why the lack of custom 3D models? Rant and solution

[dabuty]

Hello, Im interested to know if people care about custom 3D models.

I am a 3D artist that did a master on Animation and now Im building a portfolio on modeling. During this pandemic I started to do a lot of 2D nsfw drawings. And I noticed that my recet sculpt have much better anatomy than what I used to do 3 years ago when i did my general 3D course.

In all this time I have discovered this site, that I have seen that focused deeply on RenPy games and Daz 3D. I have tried both. And I get why people use them, they are easy to access for starting out. But as person that loves games and really likes NSFW art. I just dont really understand why most of the adult games are with the same models and they are just visual novels.

So my question comes back again. Does making custom sculpted and rigged models for Blender or Maya or any other software than Daz3D) makes any sense to work on a game here?

I would love to take part on a team that makes a game that doesnt use the same Daz elements and looks the same as every game. I would love to make a game that is not a visual novel. I dont really hate them but I dont enjoy "playing" them. i just fell them as a comic book that has been called a game.

I dont know if my feelings towards Daz and VN is going to be shared. But if you love them, Its ok. I dont blame you. I'm just a bit tired of them.

The request for 3D artist in the job section, well its a bit depressing, each post I see is another smart person trying to get someone to pose a model on DAZ and do a million renders a day for a patreon campain. No real game behind or not even a decent plan on the discussion.

Truthfully I just wold like to sculpt some custom characters that have meaning, personality and great amount of care behind them. If you want a game filled with MILFs and sexy neighbours or whatever your game needs. I think its much better selling point to have you own custom made models.

Thanks for reading my rant about all of this. I would love to read your opinion

 

[mickydoo]

Lack of custom models is simple, most people do not know the fundamentals of 3d modelling. Mine are all custom, but it takes me fucking ages and as opposed to most people I have a background in 3d modelling. When I say that, I have always been a bit of a hack at it, but I know the theory behind it.

So my models are unique.

My coding is like three year old, I have got better at it over the years but it's still very basic.

I make the best render I can, and yes it is pretty good, then I look at the art thread here and cringe at mine, as I have no artistic/photoshop skills above the basics.

My story telling has improved, but I will never be a master orator. I can keep in interesting but that's my limit.

My UI is horrible.

What I am trying to say is, everyone has a different skillset, I can sit down for days making a model, I can't code for more than hour without getting the shits.

 

[Avaron1974]

I don't expect amateur devs doing this as a hobby to know how to make custom 3d models.

I can appreciate those that do make their own but I won't lose any sleep because some can't.

As long as the stories are decent and characters at least have some thought to they personalities I can live with it.

 

[megaplayboy10k]

I take your point, but on the other hand there's a LOT of custom body morphs for DAZ character models, there's dozens or hundreds of character models, lots of skin textures and tools for making your own custom skins.

And the characters are already rigged and have a universe of "accessories"(hair, clothing, etc.) available for them.

 

[dabuty]

Thanks for the reply, I understand that people have different skill sets. I see that a lot of people here have a lot of ideas of different stories and that is why they use renPy.

I undertand that peple with limited skill sets go and use the tool that give the most for new users.
But Im impressed that I dont really see any conversation talking about Blender or Game mechanics. There might be some rare thread out there but is not the common thing to talk about here.

When people build a game that they want to sell or to crowd fund, they rarely ask for people to create unique things. Instead of hiring specific experts on an area, I see that they go for a huge amount of renders with that DAZ look.

When i say the DAZ look, i think other people see it as well, right?. Its an art style that is trying to be realistic but doesn't get there and looks CG fake. With everything perfectly in focus, sharp lights, sometimes over specularity on the skin making it look like plastic or wet. I dont know if Im crazy but I find it really easy to tell if it's a DAZ render. And I tend not to try that game out just for that.

Dont you want to tell your stories in a way that is visually different from everyone else? Or even introduce a mechanic that is someone cool to play?

 

[dabuty]

I take your point, but on the other hand there's a LOT of custom body morphs for DAZ character models, there's dozens or hundreds of character models, lots of skin textures and tools for making your own custom skins.

And the characters are already rigged and have a universe of "accessories"(hair, clothing, etc.) available for them.

