey Select models as long as the final product looks alright? I think it's better than some of the daz models I see, and I like to make all my characters really look different from each other, which is a trap I see many devs fall into when using Honey Select: everyone looks the same, just different hair/clothes/tits.

I'm not very good right now at drawing. I have a new Huion tablet I've been using, and I'm literally JUST learning how to draw. If I were to make my own assets, it would look like hot garbage for a long time before it gets even remotely alright.

Attached are some images and characters I whipped up a few years ago for the project.

Good vibes out,
EchoEcho

I think when it comes to HS, the problem you run into sometimes, is how similar the characters faces tend to look... Especially the male characters... It takes a lot of modifying to make more unique looking faces, properly proportioned bodies, and so on... 9 times out of 10, developers go with gargantuan breasts, huge butts, and micro waists... So completely un-natural looking... Not sure if it because of lazy character design, or people thinking that's all folks who play these things want to see that (which is so stereotypically wrong)... Plus HS default models tend to look a bit more like kids then adults, once again, depending on how you modify them...

As to the fairy's and so forth... Not sure I've seen too many successful small fairy sized models created with HS in any VN/Games I've played, that used HS models... The best looking fairy sized models I've seen were always with other 3D Modeling Software (i.e. daz, etc...)… Only times I've ever seen Fairies in a VN/Game using HS, they were the more human or child sized versions, not the small ones like tinkerbell and so on... Elves and such are doable, as I've seen them done alright... So of course HS probably handles them fine...

It really boils down to what you find is easier to use, fits within your budget, works well with your PC system, and what quality of models you want to go with... It's probably easier to do sex animations in HS because of all the pre-setup animation sequences already made and published for public use... Where as in Daz and so on, it takes a bit more effort, and/or money to get those kind of assets designed or pre-made by others...

I personally don't mind HS used in VN/Games when some attention is spent, on adding some unique flare and design... The only issue I've ever seen, is that with the animations, you never see text appear while they are animating, without it pausing the animation... Probably because of how some of these game engines handle the animation file playback... So you just see some sex animation play out over a given amount of time, with out any immersive text to go with it... Sure you can play the Japanese girl sex sounds, but they all sound the same and I find them to be boring and too darn fake... With text, you can add more flavor to a sex scene... HS doesn't handle that well with it's animation playbacks... At least not in most of the HS based VN/Games I've played or read...

Zip

 

[HarveyD]

There are people who dislike both HS and Daz for not being "truly original" art, but being able to draw stuff on the level of top tier artists takes a long time and hiring an artisit isn't usually an option for someone just starting out in their development.

Personally I've seen great stuff done with both. More so with Daz for obvious reasons. HS has a very almost anime kind of style and that isn't everyone's choice. But you can't please everyone. If working with HS is something you're happy with and you work to create good art then that's the path you should choose. Just as creating a story you dont like will wear on you, the same can be said for any software you use. The best kind of Dev is one who enjoys making his game, art included.

 

[Echox2]

I think when it comes to HS, the problem you run into sometimes, is how similar the characters faces tend to look... Especially the male characters... It takes a lot of modifying to make more unique looking faces, properly proportioned bodies, and so on... 9 times out of 10, developers go with gargantuan breasts, huge butts, and micro waists... So completely un-natural looking... Not sure if it because of lazy character design, or people thinking that's all folks who play these things want to see that (which is so stereotypically wrong)... Plus HS default models tend to look a bit more like kids then adults, once again, depending on how you modify them...

As to the fairy's and so forth... Not sure I've seen too many successful small fairy sized models created with HS in any VN/Games I've played, that used HS models... The best looking fairy sized models I've seen were always with other 3D Modeling Software (i.e. daz, etc...)… Only times I've ever seen Fairies in a VN/Game using HS, they were the more human or child sized versions, not the small ones like tinkerbell and so on... Elves and such are doable, as I've seen them done alright... So of course HS probably handles them fine...

It really boils down to what you find is easier to use, fits within your budget, works well with your PC system, and what quality of models you want to go with... It's probably easier to do sex animations in HS because of all the pre-setup animation sequences already made and published for public use... Where as in Daz and so on, it takes a bit more effort, and/or money to get those kind of assets designed or pre-made by others...

I personally don't mind HS used in VN/Games when some attention is spent, on adding some unique flare and design... The only issue I've ever seen, is that with the animations, you never see text appear while they are animating, without it pausing the animation... Probably because of how some of these game engines handle the animation file playback... So you just see some sex animation play out over a given amount of time, with out any immersive text to go with it... Sure you can play the Japanese girl sex sounds, but they all sound the same and I find them to be boring and too darn fake... With text, you can add more flavor to a sex scene... HS doesn't handle that well with it's animation playbacks... At least not in most of the HS based VN/Games I've played or read...

Zip

Zip, thank you so much for your response! I'm truly touched by the time you took to formulate and really think about the problem!

