Dev Log #18 | Better Scenes

Hello everyone, I realized that I haven't published a Dev Log in quite a while and decided that it was time to do it again. I wasn't sure which topic to pick, there isn't that one big thing I am focusing on right now, but then I realized that I was wrong. There is one thing I am focusing on. The porn.

The scenes are a central part of not only Mist, but any NSFW game, obviously. As such they have to be good. I don't just want to make a regular game with porn elements, I want to make a porn game. So I am constantly trying to improve the adult parts of Mist. That quest is now headed in a new direction.

For the last months my energy was almost exclusively focused on getting my animations better. Something I've been doing with success and even the problem of the slower/sluggish animations should get much better with the newest scenes. I am also getting much quicker at animating, even though the quality is going up. I've spend more time on the theoretical part of it and have learned from classical animation workflows. Or to say it in a way that doesn't sound so stupid, I've been reading the "Animator's Survival Kit". One of the classic pieces of literature for animators.

Apart from that I've been looking at past animations and realized that my lighting wasn't always good. I focused on capturing the lights that should theoretically be in the room and I forgot to focus on making the girls look pretty. And making the girls look pretty is most important in a scene. Especially because I am not trying to go for pure photorealism, as might be obvious if you look at my models. So I am also trying to improve on that.

Cumshots are always important and you have seen me go through several phases of trying to get them look good. I went from still images, to simple animations, to simulations, to still images and in the last updates I've begun to hand animate the fluids. The topic is a difficult one. Fluids are a big challenge in 3D and even when you look at good animators in the NSFW sector, for example Resident Evil, DOA or Overwatch animations (to name a few popular ones) you can see that fluids are difficult  and  few even attempt them. So I am not trying to reinvent the wheel or surpass anybody, because I know that it isn't even possible for people with much more practice. That is why I've decided to use the current simple, stylized way of doing it and I am also getting better at that. Hand animating gives lots of control, but also leaves much room for error on my part. If any of you wondered why I ditched simulations, they took too long and it is basically impossible in Blender to simulate fluids that aren't moving. And semen isn't always moving, it looks weird.

But even with better animations, lighting and cumshots the scene isn't complete without the proper framing. And I think my camerawork is something I really need to get better at. It isn't complete garbage, but I am making mistakes. Some weeks ago someone (I forgot who, sorry) wrote that they don't like the way I point the camera really closely at something to get a perfect view of it, instead of focusing on the large picture and the eroticism in the whole scene. I think I agree. A cumshot doesn't get interesting because you can look at semen, but because the entire scene get's completed with it. To say it more bluntly. Semen doesn't look good unless it is on a girl. The girl is as important i a cmshot as the cum. Just as I did with lighting, my camera angles focused on getting everything into the frame and not making everything look good.

Now all of those things I mentioned tie into one new mindset I have. Until now I was very focused on ticking all the boxes in my scenes and was concentrating to get everything right, not pretty, just right. What I neglected was creativity. And I think that is exaclty what I need to focus on to take my scenes to the next level. So to sum everything up. I am slowly getting good enough at everything that my mind is free to think about the composition and beauty in my scenes and I think that will help me get the scenes from good to fucking hot. Of course I don't knwo how long that process will take, so I hope you stick around to see when I arrive!

That is all and a lot more than I had initially planned to write. I hope you didn't mind and  I wish you a good week!