Yeah, i undertand that is a HUGE thing. Getting a lot of pre made assets is a life saver. But Out of all the indie game comunity. Here in the NSFW games is rare to see a game that tries to be unique and use things outside of DAZ.
I dont blame people for using it.
But i would love to see a greater number of games that look different from each other. That would be a nice thing to see, no?

 

[megaplayboy10k]

This was done with DAZ studio(not by ME, obviously)

 

[dabuty]

View attachment 1079342

This was done with DAZ studio(not by ME, obviously)

Yes I know that there are people that can use DAZ and produce amazing realistic renders. But I haven't seen any game have that quality.
And If you cant have that quality of realism on your game. I think it might be a good idea to try to archive a different art style. Something more stylized. And DAZ doesn't really help with that, all the assets you find for DAZ are photorealistic.

SO my question of the thread was, Do people want a 3D modeler? Do they need models or they are good with the DAZ models?

 

[megaplayboy10k]

Yes I know that there are people that can use DAZ and produce amazing realistic renders. But I haven't seen any game have that quality.
And If you cant have that quality of realism on your game. I think it might be a good idea to try to archive a different art style. Something more stylized. And DAZ doesn't really help with that, all the assets you find for DAZ are photorealistic.

SO my question of the thread was, Do people want a 3D modeler? Do they need models or they are good with the DAZ models?

I'd break that down into two categories. Yes, there may well be devs who need unique 3d character models, complete with rigging(though I understand that Blender has plugins so you don't have to work completely from scratch). Secondarily, sometimes a dev may need some kind of unique prop. I have wanted a freaky looking giant bed with carved figurines, a specialized "pimp cane" with some kind of elaborate markings, and so forth. Those are definitely things that a good 3d modeler could bring to the table for a developer.

 

[Mimir's Lab]

Ease of access and lack of modelers with unique and interesting art styles. You ask why aren't many devs asking for different art styles, you should be asking why aren't people with different art styles offering up their services. If there were a good variety of artists, there'd be a good variety of requests for different artstyles. Even if it was the case that artists would offer their services, one aspect you haven't thought of is the incredibly high turnover rate for artists in this incredibly niche industry. It's hard to get a binding contract to work in an industry where people want to remain anonymous. If I hire or sign on an artist with a unique style and he decides he wants to bail out on us out of nowhere, now I have to find a replacement that can replicate that art style. This is as opposed to just using Daz where your replacement prospects are much easier to find.

 

[Luderos]

Dont you want to tell your stories in a way that is visually different from everyone else? Or even introduce a mechanic that is someone cool to play?

I think almost everyone would say yes, all things being equal. But they're never equal... Generally speaking (though there are probably a handful of exceptions), fully custom 3d art wouldn't be worth it for a visual novel, so you're basically only talking to people who are willing and able to handle the non-art part of a 3d game. That's already a very small % of developers (some of which are already using custom models), so are you basically trying to sell devs on moving from VNs to full 3d games with custom assets? That's a very big gap.

However, as someone who's currently working on a fully 3d game which could really benefit from custom assets, here's my take. I would love to have a fully capable art director partner on the project, but that would mean someone who could take care of all art aspects. If I just wanted custom models, I could outsource them, but even so, consider what you're asking from the other side:

How long would it take for you to make a game's worth of fully game-ready assets from the ground up, including characters, clothes, animations, environments, etc.? Are you really that eager to sign onto a multi-year project to do all of the above work with no guarantee of ever seeing a return on your effort? You'd also be asking me to trust that you'd continue to work and stay productive over the entire project since building everything around your assets wouldn't make it a very nice process to either replace them or find someone else who's happy and able to do comparable work. Joining a team is a huge commitment from both sides, and people often do so far too lightly.

Even if all of the above worked out, I don't necessarily think that it's a clear win for every game. Even if someone could instantly replace all of their pre-built assets for yours, it wouldn't improve every game. It would really depend on a combination of the game, your art style, and the expectations of the audience.

I think if I were in your shoes, I would either try to join an established team that's already working on something that fits your preferred art style, or try to work up a game concept along with the initial style and assets. Then you could recruit a programmer/team to work with you instead of the other way around, and you'd get to make exactly the art that you want to make.