I think it will be quite difficult moving forward to use HS with any kind of certainty due to many of the issues you mentioned. I agree with you on the necessity of proper proportions and keeping things looking more unique and realistic than focusing on the monster proportions you mentioned, haha. You're absolutely right in that. I can't stand the crazy proportions on many of the games I see. I look at a poorly balanced person and immediately think, "where's her spine go? If she ate a grain of rice, I bet I'd see that in her stomach sticking out."

I downloaded some assets I found online, and some tools that I think will help with making characters look unique from each other, but cohesive in a world. I will admit I like the somewhat younger aesthetic that HS can offer, but I think it's a fine line between looking younger and looking illegal. Whatever you're into, no judgement form me, but I don't want to sexualize people who look like 12-13 year olds, and just "magic it away". I'll keep in mind the apparent age of the characters though thank you for the suggestion.

As far as faeries go, using HS I can shrink characters down in the editor, which will help. I can scale the characters to be no larger than a finger, to looking gargantuan. And by focusing on perspective and objects, I can't see that as much of a problem. But I'll keep an eye on it, thank you.

I find HS super easy to use, and I'm able to find a good amount of resources online to keep things looking different. I also have some skills in Photoshop and other editing software, so if I can't find what I'm looking for, I might be able to make something anyway, who knows!

Animation will be tricky. I want to use the RenPy engine, and while animation is possible using that, it's not ideal. At least for now, I may stick to some basic loops that play while text is happening, but the animation itself is somewhat out of my field right now. It's still very early in design, so I can always learn around it. Smarter people than myself have figured it out, and dumber people than myself have copied it well enough

Zip, thank you again for your input. It really does mean a lot. If you are interested, let me know and I will be sure to keep you abreast of how things are going. I can always use someone to bounce ideas off of. I think games and art are as much a service to it's audience as an expression of self, so I can always use some help talking with people who may be interested.

Good vibes out,
EchoEcho

 

[Echox2]

There are people who dislike both HS and Daz for not being "truly original" art, but being able to draw stuff on the level of top tier artists takes a long time and hiring an artisit isn't usually an option for someone just starting out in their development.

Personally I've seen great stuff done with both. More so with Daz for obvious reasons. HS has a very almost anime kind of style and that isn't everyone's choice. But you can't please everyone. If working with HS is something you're happy with and you work to create good art then that's the path you should choose. Just as creating a story you dont like will wear on you, the same can be said for any software you use. The best kind of Dev is one who enjoys making his game, art included.

Thank you very much, Harvey, for your response.

I can relate to what you wrote; two years ago I began a similar project, but tried to move to using Daz. I really couldn't understand the interface at all, and trying to use the models I had access to before I paid for it, just to see what I could do, was exhausting. The lack of art was one of the primary reasons I gave up, as I couldn't handle the idea that people viewed my work as 'stolen' or 'inauthentic'.

This time, thanks to people like you, I think I can push myself through. If one day I can transition to a new art style, I will. But for now, I think it'll be better to love what I am doing, and use it if it works. I will see the obstacles as challenges to be conquered, and develop something amazing!

Thank you again, Harvey. I'll keep your advice close to me.

Good vibes out,
EchoEcho

 

[fsap1]

There's a crowd for everything, you don't need to worry about that. I personally don't care if it's 2D, anime style, DAZ or HS as long as there's good content. Clicking around to watch sex scenes does nothing to me, there must be at least something going on. From the previews, I love your character design and the brief description got me interested, you can't go wrong with that kind of attention.

Sometimes I prefer HS games for the sheer amount of renders they have, the scenes flow much better as opposed to the single image scenes of 2D games, or the 3-4 images of DAZ scenes.

 

[Zippity]

Zip, thank you so much for your response! I'm truly touched by the time you took to formulate and really think about the problem!

I think it will be quite difficult moving forward to use HS with any kind of certainty due to many of the issues you mentioned. I agree with you on the necessity of proper proportions and keeping things looking more unique and realistic than focusing on the monster proportions you mentioned, haha. You're absolutely right in that. I can't stand the crazy proportions on many of the games I see. I look at a poorly balanced person and immediately think, "where's her spine go? If she ate a grain of rice, I bet I'd see that in her stomach sticking out."

I downloaded some assets I found online, and some tools that I think will help with making characters look unique from each other, but cohesive in a world. I will admit I like the somewhat younger aesthetic that HS can offer, but I think it's a fine line between looking younger and looking illegal. Whatever you're into, no judgement form me, but I don't want to sexualize people who look like 12-13 year olds, and just "magic it away". I'll keep in mind the apparent age of the characters though thank you for the suggestion.

As far as faeries go, using HS I can shrink characters down in the editor, which will help. I can scale the characters to be no larger than a finger, to looking gargantuan. And by focusing on perspective and objects, I can't see that as much of a problem. But I'll keep an eye on it, thank you.

I find HS super easy to use, and I'm able to find a good amount of resources online to keep things looking different. I also have some skills in Photoshop and other editing software, so if I can't find what I'm looking for, I might be able to make something anyway, who knows!

