3D Kink And Open Standards
Ever since last week’s post on 3D Kink I’ve been trying to decide whether it’s just a transient gimmick, or whether it’s a tool sufficient to allow non-artists to create and share visual instantiations of their fantasies. If it’s the latter, and if it catches on, it could prove to be quite a phenomenon — one I think is potentially important. (I’ve long been frustrated by the fact that I can visualize things I’d like to see, but there’s no way to instantiate them in visual form short of hiring an artist or spending a few years in art school. Sufficiently good computer software will be an important step in solving this.)
One of the things I’ve been trying to figure out is how open the product is. If the design work that users do can be readily saved and shared, there’s likely to be a fan community that grows up around the product, as there long has been around the quite-a-bit-harder-to-use and (IMO) not-for-the-non-artist 3d-modeling tool Poser.
Thus I was heartened to see the following in the summary of recent changes to the latest release of the 3D Kink software:
All New Pose Editor
Our software engineers have spent countless hours fine-tuning this ‘Pose Editor’ release. It’s an exclusive powerful new in-game motion control tool featuring a collapsible user interface with tons of sliders and controls that enables you to create your own poses, however and whatever you want. It’s an updated mannequin model rigged to allow precise and exacting control of body positions, joint positioning and rotation editing as well as new 3D face shaping, mouth and tongue morphing animations and hand gestures.
Poser Editor allows you to also import poses from the Gamerotica community or from Daz3D/Poser based BVH exports. Using standards based BVH allows you to quickly import existing animations and convert them to 3D Kink and create and watch some of the most advanced sex animations possible.
Still no word on whether the local save formats are usefully exportable/shareable, but the standards-based imports is, at least, good news.
Shorter URL for sharing: http://www.erosblog.com/?p=4046
I’m a college graduate and have a good vocabulary, but I learned a new word today: instantiation! Thanks!
As another commenter said previously, this game is simply a re-branding of thriXXX’s “3d SexVilla 2″… which has a vibrant community over at gamerotica dot com, including new poses.
Since appears a straight re-branding (although it seems perhaps lagging very slightly in updates?), I assume that all data is compatible between both.
I’m not so sure about that, Josh. The Gamerotica site restricts downloads to people who have subscriptions to a short list of thriXXX-powered games, not including 3D Kink and not including the Hustler-branded product, either. So the user-generated content over there is not available to play with, whether or not it might be theoretically compatible.
Going the other way, as a ThriXXX licensee it would be *possible* for Kink.com to make content (like, say, fetish toys or poses, or even avatars of some of their popular models) available for the 3D Kink product exclusively. Of course I can’t say whether they plan to do so.
3D kink is major disappointment for me. It’s almost indistinguishable from 3D Sex Villa (for me, the novelty of that wore off after about 2 hours 2 years ago). So basically a marketing drive has duped me into subscribing to a Sex Villa clone. And to access new features I have to go through dullness — DULL DULL DULL — swinging disembodied hands in and out repetitively just to earn the right to experience what I have just paid an inflated price for.
The “create your own poses” function: there is no obvious arms function! Apparently, there is no way to alter the model’s T-splayed arms! Perhaps I have to “earn” the right to unsplay the arms? Either way, when someone of my intelligence (who has just sat through a tutorial) is left floundering and frustrated trying to achieve the basics, something is far wrong. In almost no time, I realized I just didn’t care.
The basics — like dressing a girl up in an office outfit and slowly opening her legs in a sitting posture — are unachievable. But for some reason, I can indulge in the fantasy of strange animal-like ears?!
The “direct your own movie” line is clever marketing, but “silent movie” would be more accurate. A dialogue function seems blindingly obvious, but was apparently beyond the creators. A technology which has a shot at global significance has been developed by dreary minds.
James, I can’t help with your disappointment but I can help with the arms. I struggled with that exact same problem. The user interface on the pose editor leaves a LOT to be desired. Anyway, it turns out that if you translate the hands, the arms follow; the elbow rotates but does not translate, because it moves depending on where the shoulders (which move with the “upper body” translator) and the hands are.
My first try, I got a girl with her hands way up in the air. But the second try, that time I was able to pose her arms/hands where I wanted.
3D Sex Villa must have been the best kept secret on the internet, because I never once heard of it or the ThriXXX engine until last month, nor saw a single screenshot or piece of user-generated art.