 

[KurtS]

Sorry for my bad English.
The problem here is not in DAZ, but in people. The creator has an ideal of a sexual female in his head, based not on aesthetics or observing people, but on fetishes.
Standard big eyes, small nose, botox lips and huge ass and breasts, even if it's a high school girl. This is a bad legacy of anime culture, because in Japanese society, individuality is completely denied. You should definitely play a role in society, not be yourself.
Fetishes are most often taken from other visual novels, which is why so many characters in different games look exactly the same.
In fact, in DAZ you can make individual characters and you don't need to be an artist for this. I take a photo of a suitable model from the Internet and try to make it at least a little similar, the main thing is the eyes, nose and face shape. Living people, even the most famous beauties, movie and porn stars, differ in that he is not entirely perfect. If you make an ideal, then 100% you will not get an individual living character, but a lifeless doll from a sex shop.

In DAZ I only make character models with poses and clothes and export them to a blender. I create scenes with the environment in a Blender.
The Blender has huge advantages over DAZ.
1. High-quality and many times faster rendering with good lighting, shadows, reflection and depth of field. No need to wait for hours and have an expensive graphics card. Everything is done by not the most modern processor at all. Sex scene with two characters - 2 minutes. Outdoor scene with realistic grass (instead of flat texture), trees and reflections 10-20 minutes.
2. Lots of inexpensive plugins that greatly speed up development.
3. Very inexpensive and high quality assets. For a $ 10 Blender, I can buy an entire room with furniture, which can then be modified, such as changing textures and reusing it many times. At DAZ, this money will only be enough for one chair.
4. Render Post Processing This is called compositing. No photoshop or similar programs needed. Set up once and use in many scenes. It saves a lot of time.
5. I can make my own assets, from simple furniture to entire houses, instead of buying. It is better to buy something that takes a lot of time to create.

The only thing I can't do with Blender is fast character creation. I tried Makehuman and MB-Labs, but there are problems with clothes, poses and expressions.

 

[fitgirlbestgirl]

Dont you want to tell your stories in a way that is visually different from everyone else?

No. Not if being different means double or triple the work or the cost. Also, I actually have no problem with the way DAZ renders look, at least when they're done by somebody halfway competent. There is a huge difference between babby's first DAZ render and a meticulously set up render by somebody who has an eye for shot composition and lighting.

 

[wyldstrykr]

stupid question: if all 3d looks the same, why make it 2d instead? if you want to make story appealing, then using 3d or 2d doesnt matter at all or people prefer 3d games instead?

 

[dabuty]

Ease of access and lack of modelers with unique and interesting art styles. You ask why aren't many devs asking for different art styles, you should be asking why aren't people with different art styles offering up their services. If there were a good variety of artists, there'd be a good variety of requests for different artstyles. Even if it was the case that artists would offer their services, one aspect you haven't thought of is the incredibly high turnover rate for artists in this incredibly niche industry. It's hard to get a binding contract to work in an industry where people want to remain anonymous. If I hire or sign on an artist with a unique style and he decides he wants to bail out on us out of nowhere, now I have to find a replacement that can replicate that art style. This is as opposed to just using Daz where your replacement prospects are much easier to find.

Ok, you where saying that there are a lack of artists offering their services as modelers. I can see that is completely true, I havent see any other modeler around here.
But at the same time you are saying that you dont want someone with unique style. Because that is going to cause you more trouble.
And that is something I dont really understand. The style shouldnt be decided by a modeler. It should be stablished by the art direction of the project. The question at hand is who wears that hat. In a small team of 1 or 2 I could be decided by voting. The art style can just be a folder filled with references. Once the models are made the art style is set for anyone else coming after to either just work with that model or just trying to replicate what was done before.
I think that is a good solution for a limited team.

You are also right that it would be harder to find another modeler in a place that lacks them. But I think most projects trade a unique look and feel for just being able to replace the artist as quickly as possible. I believe that the games that try to be their own unique look have a much better chance of grabbing the attention of the public and making big amounts of money.

