Why is it so hard to animate porn games?

[GS523523]

I've been on this site for over a year and the only game I've played with good animations is Lust for Adventure.
Considering indie game devs can easily make a full 3D animated shooter in a year or two, and considering companies like Cartoon Network can produce a shitload of 20 minute cartoons a year, why is it so hard for porn devs to animate?
I understand that the teams are small here, but so are indie devs and I'm sure there are also small teams that make cartoons. So what is it about porn games that makes it hard to animate?

 

[baxtus]

Probably because shooter animations are more limited in movement than sex animations (and in fact, they're probably reusing stuff that came before in other games)


TheOdd1sOut slams people who think animation is easy:

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[Niv-Mizzet the Firemind]

In short, time (or lack thereof).

If we're talking about 3dcg, even in average looking games, it requires a lot of time to set up the animation, render it and then export it to a video. If the creators here made it so that your computer had to actually render the animations in real time, your computer would probably melt.

As for 2d, most games here are really small teams with one or two or at best, three artists. These teams typically don't work in the same space and are not battle hardened animators. In comparison, adventure time, a cw show, was animated in two different korean studios, the character design and colouring was done in a different studio in the us, and they had different artists for props, backgrounds etc. Even with so many people, it took ~ 5 months for each episode (info

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).
So, comparing most 2dcg porn games with an animated show is kind of moot because the team sizes are so different.

 

[CardinalRed]

Are you really comparing amateurs with little to no experience that makes games on their spare time to Cartoon Network?

 

[GS523523]

If we're talking about 3dcg, even in average looking games, it requires a lot of time to set up the animation, render it and then export it to a video. If the creators here made it so that your computer had to actually render the animations in real time, your computer would probably melt.

Why though? Why can my computer run Crysis but not whatever "average" porn game?
Are they all using some shitty software that takes so long to animate or what is the cause?

 

[baxtus]

Crysis is a professionally made game with a sizable dev team using their own custom game engine

 

[CocoVC]

Why though? Why can my computer run Crysis but not whatever "average" porn game?
Are they all using some shitty software that takes so long to animate or what is the cause?

If it's DAZ Studio, yup.

 

[Niv-Mizzet the Firemind]

Why though? Why can my computer run Crysis but not whatever "average" porn game?
Are they all using some shitty software that takes so long to animate or what is the cause?

In short, different engines that are used for different purposes. Daz3d for example was never meant to be real time playable. So it can afford to use costly shaders, the artist can use heavier everything. The models can have more complicated rigging setups. Because daz3d was made to render animations and stills, it trades real time performance for output with better quality and detail. Of course, it doesn't help that from what I know it's made like shit.

A game engine on the other hand has to sacrifice quality for real time performance. Comparatively you'll need to use worse shaders, worse lightning etc. Take for example

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. If you try to get the same quality in real time, it will kill your computer.

 

[Pamphlet]

O/P has to be trolling, right?

Nobody could be so dense as to think that the difficulty with quality animation in porn games is down to the porn and not that animation is really fucking hard to do well.

 

[GS523523]

If it's DAZ Studio, yup.

In short, different engines that are used for different purposes.

So would it be correct to summarize that because most porn devs choose to use engines like Daz3D over engines like Unity they can't make good animations? That's why games like Lust for Adventure have good animations but not games like Ataegina? And the reason devs choose to do this is because Daz3D gives them better render quality over Unity?

Or to put it shorter, most porn devs choose render quality over animations?

 

[CocoVC]

I think most porn devs would like to do animations, but they're so time-consuming that it will cut into development time.
Also many porn devs might not have the hardware needed to create quality animations on a consistent basis. If a porn dev wants to do real-time animation in say, the Unreal Engine, they would need to import the animations and make sure it is rigged correctly.

 

[Avaron1974]

So would it be correct to summarize that because most porn devs choose to use engines like Daz3D over engines like Unity they can't make good animations? That's why games like Lust for Adventure have good animations but not games like Ataegina? And the reason devs choose to do this is because Daz3D gives them better render quality over Unity?

Or to put it shorter, most porn devs choose render quality over animations?

No, nothing like that.

Animations are incredibly time consuming and require quite a bit of know how to run smoothly.

You keep talking about professional animators that have worked in the industry for years and got the qualifications to back it up then comparing them to Bob who decided to make a game a for fun and has never made an animation in his life.

Most of the games you download here are not made by actual developers, they are just randoms doing something for a bit of fun or to try and make a bit of money. They aren't professionals, they aren't even indie devs, they are complete newbies.

They don't use engines like Unity because it's hard to work with when Ren'py or RPGM can be used by anyone.

Daz3D isn't a game engine either, it's a render studio. Unity devs use it too.

You make a lot of assumptions and comparisons but have zero clue about how anything works.

I'll tell you why most devs will never animate.

It can take anywhere between 2 to 15 hours to render 1 image. An animation will need multiple renders. So say they have a basic set up and need 10 hours per render and need 15 renders for 1 very short animation, that's 150 hours just for that animation. Say 5 animations an update plus all the other scenes, that's 750 hours just for the animations and probably triple that for the renders.

Then people come in harassing that dev because they haven't got the update out in a months time because some people are fucking idiots and no idea how time works.

These devs also have families and full time jobs so can probably only work on the game for a couple of hours a day. Now you're looking at between 4 to 6 months for 1 update with animations.

Those animations nearly double the time it takes for an update to be made. Time people aren't willing to pay the dev for.

