Stop aiming for photorealism!

[Sum Gi]

So, so many times I have seen games with presumably a great deal of work poured into them get absolutely obliterated by the uncanny valley. It seems clear to me now that small and solo devs are just incapable of pulling off fully photorealistic models without creating uncanny mannequin abominations. Adding even a slight element of stylization will not only save you from this terrible fate, it will make modeling take less work as well.

A truly staggering percentage of the games on this site with 3d graphics make me instantly recoil in horror, baffled by how anyone could possibly be turned on by something that would give silent hill monsters a run for their money in creep factor. But given how popular so many of these games are, it makes me wonder if I'm the only one.

What is your experience with the uncanny valley on this site? Do you feel it or not?

 

[hakarlman]

EDIT: It's interesting you brought up photorealism as your argument against uncanny valley. The more realistic the lighting gets, the more detail is required in your 3d model's textures and shaders. For example, if you have super realistic lighting, but no SSS on your characters skin, they will look like a mannequin. So it's possible to have a photorealistic 3d render without uncanny valley, but you have to know your shit, only 1-2% of porn game devs on this site know how to avoid the uncanny valley effect.

I was about to make a post, but i'd probably get an infraction point for it, so I decided not to make it. It was 20 sentences of me name calling and insulting 98% of porn game devs and the daz studio staff & its developers; insults they deserve, right to their face in real life, lol. There's many reasons why so many 3d renders are shit. Too many reasons sadly. The blame is on the porn game devs themselves and the incompetence of daz studio staff & its developers.

i use daz studio. I've used it for so fucking long I've come to see how shitty of a product it truly is. sadly, there's no viable replacement yet. Blender has massive potential, but it's still too advanced, that means it's good if you're part of a team, but if you're just the only dev, blender is too overwhelming still; especially if you need to code and story write on top of it. daz studio is more managed, but after 16 years, it's become a rather shitty product; it's only saving grace is Nvidia IRAY, everything else is complete shit. I doubt daz studio 5 will fix anything.

 

[Deleted member 5906836]

I was about to make a post, but i'd probably get an infraction point for it, so I decided not to make it. It was 20 sentences of me name calling and insulting 98% of porn game devs and the daz studio staff & its developers; insults they deserve, right to their face in real life, lol. There's many reasons why so many 3d renders are shit. Too many reasons sadly. The blame is on the porn game devs themselves and the incompetence of daz studio staff & its developers.

i use daz studio. I've used it for so fucking long I've come to see how shitty of a product it truly is. sadly, there's no viable replacement yet. Blender has massive potential, but it's still too advanced, that means it's good if you're part of a team, but if you're just the only dev, blender is too overwhelming still; especially if you need to code and story write on top of it. daz studio is more managed, but after 16 years, it's become a rather shitty product; it's only saving grace is Nvidia IRAY, everything else is complete shit. I doubt daz studio 5 will fix anything.

Daz studio is not for professionals, it's really obvious and not a new thing.
Just a bad posing program with fancy 3d models.

Real 3d programs such as Maya, Blender, you can still purchase assets from various sites such as TurboSquid.

 

[Meaning Less]

Because the only canny 3DCG alternative that is as easy to use right now is Honey Select/Koikatsu studio, but those don't officially allow people to sell games using images taken with them.

So any dev trying to sell their games and don't know how to use more advanced 3D tools is very much stuck with DAZ which is deep into the uncanny valley.

 

[anne O'nymous]

What is your experience with the uncanny valley on this site? Do you feel it or not?

Not a single game here sent me to the uncanny valley.

But it's because I'm old, and I've seen 3D being born, then slowly evolve. It need life for something to be able to send me there. Some robotic attempt send me to the uncanny valley, yes, but CG, no, they can't.
It would need a high level of quality, coupled to an absurd result (pose, facial expression, whatever) for this. But it's something that can only happen voluntarily. If you are good enough to reach a life-like quality for the rendering, then you are also good enough to not mess everything else in your CG.

