Why are animations important?

[Winterfire]

One thing I notice being asked in almost every game thread is animations.
"Does this game have animations?" "Will it have animations?" "Are animations planned?", no matter if the game is 2D or 3D, animations are asked for quite often.

I was always kind of curious, but I never paid too much heed on why people are so interested in animations, until today.
I was looking through F95Zone threads when I noticed a comment in a game thread going something like "Animations would be cool, even if they were a few frames looped".

I thought to myself "Wait, for real?", a few frames looped would be kind of ugly in my mind, at that point I would prefer the CGs to be static.
Then again, I have played quite a few Japanese titles and animations are really rare there (none of the titles I have played had animations), I have grown accustomed to static CGs so I see no special charm in animations, yet I seem to be the only one thinking this.

So solve this doubt of mine, why are animations so special to you? Why do you find 2-3 second looped animations so much better or even prefer a few frames animations over a static CG?

 

[Avaron1974]

They aren't.

They take a hell of a long time to do slowing down development drastically where one scene can take up to several days to get right.

If animations aren't smooth they completely ruin the game or at the very least the scene. Take Dreams of Desire, those animations are fucking terrible and every single scene is shit. I have never managed to finish that game because watching two awkwardly positioned mannequins being slapped together during an 80's strobe light disco is the least sexy thing i've ever witnessed.

Unfortunately not many devs have the time or ability to get them right so you get the wail of the fool in every game saying "need animations" and then we get shit like those in DoD and scenes that look fucking terrible.

Fortunately some of the devs that can't animate have to sense to say no and stick to it rather than ruin their own game but some still do think those horrible stop frame janky looking abominations are acceptable.

 

[whippetmaster]

I would guess that they want to have the animation loop so they can use both hands to fap. Maybe some members use the "indian burn" method of fapping? Joking aside, I think it's to free up the hands while a "porno" is playing.

 

[Winterfire]

I would guess that they want to have the animation loop so they can use both hands to fap. Maybe some members use the "indian burn" method of fapping? Joking aside, I think it's to free up the hands while a "porno" is playing.

They can still fap to a still CG though, as opposed to a few frames looping which would be distracting or are some people unable to fap to still images? The latter would actually make sense, although I am unsure if such a thing is possible.

 

[whippetmaster]

They probably don't need both hands but it helps to "finish it!". You know, the mortal combo of a 2 handed smackdown on that thing.

 

[Sphere42]

To me animations primarily enhance specific aspects of the content at least if done reasonably well. "Jiggle physics" are often cited even outside the porn sphere but many components of sex are inherently dynamic: hard&fast vs. slow&gentle, cumshots and squirting, spanking, throat and belly bulges plus many more. Sure static FX can convey most of those but they would be visible in the static preview screenshots of the OP.

Animations in addition to the same amount and quality of other content also objectively represent a greater "production value" i.e. invested effort. Which of course does not always translate to greater enjoyability.

And for a more cynical view, in the current oversaturated market of static 3D renders and minor variation CGs animations represent a deviation from the norm, a novelty which to some people holds value for that alone.

 

[baneini]

Animations aren't important as they break the flow of the game, look shit, are too short, are technically poorly implemented making game lag to load them or are unskippable.
I assume they're favored by younger people who need most help with forming an idea due to lack of preset knowledge in their brains. Thats why they ask questions that could be answered by playing the game, because they're dumb or unable to source information on their own. Maybe it's a mobile user thing, idk.

 

[anne O'nymous]

I thought to myself "Wait, for real?", a few frames looped would be kind of ugly in my mind, at that point I would prefer the CGs to be static.

It all depend what the animation are. If it's sex animations, yes it would be totally shitty (as Avaron1974 explaind it), but it's not the only moment when animations can be added to the game. Take a game like Heavy Five by example, there's few animations inside, actually all not related to anything sexual, and they really help to dynamism the story.
For those kind of animations, few frames looped can be enough, if they are neither too shitty, nor too long. They would easily replace and improve, the usual sprite shaking that can be found in traditional VN, by example.
They can also be used for something totally different, not trying to mimic life, but just showing the time passing. Take the classical, "oh, mom is showering, I'll look", then you've a ten minutes long internal monologue where the MC explain again how his mom body make him hard and how he'll bang her hard the day he'll grow some balls... while the mother don't move a single muscle. Few frames looped, with an average delay (1 or 2 seconds between each) would already be a great improvement for this kind of scene.

