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Kotaku: Good Video Game Sex Scenes Are Hard To Make

L

LordOfLore

Banned
Full story.

There are a lot of terrible sex scenes in mainstream games. There are also a handful of good ones, as seen in games like The Witcher 3. But even in that game’s case, creating believable sex scenes wasn’t easy. Video game technology is great if you want characters to make war; not so much if you want them to make love.

Warning: the videos in this article are NSFW.

Sex in big-budget games has come a long way. Once exemplified by Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas’ infamous “Hot Coffee” controversy, The Sims’ “woo-hooing,” and Dragon Age: Origins’ uncanny valley robot montages, recent years have seen major steps forward—most notably from BioWare and The Witcher developer CD Projekt. The Witcher 3’s sex scenes were multi-person efforts that required scripting, storyboarding, mocap sessions, voice work, and all sorts of technical workarounds.

“Generally, the production process isn’t all that different from any other scene in the game,” said CD Projekt cinematic director Paweł Świerczyński, “though sex scenes have their own set of challenges.”

It all begins, Świerczyński says, with writers. On Witcher 3, they’d come up with a script, and the quest design team would sort out details like where a scene should take place. “We work together to establish a vision for the scene—the story it’s going to tell, why the scene is there in the first place,” he said. They then passed the baton to the cinematics team, who put together a storyboard and animatic. Next came mocap sessions with actors. After that, it was time for implementation into the game engine, replete with cleaned-up animations, effects, and all that jazz.

These challenges, he said, were less about the subject matter and more about the specific technical issues that can pop up when two nude character models smoosh together. If you’ve got a couple video game character models interacting from afar—conversing, or trying to set each other on fire with magic—potential troubles, too, are far away. Up close, however, video game characters have a tendency to “clip” into each other. I don’t know if you’ve ever had your entire arm pass straight through a lover’s torso, but it’s a total mood-killer.

“That’s one of the toughest, most irritating things about sex scenes,” said Świerczyński. “They usually feature a lot of close-ups, so you need to go above and beyond when polishing up these animations, which requires a lot of time and patience.”

Some character models can’t even assume basic sex positions without glitching, Świerczyński said. Many character models can’t raise their hands above their heads without armpit textures becoming noticeably distorted. “We tend to avoid these [positions],” he said, “even though they could potentially allow us to create the best shots.”
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Much more at the link. Didn't find a thread during my search.
 
P

Painguy

Member
Video game romance in general is terrible and unnecessary. The issues described above arent as much as an issue as the C tier movie scripts so many AAA games have.
 
J

Jolkien

Member
The only romance I came across in a game that was relatable is in Trails in the Sky SC. Otherwise I don't really mind but a lot of games shoehorned it in them or you just don't really care.
 
Kamina

Kamina

Golden Boy
Figures
The ones in the Witcher Series were always enjoyable.
Shani's in W3 was very well done.
 
J

Jennipeg

Member
Were the sex scenes in the Witcher 3 good? I thought they were cringe worthy, just like every other attempt. Maybe Naughty Dog could change my mind, they are the only developers I can imagine doing it well, currently at least.
 
Plumpbiscuit

Plumpbiscuit

Member
Romance is always best told through text when it comes to video games because you will have your imagination to fill in the gaps, plus it saves a ton of time, money, polishing and effort into making just a few seconds look 'right'. I'd rather this time, money, polishing and effort go into other more important parts of the game.
 
F

Finale Fireworker

Member
Nothing turns me off more during sex then poor collision detection and texture distortion. The frame rate drop is bad enough but it's the price I pay for in-engine intercourse.

Oh this is gaming side.
 
K

Kain-Nosgoth

Member
just don't put them, unless there's a real artistic reason.... just don't

movies or videogames, it's just akward and unnecessary most of the time
 
R

RustyNails

Member
Serx scene from Ride to Hell: Retribution

lKberds.jpg
 
W

Waji

Member
Are they even useful in any mean... I already don't see the point in movies except if for some reason that's one of the most important thing to know about some characters but : /...
Doesn't need to be long or even visual.
 
J

Jennipeg

Member
playXray said:
Impossible is more the word I'd use. Any kind of animated sex just looks weird to me.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I was actually embarrassed watching the ME:Andromeda scenes. I was praying nobody would walk in and see what I was watching.

This is as much as I need to see in games.

uc4ajpt4.gif
 
S

stan423321

Member
I refuse to believe CDPR obliviously selected a guy with real last name of Świerczyński to discuss erotica. The Świerszczyk pun is too good.
 