Now top that off with a lot of people giving zero fucks about animations to start with and that dev feels like they have wasted all that time for very little money because only a handful of people commented on those animations with some whining the update took 6 months and the rest are only there for the story or the characters so still don't care about animations.

In order to bother making them it needs to be worth it. They also need the hardware to make it quick or they just aren't going to make any money back for that time invested.

Then some devs just don't want to animate because they think it's a waste of time, some don't know how and don't have time to learn.

 

[Deleted member 1536527]

So would it be correct to summarize that because most porn devs choose to use engines like Daz3D over engines like Unity they can't make good animations? That's why games like Lust for Adventure have good animations but not games like Ataegina? And the reason devs choose to do this is because Daz3D gives them better render quality over Unity?

Or to put it shorter, most porn devs choose render quality over animations?

Nope, not correct at all. First of all the "engine" doesn't have much to do with actually making the animation. The process of making an animation is more or less the same everywhere. So its the person that has to make the animation. Your comment about your computer being able to run Crysis doesn't make much sense, your computer is just running it, but you didn't actually make it now did you.

The best thing changing an engine can do is bring down the render times. If you're using raytraced rendering, which most games made in realtime engines don't use (unreal/unity) but things like blender and daz3d do., you'll get more realistic results but longer render times, but in both cases the animation YOU still have to make YOURSELF.

Btw just to get some rough idea, look up videos on youtube, like tutorials, of animations. You'll see how mind numbingly hard it can be, you have to keyframe every single, pose, time it, interpolate it properly, making just one 10 sec animation can take hours to get just right, and then wait hours more to render it (maybe even days). You'll much sooner rip your hair out. Can't really compare professional animators with years of experience to amateur indie devs who don't even do it for a living and use a shitty laptop most of the times.

 

[Carrera]

Daz3d is rendering sofware, unity is an engine meant to facilitate game development.

They're not the same.

 

[Hagatagar]

Then people come in harassing that dev because they haven't got the update out in a months time because some people are fucking idiots and no idea how time works.

"Of course I know how time works!"

 

[Kinderalpha]

This thread is the biggest facepalm I've had on here. Good job OP.

 

[Janice Davis]

No, nothing like that.

Animations are incredibly time consuming and require quite a bit of know how to run smoothly.

You keep talking about professional animators that have worked in the industry for years and got the qualifications to back it up then comparing them to Bob who decided to make a game a for fun and has never made an animation in his life.

Most of the games you download here are not made by actual developers, they are just randoms doing something for a bit of fun or to try and make a bit of money. They aren't professionals, they aren't even indie devs, they are complete newbies.

They don't use engines like Unity because it's hard to work with when Ren'py or RPGM can be used by anyone.

Daz3D isn't a game engine either, it's a render studio. Unity devs use it too.

You make a lot of assumptions and comparisons but have zero clue about how anything works.

I'll tell you why most devs will never animate.

It can take anywhere between 2 to 15 hours to render 1 image. An animation will need multiple renders. So say they have a basic set up and need 10 hours per render and need 15 renders for 1 very short animation, that's 150 hours just for that animation. Say 5 animations an update plus all the other scenes, that's 750 hours just for the animations and probably triple that for the renders.

Then people come in harassing that dev because they haven't got the update out in a months time because some people are fucking idiots and no idea how time works.

These devs also have families and full time jobs so can probably only work on the game for a couple of hours a day. Now you're looking at between 4 to 6 months for 1 update with animations.

Those animations nearly double the time it takes for an update to be made. Time people aren't willing to pay the dev for.

Now top that off with a lot of people giving zero fucks about animations to start with and that dev feels like they have wasted all that time for very little money because only a handful of people commented on those animations with some whining the update took 6 months and the rest are only there for the story or the characters so still don't care about animations.

In order to bother making them it needs to be worth it. They also need the hardware to make it quick or they just aren't going to make any money back for that time invested.

Then some devs just don't want to animate because they think it's a waste of time, some don't know how and don't have time to learn.

If the OP doesn't get it after this, they never will.

 

[Jnx]

I won't white knight for devs especially in this age of porn shovelware, mostly because they choose what to make monthly based off a poll instead of coming up with an idea and actually fleshing it out. But, run-on sentence aside, animation just takes forever no matter what program or medium. If it's 3D you have every joint, position and camera angle to consider. Or 2D you have to redraw every frame from 12fps to 30. Time is the factor and in the age of updoots and internet points, if you're more than 0.0043587 seconds late for an arbitrary deadline you promise people online, you get attacked.

Long story short, if you think it's easy do it yourself. Otherwise be patient.

 

[woody554]

when it comes to daz stuff it's 99% because daz is horrible for animating. even if you know what you're doing, which is rare, the pins never holding makes it impossible to make anything nice. conversely in the rare flash games that still exist you already have better results as the existing/legacy animating software exists in abundance.

for 3d if you wanna do it well you're not using daz at all, but that kicks the required skill level AND amount of work to a whole another category. which also adds the problem of the game not being categorized under a 'DAZ VN', which drops most of your audience as well. people see the tag 'other' and they will not touch it. often even a 'unity' tag is a dealbreaker.

with realtime 3d people seem to mostly use readymade animation loops. in so many games you see the same exact running and idling loops even in AAA games. in unity games it's often even the default loops coming with the controller class.

 

[Kinderalpha]

Somebody needs to get on the Xbox Kinect motion capture, and start air humping their way to the bank with all the profits.