VN VNs done with VaM?

[braxo]

Hi, I'm in the early stages of creating a VN (my first, so will be a small one to learn) using RenPy.
I've looked into what options I have to create my images. I've seen a couple of threads in here about people talking about using VaM to create the images - are there any good examples of VNs that actually have used VaM?
Thanks

 

[osanaiko]

Hi, I'm in the early stages of creating a VN (my first, so will be a small one to learn) using RenPy.
I've looked into what options I have to create my images. I've seen a couple of threads in here about people talking about using VaM to create the images - are there any good examples of VNs that actually have used VaM?
Thanks

This topic has come up at least a few times that I remember.

VAM is basically a realtime 3d engine that is using Daz Genesis2 based models, and scripted animations. The (relative) ease of use of the authoring tools means there has been an explosion of custom models and animations.

As far as I understand it. the difficulties of using VAM for a game would revolve around the disproportionate lack of non-sexual scenes / props / clothing etc. If your game concept was all about just the fucking part, then you could probably make it work. There's lots of potential with the variety of interesting animations, although I'm not sure how easy it would be to record those to video files - I could be wrong but I believe that unlike the Illusion games there's no built in way to turn the VAM on-screen animations into video files.

"VAM" is not a searchable engine tag on F95 so you would not easily be able to find games. Actually, VAM would not be the "engine" - it would be the art source.

 

[braxo]

Thanks for the reply.
Yes, I found some threads but they were alot about the idea to use VAM. And a couple of attempts with VNs. But not sure if anyone actually managed to complete a VN that's more than a small attempt.

I hadn't really considered available props, but from what I can see people have imported objects from Sketchfab, for example, so I figured that should be solvable. But now you put another concern in my head And maybe it's not so easy to make the characters interact with the imported props..

But, wouldn't there be similar issues with HS2 which also is heavily focused on sexual scenes? Maybe it's a larger community there, so there's plenty of custom props available.

The ease of use was what was compelling. I've tried HS2 and Daz as well (all three briefly), and VAM is easier. And at least compared to Daz, easier to find what I need, in my small tries, without having to buy expensive assets.

For the animations as I understand it you would need to record the screen. Not sure how that's done in Illusions/HS2. But I've seen some videos of animations from VAM, so absolutely doable.

But my main concern has been about the environments. Since VAM is aimed for a VR experience it seems the environments needs to be full 3D, and many of the custom scenes are simply reusing the same environments. In a VN there's no need for 3D when you want images (unless of course you make moving animations, which I've seen), but instead there's a need for possibly many different environments. And finding/creating many different 3D environments might be difficult. (And then I am assuming it won't look good to simply add some picture as a backdrop to the characters..)

 

[peterppp]

i think all of indianatk's games are made with vam. like this one
https://thef95zone.info/threads/the-city-of-women-v0-1-indianatk.131320/

 

[osanaiko]

without having to buy expensive assets.

You don't *need* to buy daz assets, there are multiple sites with very extensive pirate libraries. That includes here on F95 in the "Asset releases" subforum.

Even if you plan to buy assets that will be used in your real game production, at least you can "try before you buy" while learning.

I'm not going to preach that pirating assets is somehow "morally" wrong. But remember that the asset creators are not like some rich hollywood corporations who make movies etc, they are just indie small fish semi-amateurs like us game devs. And if at least some people don't when they probably *should* (i.e. they are from a rich country and are making money from the assets via their game) they the asset creators will stop making new stuff for us.


EDIT: About HS2
"But, wouldn't there be similar issues with HS2 which also is heavily focused on sexual scenes? Maybe it's a larger community there, so there's plenty of custom props available."

From memory, most of the HS2 games I've played don't have a ton of interaction with Prop items. Some try to use environments in interesting ways... but to be honest so many of them end up just being poorly-written-dialogue-heavy "lame anime storyline" type games where you go around and have conversations with NPCs, interspersed with the same old stock-HS2 sex animations. These days I mostly avoid HS2 graphics games, they all seem to blend in to the same blurry mass in my mind.

 

[braxo]

i think all of indianatk's games are made with vam. like this one
https://thef95zone.info/threads/the-city-of-women-v0-1-indianatk.131320/

Thanks, I'll check them out

 

[braxo]

You don't *need* to buy daz assets, there are multiple sites with very extensive pirate libraries. That includes here on F95 in the "Asset releases" subforum.

Even if you plan to buy assets that will be used in your real game production, at least you can "try before you buy" while learning.

I'm not going to preach that pirating assets is somehow "morally" wrong. But remember that the asset creators are not like some rich hollywood corporations who make movies etc, they are just indie small fish semi-amateurs like us game devs. And if at least some people don't when they probably *should* (i.e. they are from a rich country and are making money from the assets via their game) they the asset creators will stop making new stuff for us.


EDIT: About HS2
"But, wouldn't there be similar issues with HS2 which also is heavily focused on sexual scenes? Maybe it's a larger community there, so there's plenty of custom props available."

From memory, most of the HS2 games I've played don't have a ton of interaction with Prop items. Some try to use environments in interesting ways... but to be honest so many of them end up just being poorly-written-dialogue-heavy "lame anime storyline" type games where you go around and have conversations with NPCs, interspersed with the same old stock-HS2 sex animations. These days I mostly avoid HS2 graphics games, they all seem to blend in to the same blurry mass in my mind.

True, I might come to the stage that I do that to try it out. But my intention is, at least if I get to the point to publish something, is to use assets I'm allowed to use. And I don't mean either that everything has to be free, I don't mind paying for something if it's good and something I really can use. Just that for Daz it seems like everything has a high price tag.

And I agree on your feeling about HS2 games, some of them at least.. I don't claim that I will be able to make better ones, but I hope to be able to make something better than some of the ones I've tried myself