As a long time PC gamer, I can tell you that mods are awesome. They can completely change a game or fix major to small issues. They can breathe new life into dated titles and add a tremendous amount of customization.
Many developers in the modding community are extremely talented, passionate individuals who love the games so much that they want to contribute, while others simply enjoy reverse engineering code and seeing how they can take mess with it.
When you pair modding with animation software like SFM (Source filmmaker) you get a crazy conglomerate of endless customization options, which, of course, inevitably leads to porn.
The effect? Game modding and SFM have wriggled their way into the NSFW community and are now contributing regularly. You can’t go very far into a porn site without seeing some sort of game mod video.
It’s not just games, either: programs like MMD, (mikumikudance) Illusion’s ‘Honey Select’, and Blender are often used, which make for some interesting combinations.
Most of these clips are only a few seconds or minutes long (there are some longer ones out there) and they usually focus on fetish stuff.
So, what’s the harm in using any of these (relatively) easy to use, openly accessible resources? In short, none, at least not directly.
I think modding, SFM and Blender have been great for the 3D community, but, as with all things of this nature, a few precautions should be taken.
You may have noticed that there are a helluva lot more of these kinds of videos popping up in recent years. Some of them have a high production value, but most seem to be made by dabbling hobbyists. If you are actually looking for this content, you know that it can be quite the chore to sort out the good videos from the not so good ones. That’s because there are so many people making animations now.
Self manufactured downfall
No one can argue that, as a collective race, we humans just love building things. History has proven time and time again that the more access we have to a resource, the more likely we are to abuse it. In the case of 3D animations, many fantastic resources have been overused and recycled to the point where we can hardly tell one from the other. Want proof? Go search for overwatch SFM videos. Not your thing? How about some MLP videos? How about Skyrim?
Pick any category and watch three from 3 different artists. If all three artists used the same software, chances are those clips looked eerily similar. If the same preset animations/assets were used, some clips can even appear to be exactly the same, save for a skin swap between them.
Programs like SFM and MMD are getting pretty darn dated. Even with dedicated programmers updating the software and the modding community doing what it does best, we are seeing the limits of a lot of this software and it’s showing its age.
The thing that always disappoints me (Warning, personal gripe) is how little effort some animators put into their cumshots. It is 2020: why am I still seeing pixelated cum sprites?!
On that note, animating cum is hard! Liquid physics in 3D is challenging enough, but animating it can be a downright nightmare, or so I have been told. There are people who dedicate hours of their time getting their textures just right (shout out to Milky3DX!), and many borrow assets from others.
The flip side
Life is seldom black and white and this issue is no different. If we look at it from another perspective, we can see artists that use these tools often and glean incredible results.
As with all tools and resources, it’s not a question of whether it should be used, but rather, how it is used. Responsibility and care are paramount. How can you tell the differences between artists who are all using the same software, assets and mods? The quality of their product! This is a constant that will never change, in the ‘real’ world and in the digital one.
An artist’s care and dedication to their craft will always reflect in their finished product. When someone is cranking out SFM videos like there’s no tomorrow, the quality is naturally going to go down. Inversely, if an artist takes time to polish their work, their production rate will go down, but the result will be a much cleaner, much nicer result.
I’m not calling anyone out and I’m not saying tools are bad. Expecting a 3D artist to do everything from scratch every time would be like expecting myself to only write on paper and never use computers.
I am simply saying this: mass production always results in a loss of quality. An artist has to ask themselves if quantity is more important than something they can be proud of. In the realm of 3D, I would almost always venture to say that quality should be prioritized, and the people in the industry that are most successful don’t release content at a breakneck pace.
With great power comes great responsibility… and with great responsibility comes great porn. I may have added that last part…
