So, I figured it's time we had a discussion thread regarding the Male Body and First Person View. I've seen bits of this topic in a myriad of threads throughout the forum and thought it best to maybe centralize the discussion and have some input from the developers on how they feel about it.

In the interest of disclosure, I am for having a male body. Let's start with first person view, however.

First Person View as it currently is in 2.1

PROS: So, everyone agrees that an FPSex (get it? Get what I did there? XD) game is a very novel and innovative idea when it comes to adult games. There are games that are partially FPSex, or where you're in the FPSex view but the player character's head will appear in the same shot. The immersion value is inherent, and you feel like the girl is talking to you as you talk to her, or do things to her.

CONS: The biggest con thus far in FPSex is that some players feel like they're "missing out" on the action, so to speak. While the camera can now turn 90 degrees in either side to get a different angle, the camera is limited in its range. There's also the problem of controlling the camera while simultaneously controlling the action, as well as manipulating toys at the same time. With most objects physics enabled, and with most of the manipulation control tied to the mouse, that's a lot of stuff to juggle all while trying to get a better look at what's going on.

Possible Solutions: I personally have no 'neat' solution to the control problem. I think to FPS games and FPRPG games I've played and none of them have ever had so much physics to cause problems. There's the dedicated 'look' or 'camera' control (mouse, or right stick on control pads), and you had the arbitrary 'action' button that activates, deactivates, or otherwise manipulate what amounts to as an 'automatic' object triggered by the player's input. So, in Skyrim, for instance, you're pressing a button to swing a sword. In XStoryPlayer, you're using your mouse to swing an object. You can press control to focus on the object, but that locks the camera. If you press ctrl again but you're still holding the object, then the object will follow you until such a time you drop it, or it gets stuck (like a vibrator getting stuck in poor Jenna's ass). So, really, there's no neat solution here, at least from me.

As for the view itself, and this will tie into my next topic, you can add the male body. This allows you increase the range of view while not breaking immersion by staring down at a floating penis. I mean, let's face it: in the real world we can crane and bend our neck, then we can bend our torso down, or pull our legs up, to see the world in different angles. We can twist, we can bend from side to side, we can shake our head, etc. While I'm not advocating for ALL that motion, I'm merely making the argument that we can look up and look down a lot further than where we're at in 2.1. And all you have to do (and forgive for making a complex issue sound so simple, as I'll get into in a moment) is add a male body. Now, let's get onto that topic!



The Male Body

PROS: As I stated above, it adds greater range, it adds immersion value, it adds a certain degree of polish.

CONS and a whole host of potential problems: So, here's the biggie: if you add an object such as a fully fledged body (maybe sans the head as there are no mirrors and we really can't look at our own head anyhow) in a game that's all about the physics, well, it's gotta be physics enabled as well. And, you can't have a body if you don't have limbs (unless you don't, then that's okay too), and limbs need to be manipulated, and when they're manipulated then you hit stuff and the physics needs to be calculated for that on top of everything else (like whatever the girl is doing or being done to her). And when you have a full body, there's the polygon budget to be concerned about. In a game where you already have one body that's high in polygon count, not to mention all her clothes and her hair, none of which are simply skins painted onto her, or a part of her that's a different model than the one of her that's naked, essentially meaning the clothes are models themselves, then you might a problem. You're adding a body that's going to have to be high in polycount, then you're adding clothes to him which may or may not be manipulated with in the same dynamic as the girl's clothes. And, toss in the fact that as of right now you have 4 different dudes to play as (well, only 2 right now, but I'm guessing we'll get to use all four), presumably with very different body types (Bob seems like he would be rounder than the others, for instance), and you have a recipe for a lot of game engine headaches that XMoonProductions may not be prepared to deal with.

Possible solution: This one is a little inelegant, but it's the best one I've got. What if the male body wasn't "on" all the time? I mentioned this before regarding 'hands', where what if you just get into specific situations that call for the hands, or the male body in this instance? So, you're walking around, you're just a camera, not even a floating penis. But, once you press 'P' to undo your zipper and presumably to either start coitus or have her perform on you, then the body materializes. And maybe it's already naked (as evidenced by your 'unzipping'). It's bit immersion breaking, but it might be the price for a greater range of view, as well as having hands.


Anyhoo, those are my thoughts. I'm not a programmer, I don't know what goes into these kinds of decisions. So, with that said, I want to know what other people think, if there are any other solutions.

I think the physics modeling should not be a large problem - what is there that your body should interact with? You are not going to kick the girl (I hope). You mainly need to model that the girl can't walk through you, and running into objects in general - a very simplified physics model (representing your body with a number of large boxes) will be sufficient for that. The 3D model of the player does not necessarily have to be as detailed as the girl's either, because you will never get to look at it closely (with possible exception of video cameras, see below).

I would like to have fully 3D modeled hands and arms rather than the ghostly action of a mouse cursor, but those will require physics modeling (e.g. spanking, pushing the girl's head down, preventing arms from going through the girl's body, etc.). Less than for a full body, I'd imagine though.

Like I already mentioned in another thread, if the male character were fully represented in 3D, Kinect control would be awesome, especially for the hands. It will take some time for Kinect to become common enough on PCs, though (if ever).

On the subject of view modes, the argument seems to be between 1st person immersion and 3rd person viewing pleasure (aka porn movie view). What about introducing the concept of a video camera (or several) that you can position anywhere in the scene? Then you could have in your inventory e.g. a tablet computer that you can use anytime to view a live feed from the video camera. Probably there should be some ability to rotate the camera a little via the tablet as well (similar to a security cam which you can rotate remotely within certain limits). Large mirrors could serve a similar purpose, but a video camera feature can be implemented more efficiently since you don't necessarily have to render the live feed as a part of the 3D environment (the viewer can be part of the game UI rather than a part of the 3D scene).

Those cameras would of course offer some voyeuristic possibilities as well - you could leave one in the shower room of the swimming hall, for example.

You do have a point regarding the physics of the male model. It could be very simple. My only concern is how the physics of the male body interacts with the physics of the female model. We're talking computing budget, so unless the male model is very simplified, as you suggest it could be...

but I do agree we should have hands (if only there's a way to elegantly control both of them at the same time...)

I think the problem with mirrors and video cameras is that the action then must be recreated in the same scene? So it's not like the mirror is just reflecting the scene, but it's the game creating a second instance of it and giving it a different viewing angle. I think that's a concern in terms of computing and polygon budgeting.

With regard to video cameras, performance is very dependent on display area. For example, if your game is choppy on full HD 1080p resolution and full details, you could try either reducing details or reducing resolution (e.g. to 720p) - either one would give you a significant performance boost. For a mirror there is no change in display resolution, so the performance is worse, but for a video camera display you could do it so that when you take out the tablet for viewing the live feed, the tablet takes up about half of the screen and becomes part of the game UI. This means that instead of one large display area (entire screen) you now have two smaller ones, the tablet display and the remaining display area that is visible "behind" the tablet. The overall screen area remains the same (or is actually a little reduced because the tablet frame takes up some screen space). Therefore the performance should not be impacted much.

I suppose it could still work. I think another application of a video camera system is being able to create your own scene and then re-play it later for, uh...viewing pleasure. Or even for sharing.