 

[dabuty]

I think almost everyone would say yes, all things being equal. But they're never equal... Generally speaking (though there are probably a handful of exceptions), fully custom 3d art wouldn't be worth it for a visual novel, so you're basically only talking to people who are willing and able to handle the non-art part of a 3d game. That's already a very small % of developers (some of which are already using custom models), so are you basically trying to sell devs on moving from VNs to full 3d games with custom assets? That's a very big gap.

However, as someone who's currently working on a fully 3d game which could really benefit from custom assets, here's my take. I would love to have a fully capable art director partner on the project, but that would mean someone who could take care of all art aspects. If I just wanted custom models, I could outsource them, but even so, consider what you're asking from the other side:

How long would it take for you to make a game's worth of fully game-ready assets from the ground up, including characters, clothes, animations, environments, etc.? Are you really that eager to sign onto a multi-year project to do all of the above work with no guarantee of ever seeing a return on your effort? You'd also be asking me to trust that you'd continue to work and stay productive over the entire project since building everything around your assets wouldn't make it a very nice process to either replace them or find someone else who's happy and able to do comparable work. Joining a team is a huge commitment from both sides, and people often do so far too lightly.

Even if all of the above worked out, I don't necessarily think that it's a clear win for every game. Even if someone could instantly replace all of their pre-built assets for yours, it wouldn't improve every game. It would really depend on a combination of the game, your art style, and the expectations of the audience.

I think if I were in your shoes, I would either try to join an established team that's already working on something that fits your preferred art style, or try to work up a game concept along with the initial style and assets. Then you could recruit a programmer/team to work with you instead of the other way around, and you'd get to make exactly the art that you want to make.

Yeah, you are absolutely right about being a huge thing. But I believe that is called indie game dev. I dont know how other teams get founds to go a year without making profit with a all inhouse made game, except for the game engine. I know that they do, and they make indy games with custom art and assets.

Im interested on knowing how are you approaching making a full 3D game. And what you would need in order to complete your game, in an ideal world that you have all the resources available.

 

[Luderos]

Yeah, you are absolutely right about being a huge thing. But I believe that is called indie game dev. I dont know how other teams get founds to go a year without making profit with a all inhouse made game, except for the game engine. I know that they do, and they make indy games with custom art and assets.

Im interested on knowing how are you approaching making a full 3D game. And what you would need in order to complete your game, in an ideal world that you have all the resources available.

Sure, some indie games do great, but overall they have an incredible failure rate. The potential upside for a non-adult indie game is probably higher, but at least for the games here, there's some chance that Patreon can partially fund your team along the way. In normal indie world, people just have to find some way to not starve for however long it takes to complete their initial Steam release. And the failure rate is far worse than any of the articles looking at Steam stats would suggest since I would guess the vast majority of attempts are abandoned before ever getting close to a proper release. At least here we get the benefit of being able to see lots of the 0.1s to counter the survivor bias a bit.

Not sure what exactly you mean by how I approach things, but I'm using pre-built assets with a shit ton of blendshapes and as much tweaking as my completely non-artist self can manage. I spent an embarrassingly long time learning, tinkering, and testing to get a usable workflow going, but now my bottleneck is more on the feature implementation side instead of the art side.

 

[DuniX]

Custom models is possible to see for Realtime 3D games like from Unreal Engine, although it's likely they are using some sort of Character Maker anyway.
The reason DAZ 3D is used in the first place is people do not have the budget for it, especially not for a VN, and there is no need either.
Even if you can customize theme somewhat even coming up with character designs is difficult.

The most ideal Tool pretty much is something like Honey Select with powerful character customization as well as a community for sharing cards that you can use as a resource to draw character designs from that fits your project.
There is a reason games with a large cast of characters are likely to be based on Honey Select and the like.

 

[Thucee]

I just dont really understand why most of the adult games are with the same models...

It boils down to budget and the skills of the creator(s). DAZ Studio is free. And anyone with enough patience can find and download a bunch of free 3D models. Clearly, many indie, low budget adult game projects (and adult comics) use the same free (or cheap) 3D models and same free (or cheap) software. There is only so much free/cheap software and content to choose from.

As a comparison: Imagine that you are trying really hard to paint a certain scene and make it as beautiful and realistic as possible. However, you're a starving artist and, currently, have to choose between paying this month's rent and buying the large, stretched canvas and professional paints you need. So, you're forced to cut some corners. Instead of the stretched canvas frame and commercial paints, you may substitute by painting on something else, thin your paints down or even try to make some paints of your own.