Animation will be tricky. I want to use the RenPy engine, and while animation is possible using that, it's not ideal. At least for now, I may stick to some basic loops that play while text is happening, but the animation itself is somewhat out of my field right now. It's still very early in design, so I can always learn around it. Smarter people than myself have figured it out, and dumber people than myself have copied it well enough

Zip, thank you again for your input. It really does mean a lot. If you are interested, let me know and I will be sure to keep you abreast of how things are going. I can always use someone to bounce ideas off of. I think games and art are as much a service to it's audience as an expression of self, so I can always use some help talking with people who may be interested.

Good vibes out,
EchoEcho

No problem... In the end, you should always go with that your comfortable with... It's your baby to mold and develop as you see fit... Just be creative, go at your own pace, don't be distracted by picky fans, don't get greedy, and have fun doing it... Otherwise, what's the point...

Zip

 

[HopesGaming]

There will always be a market for HS.

Asking it here will not give you much 'answers' as it is mostly preference based.
Hell, there are still a lot of people here who swear loyalty to "vn/erotic can only be anime!"
Or 2d drawings or whatever.
Then there are the ones that say 3d games should never look like anime style.

In the end, it is all preferences. Threads like these will only bring in people that are trying to mold new devs into making games exactly how they prefer it.

So as a dev, you should just go with what you yourself prefer or otherwise, you will end up burning out real quick.

Now personally, I just wish that the player base learned the difference in the time it takes to make renders and screenshot of a HS gameplay.
Nothing wrong with HS being able to do it fast, but when people go and say "this HS dev is making so many images while the other (daz dev etc) only do *this amount* per update!"
I remember I saw one new HS dev write in his description "I am not like all other devs that only do a few images per update. There will be tons of content per update."

Bitch, you pressing the screensaver button on your computer. Don't go and gloat about it.

 

[recreation]

Honestly I don't understand why so many people ask about this. Don't get this wrong, there is nothing wrong with asking for input, but in the end you are the one who has to decide what and how you want to do things. If you only go for what other people like, you might end up hating your own game. Do it the way you want to do it.

 

[polywog]

If you only go for what other people like, you might end up hating your own game. Do it the way you want to do it.

You must be registered to see the links

 

[Echox2]

There's a crowd for everything, you don't need to worry about that. I personally don't care if it's 2D, anime style, DAZ or HS as long as there's good content. Clicking around to watch sex scenes does nothing to me, there must be at least something going on. From the previews, I love your character design and the brief description got me interested, you can't go wrong with that kind of attention.

Sometimes I prefer HS games for the sheer amount of renders they have, the scenes flow much better as opposed to the single image scenes of 2D games, or the 3-4 images of DAZ scenes.

fsap, Thank so very much for the response!

I'm very happy to read your advice, as well as your kind words regarding the previews! I worked hard on them to get an idea of some of the many characters. I appreciate you taking the time.

I want to be focusing more on characterization and have a somewhat "typical" left side, right side VN dialogue, but I would also like to incorporate some larger full-screen renders and such. Someone else pointed out that it's a lot easier and faster than daz, so I'd like to incorporate "scenes" like that, too.

Either way, thanks again for the input.

Good vibes out,
EchoEcho

 

[Echox2]

There will always be a market for HS.

Asking it here will not give you much 'answers' as it is mostly preference based.
Hell, there are still a lot of people here who swear loyalty to "vn/erotic can only be anime!"
Or 2d drawings or whatever.
Then there are the ones that say 3d games should never look like anime style.

In the end, it is all preferences. Threads like these will only bring in people that are trying to mold new devs into making games exactly how they prefer it.

So as a dev, you should just go with what you yourself prefer or otherwise, you will end up burning out real quick.

Now personally, I just wish that the player base learned the difference in the time it takes to make renders and screenshot of a HS gameplay.
Nothing wrong with HS being able to do it fast, but when people go and say "this HS dev is making so many images while the other (daz dev etc) only do *this amount* per update!"
I remember I saw one new HS dev write in his description "I am not like all other devs that only do a few images per update. There will be tons of content per update."

Bitch, you pressing the screensaver button on your computer. Don't go and gloat about it.

Thank you for your input, Hopes. You obviously thought a great deal about the issue.

The purpose was not to get a definitive correct answer to the possibility of using Honey Select. I really was wondering what people's preferences were. That said, I am aware of the possibility of skewed results.

In the end, I wanted to make sure people weren't violently opposed to the idea of using HS over Daz or hand-drawn art. It seems most people are follow your lead, they don't mind the art style as much, but their expectations are a little higher insofar as content goes.

I think it is also something worth mentioning that the process is noticeably easier when using HS, so I would be expected to deliver something even more. I don't think it's a failure on the users who simply might not understand what is needed for both. I personally could NEVER use Daz. I'm not smart enough, haha. I have nothing but respect for people who really render scenes, using high-quality models and plenty of rigging that must take an eternity.

That said, I also don't want to use many of the poses that come with HS, as they seem to be very ubiquitous in similar games.

I'll keep your thoughts in mind. Thank you again, Hopes

Good vibes out,
EchoEcho