Then again, I have played quite a few Japanese titles and animations are really rare there (none of the titles I have played had animations), I have grown accustomed to static CGs so I see no special charm in animations, yet I seem to be the only one thinking this.

You aren't the only one, but for every one who, like you, grown with static CG, there's one person who grown with flash puppeteer animations.

 

[Jessie_Q]

Because it's the year 2020 and we have the technology for it and there's no real reason not to have long, non-2-second-loop, well-made, good looking animations?

 

[おい！]

Probably because the best developers use animations for example Illusion and Umemaro.

 

[Zippity]

One thing I notice being asked in almost every game thread is animations.
"Does this game have animations?" "Will it have animations?" "Are animations planned?", no matter if the game is 2D or 3D, animations are asked for quite often.

I was always kind of curious, but I never paid too much heed on why people are so interested in animations, until today.
I was looking through F95Zone threads when I noticed a comment in a game thread going something like "Animations would be cool, even if they were a few frames looped".

I thought to myself "Wait, for real?", a few frames looped would be kind of ugly in my mind, at that point I would prefer the CGs to be static.
Then again, I have played quite a few Japanese titles and animations are really rare there (none of the titles I have played had animations), I have grown accustomed to static CGs so I see no special charm in animations, yet I seem to be the only one thinking this.

So solve this doubt of mine, why are animations so special to you? Why do you find 2-3 second looped animations so much better or even prefer a few frames animations over a static CG?

In all reality, they are not really a necessity... For me they are just a nice addition, if done well... If not done well, they can be more of a detraction from the quality of the product as a whole... When there are no animations, I do like to see erotic encounters last more then just a tiny handful of still images and then the encounter is over, smoke em if ya got'em... If sticking to a minute number of images, at least play out the event with lots of story text to fill in some of the blanks... But it is what it is...

There are many varying reasons some folks may continuously request or beg or whine for animations:

1 - Some folks don't want to think too hard, and fill in the blanks as it were, with their own imaginations, between the various still images during an erotic scene... Instead, they wan't the developer to do most of the thinking for them...

2 - Some folks are not big readers in the first place, and grew up on TV and Movies, and it's hard to go from live action porn to a cartoon/animation style format of still images as their only way of seeing a visual representation of an erotic encounter...

3 - Some folks are perhaps spoiled by the few VN/Games that have done animations very well, and now want to see it more often in other VN/Games... Even though it is quite possible that not all developers have the resources or know how to develop animations as good as what has been done by others...

4 - Some folks, as was mentioned already by some other members, need all their available digits, to get down to business, and having to click a mouse button or press a key to go from one still image to another as an erotic event plays out, is too encumbering/annoying...

One issue I see creeping into existence recently is the addition of annoying animations just for the sake of adding some animation, probably in order to tag the VN/Game as having animation... A cheap gimmick to pull in readers/players with the promise of animation, rather then being used as a tool to put more meaningful content into the product... Things such as characters that have very short repeating animations as though they are swaying or breathing while some dialogue is occurring, is completely unnecessary and in many cases looks annoying... Or two still images of characters ramming into and out of each other while nothing else about them moves or animates at all... And the list goes on...

Zip

 

[The Architect]

I believe if a game uses a visual media, then well made animations will always improve the experience. But, of course, if the dev does not have good skills in lightning setup and character posing for simple stills, then trying to animate anything will make things even worse.

I mean, a game full of well made stills is much better than one with poorly made animations. But I believe a game with well made animation is richer than one with only well made stills.

There are several techniques to add animations in a game (pre-rendered, realtime 2D, frame sheet, etc) and none of them is easy. Each one has its pros and cons, and some engines has better support than others..

 

[Droid Productions]

I tend to use animations more for 'cutscene events' in-game, rather than just for sex, and even when I use it there I spend a lot of energy trying to fight Daz render-times.


I do feel a well placed animation can improve immersion and help illustrate things better for the user; it's however a tradeoff between that, and the additional work involved in setting them up.

I think a lot of users just want

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, though, which is just 30 frames of animation. Significantly easier to make, no effects needed, and the whole thing is just two keyframes (though in retrospect I wish I'd done something different with her eyes).

