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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 games case, creating believable sex scenes wasnt 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 forwardmost notably from BioWare and The Witcher developer CD Projekt. The Witcher 3s sex scenes were multi-person efforts that required scripting, storyboarding, mocap sessions, voice work, and all sorts of technical workarounds.
Generally, the production process isnt 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, theyd 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 scenethe story its 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 youve got a couple video game character models interacting from afarconversing, or trying to set each other on fire with magicpotential troubles, too, are far away. Up close, however, video game characters have a tendency to clip into each other. I dont know if youve ever had your entire arm pass straight through a lovers torso, but its a total mood-killer.
Thats 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 cant even assume basic sex positions without glitching, Świerczyński said. Many character models cant 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.
Much more at the link. Didn't find a thread during my search.