This being said, I can understand that it do this to some persons.
The most frequent occurrence is probably the wet effect. Too often devs do it wrong, applying it raw, without taking the time to tweak the bump/normal map and roughness, what lead to this totally unrealistic uniformity. The full body looks like it's covered by a thin layer of water, what in real life only happen the fraction of second where you goes out of the water. Passed that fraction of second, there's no more uniformity, unlike what we see in too many games.
But, as I said, I'm old, I witnessed 3D CG pass from rough wireframe to ultra realism. What mean that I've seen those "bad visual" at a time where 3C characters themselves were far to have a realistic look. My brain learned to put this in the "it's totally fake" category, what isn't necessarily the case for younger peoples.

In the end, the uncanny valley is just the name gave to a particular kind of cognitive dissonance. And like for any cognitive dissonance, with time and after multiple expositions, the brain learn to deal with it and to accept it for what it really is.

 

[baloneysammich]

Not a single game here sent me to the uncanny valley.

Same here, although a lot of high budget Hollywood stuff does.

It's only when I'm almost fooled into believing the imagery is real, but it seems off in a way I can't describe or point out.

 

[Guntag]

If these games send you to the uncanny valley, I think you need to go out more and see what a real person looks like...

 

[xXx_BingChillin_xXx]

You can reach Blender level in DAZ with a little more practice, possibly beyond all the way down to skin pores and veins. This isn't 2018 anymore

 

[anne O'nymous]

Same here, although a lot of high budget Hollywood stuff does.

It's only when I'm almost fooled into believing the imagery is real, but it seems off in a way I can't describe or point out.

Same for me, but more with mid budget movies.

It's what I meant when I said that the CG needs life ; it need to move, breath, blink and so on, for it to possibly send me to the uncanny valley.
For humans, being perfectly still is not something natural. We constantly move, but it's generally really small movements, that we don't notice, but that can be missing if there weren't enough markers for the motion capture, and our brain will notice this. For it, it will be alive every time it effectively move, then become a statue each time it stop moving.
The most difficult to translate in a movie is probably eyes movements. We don't pass our time fixing a point, our eyes moves constantly. Once again it's something that we don't perceive because it's near to insignificant, but our brain can notice if if the camera zoom enough on the visage and for long enough. It will not be able to tell us what's wrong, but it perceived the eyes fixity. Same for the lack of breathing by example.

 

[kason42]

You can reach Blender level in DAZ with a little more practice, possibly beyond all the way down to skin pores and veins. This isn't 2018 anymore

Hello
I just checked out your game it looks pretty cool. I have a few questions.
1. Can you tell me how you go about designing your characters? (Specifically females)
2. Do you use genesis models and make changes or create from scratch?
3. How many years have you been working on 3D modelling and which softwares do you use?
4. What do you think of RPGM?
5. Any tips for some who wants to make a game with models that have high level of detail (realistic)?

 

[Orc Wizard]

What is your experience with the uncanny valley on this site? Do you feel it or not?

I'm with you brother, I also recoil in disgust whenever I scroll the mouse over a game's title only to see that the preview is in 3d graphics, I can't imagine how many people actually play them and think they're minimally good enough for a single wank, I rather having a game with only text and allowing my imagination flow rather than looking at those abominations

 

[Deleted member 2595272]

It's not about 3d or 2d.
I hate daz3d and anime style drawings because they are bad and everywhere.

 

[Fate stay]

More photorealism please ✨

 

[Sum Gi]

You can reach Blender level in DAZ with a little more practice, possibly beyond all the way down to skin pores and veins. This isn't 2018 anymore

Oh sure, you can create perfectly lovely models in Daz. Then you try to apply even the slightest facial expression and they instantly devolve into 90 year old grandmas and finally lovecraftian abominations. There's a reason so many devs have to resort to leaving every girl a blank, emotionless doll.