Trickster

Trickster

Member
Hard to buy that argument when there's so many random people on places like tumblr and patreon who churn out clip after clip of straight up hardcore fucking
 
R

Red

Member
Sex scenes are difficult in general. Film, TV, etc. They require an emotional investment to not feels exploitative. It's true games have the added challenge of creating believable animation, but that is really the smallest of sex potatoes.
 
E

erawsd

Member
What I loved about the Witcher 3 was that the game didnt take them so seriously and most have goofy punchlines attached.
 
Hairsplash

Hairsplash

Member
Um, great sex scene's are hard to make in any media (pun, haha)...

Really, and porn is not "sex scenes". It is stunt work.

Trying to make a rewatchable sex scene is nearly impossible...
 
E

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
I feel one of the major difficulties with sex in video games, or any kind of physical intimacy, is less about context and expression (this is an issue mainly of taste, because most of it is hilarious trash garbage to me, but whatever), and more an issue of technicalities and the uncanny valley.

Not only are the issues in the article cited, but I think we have a subconscious threshold in interactive 3D spaces with believability, notably how surfaces and materials interact with each other and how readily our brains are convinced of normality. A vast majority of video games don't actually look or move "realistic" at all, and much of 3D rendering is about structuring game systems, animations, and asset qualities that are coherent in how they engage as a whole so our brains feel balanced and convinced by what is appearing on the screen.

When two let's say human characters interact in a heavily physical mannerism, I feel a lot of people are immediately jarred out of the sequence as the technical challenges of conveying such a thing become more apparent. Sex in particular is so nuanced in many subconscious ways, the softness of skin, how it reacts on touch, the subtle skin tone changes, movement of flesh, and so on. Hence why we're okay with running around as a character, or seeing them engage in fast physical activity that kinda blurs by quickly, but the intimacy and direct physicality of something like sex or a kiss suddenly looks like two very stilted plastic toys mashing up against each other. There's no believability to the tactile interaction.

It's why that kiss in Uncharted 4 is so convincing. The work Naughty Dog put into the nuanced appearance and movement of flesh and muscle in the faces and hands is very, very realistic.
 
F

Flipyap

Member
alexanderftw said:
Shani's was almost perfect even from a romantic point to be honest. It just felt right.
Click to expand...
That was straight-up soft porn. No wit, not point to it, just a sappy pantomime.
The best Witcher sex scenes are the ones that don't focus on the sex at all and instead turn the whole thing into a comedic skit.

The original Mass Effect had the best "serious" sex scenes, avoiding all the awkwardness by making them brief and not very revealing, with most of the act happening off-screen.
 
A

Alpha17x

Neo Member
Game romance is usually bad. The first few times it happened it was interesting because it hadn't really been done in games outside of 'finding the princess' or some such similar trope. I also feel there's a big difference between something being hard to write and the person writing it being bad at doing so. The latter being the case most often.

Mass Effect used to be applauded it but it really wasn't that good at all. It may as well have been;

Shepard; "i like your face'
Kaiden: "Your face is okay too'
Intercourse scene.

Actually that's pretty much what it was for every character combination and sexy-time possible.

Even Hearth-whatever in Skyrim was bad. Give partner ring or necklace. do something mildly competent suddenly you're 'married' and they just spend the rest of their life staring at a wall in a house you never go to because the gameplay and narrative doesn't support it past it being used or completed once.

Actually probably the best implementation of love/romance in a game comes from SkyrimRomance. I'm sure plenty of people have heard of it. A lot of it is conversation based but you can't just throw a necklace at your 'spouse' like you're trying to catch a pokemon that you'll eventually bang.

On the professional side, perhaps more could be done, but if the developers aren't going to take it as seriously as a group of modders do, and the publisher isn't going to support such an effort their time would be better served on things like core-loop or even just optimization.
 
M

Magic Mushroom

Member
Strangelove77 said:
Even movies and tv shows can't do it right. 99% of the time it just feels like unnecessary filler.
Click to expand...

Tons of movies have done them right, from Verhoeven's Turkish Delight to Lucía y el sexo, from Y tu mamá también to Body Heat, from Don't Look Now to Bound and from Blue is the Warmest Color to uncomfortable sex scenes that work in the context of the story, like A History of Violence. But there is a massive difference between actors of flesh and blood and animated characters created inside a computer.
 
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