Also, imagine that you only have a handful of paint colors to choose from. One makes do with what one has and can afford. But, obviously, it's much easier to paint a beautiful and realistic painting if you have a large selection of colors to choose from.

Granted, with a sizeable budget, one could purchase a variety of paid content from the digital stores on DAZ, Poser, Renderosity and many other sites. There are even a few (rare) 3D marketplaces like Renderotica that specialize in selling 3D models and poses for erotic purposes.

However, buying other 3D software tools and a large variety of 3D models can quickly push costs into the many $thousands. Even if one can afford this, an individual probably can not hope to recoup such high costs - let alone make decent money - through their indie adult game. Much of the games and comics I see talked about on this forum are indie and low budget - often either free or sponsored through things like Patreon.

Does making custom sculpted and rigged models for Blender or Maya or any other software than Daz3D) makes any sense to work on a game here?

Blender may be free, but it is notorious for being difficult to really learn - as in, learn to use well. But popular 3D software like Maya, ZBrush and 3D Studio Max... those are insanely expensive, requiring the budget of an actual company. (BTW: There is a fork of Blender called "Bforartists" which is supposed to be easier to learn and use and is fully compatible with Blender.)

Making a decent game or comic of any kind already requires a certain degree of creative and artistic talent. And a game, in particular, is a big undertaking, even when using shortcuts such as game-creator software like RenPy. If one hasn't already worked on a project like this, then there is a learning curve and lot of time and learning involved. And it requires enough time and motivation to see the project all the way to completion (or, at least, a releasable state).

As an individual tackling such a big project as a game, one has to teach oneself a variety of things and set aside enough time to do so. One has to become part artist, part author, part programmer, part game designer, part editor and a variety of other things.

So... You are asking why there aren't more games mentioned on this site that utilize *custom* sculpted and rigged characters and other custom models? Obviously, they'd have to either obtain 3D sculpting and model rigging software and learn how to use them... or find some solution that fits withing their extremely limited (in contrast to actual game studios) budget.

BTW: Even if an indie game developer had both the software and skills to use them, the actual creation of custom, decent-looking and decently-rigged models can be rather time-consuming, particularly to make the textures (i.e., displacement/bump/normal maps) look good without breaking something. But, as a 3D artist, you should know this.

DAZ and Poser also has the huge benefit of being able to easily customize characters. One can quickly and easily swap hair and clothing on characters, provided they obtain hair / clothing models that are compatible with the DAZ or Poser character they are using. (Alternatively, there exists software/plugins that can adjust clothing meant for one character to fit other characters.)

Another huge benefit of DAZ and Poser is how easy it is to radically alter the look of a character by "dialing it in" - by simply adjusting any of a variety of sliders for things like height, hips, chest, breasts, nipple size, nose, lips, etc.

Consider, for a moment, what it entails if you want to change the hair, outfit or proportions of a completely custom, sculpted 3D character. AFAIK, one would have to radically alter or resculpt... right?

 

[Thucee]

The most ideal Tool pretty much is something like Honey Select with powerful character customization as well as a community for sharing cards that you can use as a resource to draw character designs from that fits your project.

I get what you're saying. But, as you seem to suggest, that's probably only useful as a resource/reference for drawing one's own character designs.

Something similar to what you describe does exist which could be used to create 3D models - royalty free - for renders for an adult game project or comic. Though, it is not free.

I have not used it, but I have heard of this before: Character Creator 3 is character creation software designed to create, import and customize stylized or realistic looking character assets. One can start from a number of base character models and very radically alter their face, body shape and looks. You can import DAZ and other characters. You can add or change the skeleton or add new poses. You can add a variety of clothes (from their digital marketplace). You can very quickly turn a pile of rocks into a rigged golem or turn a bunch of robot parts or cylindrical/geometric shapes into a rigged robot. You can even input a couple photos of an actual person and (with some patience and skill) get it to create a face on your character that is realistic and a near perfect match. And it is made to work with quote, "iClone, Maya, Blender, Unreal Engine, Unity or any other 3D tools."