 

[fidless]

I think a lot of users just want

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, though, which is just 30 frames of animation. Significantly easier to make, no effects needed, and the whole thing is just two keyframes (though in retrospect I wish I'd done something different with her eyes).

This just doesn't look good at all. I'd prefer a still renders with more variation.

 

[The Architect]

I think a lot of users just want

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, though, which is just 30 frames of animation. Significantly easier to make, no effects needed, and the whole thing is just two keyframes (though in retrospect I wish I'd done something different with her eyes).

You can't simulate natural motion with only 2 keyframes. It may work with styled cartoons, but it looks uncanny and fake with photo-realistic shading. Bones in a human body move at different speeds, and simple interpolation of two full body poses feels unnatural. Also, our brains cringe when it can't see physics acting. You need to do a minimal simulation of inertia and impacts: hair swing, neck twitching, etc...

 

[Droid Productions]

You can't simulate natural motion with only 2 keyframes. It may work with styled cartoons, but it looks uncanny and fake with photo-realistic shading. Bones in a human body move at different speeds, and simple interpolation of two full body poses feels unnatural. Also, our brains cringe when it can't see physics acting. You need to do a minimal simulation of inertia and impacts: hair swing, neck twitching, etc...

You can't really do 30 seconds of animation by reusing 30 frames, no matter how you screw with it. Secondary animations is only part of it, facial emotions should change, blinking, differential movement, etc. But when 30 frames take 9 hrs, doing 9,000 frames become unreasonable. Anyway, it plays in the background while dialog is happening for 4 dialog sequences. It's good enough for what it needs to be.

I didn't say this was amazing art; I said "this appears to be the kind of thing they want". Read into that what you want.

 

[The Architect]

You can't really do 30 seconds of animation by reusing 30 frames, no matter how you screw with it. Secondary animations is only part of it, facial emotions should change, blinking, differential movement, etc. But when 30 frames take 9 hrs, doing 9,000 frames become unreasonable. Anyway, it plays in the background while dialog is happening for 4 dialog sequences. It's good enough for what it needs to be.

I didn't say this was amazing art; I said "this appears to be the kind of thing they want". Read into that what you want.

Not trying to bash your art. Sorry if it it sounded like that.
Also I didn't wanted to say you need more seconds of animation, only more keyframes with bones moving independently.

This is the amount of keyframes I use in a 174 frames sex animation loop in Blender. I remember animation timeline UI being terrible in both DAZ and Poser though. Maybe this is the reason most people stick with a lot less keyframes.

 

[Droid Productions]

Not trying to bash your art. Sorry if it it sounded like that.
Also I didn't wanted to say you need more seconds of animation, only more keyframes with bones moving independently.

This is the amount of keyframes I use in a 174 frames sex animation loop in Blender. I remember animation timeline UI being terrible in both DAZ and Poser though. Maybe this is the reason most people stick with a lot less keyframes.

Yeah, Daz is a mess. I know you were giving good advice, and I totally agree with it. Secondary animations are key to selling the experience (as well as things like weight and motion). Daz is... not the ideal animation package, and the iteration time is a major hurdle.

For animations I actually care about I have gone back and re-rendered; this specific one is a random throw-away that's used as background animation during a sex-scene for ~20 seconds of text. It was also a test on a few things (ping-ponging the animations, re-timing animations, and using the basic OpenGL view to previs stuff). Both the retiming and the ping-ponging would screw with secondary animations.

More importantly, and this was the point I was trying to make, users seem more excited about that animation than they were with the non-sex animation, which I spent far more time on. As a programmer, I'm quite proud of the the Portal animation, I think it came out close to what I envisioned. The blowjob animation (apart from turning my PC into a space-heater for 9 hrs) took only 30 mins to set up.

 

[fidless]

Sorry, I didn't mean to bash your work either. Daz3d animations are too robotic for me, but it's pretty understandable. They take time and the tool is far too imperfect for that use. Hard to make blender quality animation and still manage to create a good amount of content every month.
Those fine blender animations with many frames, liquids, and physics all over the place probably take weeks or months to make. Too much for solo game dev who has to make a lot of content every month. It's unreasonable to demand for such quality. I'd prefer pictures filled with different layers and SFX for daz3d game. Saves time and still looks good.

 

[Sinfall Studios]

For me I'd prefer the devs to focus more on better quality art/renders and better writing, at the moment these are far more preferable to animations