SiteRip what's preferred? Animation or stills?

[Dorraken]

Working on a Visual Novel with a 0.01 release planned late October, the art is being done by my partner and I'm doing the coding.

And the genuine question is this.

If you're playing a dating sim/corruption/trainer game, what would you prefer? Higher detailed still images for the sex scenes or slightly lower detailed but animated sex scenes?

 

[Winterfire]

There are many such questions with lengthy discussions already:
https://f95zone.to/threads/is-animation-important-in-the-game.147288/
https://f95zone.to/threads/how-essential-are-animations.234191/
https://f95zone.to/threads/do-h-scenes-really-need-to-be-animated.192784/

In general, if you can make a pretty animation, it's preferred.
We'd need an example of "higher detailed stills" vs "slightly lower detailed", as it highly depends by your definition of higher detailed and how "slightly lowered" it would be as an animation.

You can also do both... You could have animated sex scenes, then for the important/key moments, you can have a beautifully detailed still. Not sure what a "key moment" would be in your game specifically though.

 

[Doorknob22]

On your first project focus on what's easier and faster for you. If you aim for perfection on your first project, you might end up biting more than you can chew, despairing and eventually giving up. So while I do believe that more people prefer animation than stills, my answer is again: what's easier and faster for you.

Personally, when I first started my game it had only stills but after a year or so I started adding animations. Now I spend a few months to add animations to earlier scenes, which is fun both for me and for long time fans who will enjoy a revisit to characters and scenes, but in a much improved format.

Good luck!

 

[AIMzheimer]

I think both things are very important.

 

[lfgals1]

I think that having a visual style that looks good with less detail can easily match a more detailed style in terms of visual appeal even before you factor in whether it moves or not.

Like folks above said, it would help to see some examples. If someone is just downgrading an attempt at a photorealistic pin up its gonna look messy. If its already cartoony then lost detail doesn't hurt that bad.

 

[balitz Method]

Animation isn't one of those things I see as necessary. It's nice to have if the game can afford to do it, but if I were to prioritize I'd put an appealing UI, a unique artstyle, and polished writing over animations when it comes to a visual novel.

I see a lot of first-timers making the mistake of trying to have all the fancy stuff straight out of the gate and more often than not it just bloats the file size and forces the dev to rely on generated images. I wish more western devs would follow the japanese model and focus on getting a few games completed, building up a following, and using funds to then improve the way new games look and play rather than trying to hook in patrons on a forever-game.

 

[That other person]

It really does depend on what you mean with "lower detailed animations" and I need more detail about it... Is it 3D is it 2D? I personally am all good with stills if they look really good, but I would absolutely like an animation, assuming it looks great, smooth and is looped nicely. I hate the frame by frame thing some people do, where they go through like five frames of sex back and forth, it looks hideous. I understand the why, but I don't like it.

Now... it's quality over quantity always, so just go with what will maintain quality and won't kill your artist lol. A smooth animation is hard to do, that's why people freak out when they see a smooth one. But a good looking still is still (heh) something to praise.

If the artstyle is good, then you absolutely can get away with having only stills, that's completely okay. A lot of games here that are actually good only have stills. It's not just about being fancy, the visual style can make wonders!

Look at this game. Insexual Awakening. The art is simple enough, the animations are nice but not like the smoothest things in the world. The game has a charm to its style and it's one of my favorites. It's not extremely high detailed or anything, but it's pleasant to the eyes and colorful. It works without being super fancy.

There's a sequel I think... but it's lacking that style and even I am so annoyed by it. The charm is gone! That's why artstyle is more important.