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Poll: 2D or 3D? (Patreon)

Published:
2025-06-12 16:21:19
Edited:
2025-10-08 14:32:05
Imported:
2026-11
Tags:

Poll

Poll: 2D or 3D?

  • I love 3D and want to see you look into it 36
  • I don't like 3D and think you should stay focused on 2D 123
  • Medium doesn't matter to me, as long as the story is fun / interesting 239
  • 2025-06-12
  • 398 votes
{'title': 'Poll: 2D or 3D?', 'choices': [{'text': 'I love 3D and want to see you look into it', 'votes': 36}, {'text': "I don't like 3D and think you should stay focused on 2D", 'votes': 123}, {'text': "Medium doesn't matter to me, as long as the story is fun / interesting", 'votes': 239}], 'closes_at': None, 'created_at': datetime.datetime(2025, 6, 12, 16, 15, 43, tzinfo=datetime.timezone.utc), 'description': None, 'allow_multiple': False, 'total_votes': 398}

Content

Should I dip my toes into developing 3D games~...?

So I've ever only worked with 2D before. Orange Trainer, Paprika Trainer and CMW have all been 2D and it's a style I personally like. However I do realize that 3D might offer up certain possiblities that 2D doesn't. Especially animation should be easier (...I think?)

So as someone who has absolutely zero experience in 3D, should it be something I look into for the future? And how do you feel about 3D adult games?

What I like

The ability to easily pose and animate models sounds amazing. Every time I want to add in a new scene into my games, it's a whole process of commissioning, hiring, finding references, creating poses and then waiting 2 to 4 weeks.

What I don't like

The soulless dead-eye look. Okay, I admit it. I've stayed away from playing the many 3D adult games out there simply because they all looked so life-less to me. Even if the model themselves are very high detail, seeing them stand around doing nothing just makes it come off as uncanny in my eyes.

Comments

Drew

I said medium, but it's less "doesn't matter" and more "only do 3D if you think it's fun, and lends itself well to what you are making" (e.g. Paprika Trainer would have been weird in 3D)

Bread

I prefer 2D but won't be mad if you do 3D to expand your skillset.

playf100

Always happy with 2D. 3D can be great or kludgy depending on how it's done. A note as a Mac user, if you go 3D Unreal Engine I won't be able to play :-( other game developers have gone that route and it's a bummer for Mac uses when they do, but life goes on.. lol, elsewhere.

Markus 1313

I sit on the fence on this if your talking about a new game going 3d or trying to say update CMW for example to 3d I don't think it would be worth the effort it would take. Since in all probability it would halt game development until you caught up. CMW is nice as it is. But trying to convert it to 3d I think in my opinion would be a mistake. However I'm just one person others might think differently.

Nobudi

If you want to break into 3D, be my guest. But what I would recommend is trying it out with bits of still art, and getting a feel to see you're willing to learn and adapt to the medium. Going straight into development is a big Nono from me. That being said, I do love your current art style.

exiscoming

It's for a potential future game. I love CMW and its artstyle, so we're gonna stick with that ^^

Luke Solas

I know what you mean with that "dead eye" look. Only game I found to have managed to make a 3d model not look dead is "aunts house". Oh and I guess "attack on the survey corp". Tldr: I think 3d can be done almost as well as 2d, but it's much, much harder to find a way to have your own style while also getting good looking facial animations in. That said, if you want to experiment I'd say experiment. You can always fall back on your 2d skills but won't grow if you don't challenge yourself.

Dinochus.ssc

I can give my input and opinions about it, as I enjoy, and have dabbled in the creation of, both 2D and 3D AVNs. I personally find hand drawn art more charming and it seems much harder to make 2D art look bad. I have played a multitude of AVNs both hand drawn and 3D, and 2D almost always wins in terms of visual appeal. But creating a 2D AVN is a different story entirely as it takes a lot of work for a "relatively small" output, which changes how the game is built on a fundamental level. As a example let's take Orange Trainer and my sadly discontinued OTBE mod as the 2D example. Since each hand drawing takes so much time/money to make, one wants to make each asset as modular and reusable as possible, in other words Static background, modular character sprites where one can superimpose different facial expressions on. This forms the base of the "visual" part of AVNs. Then you can add full scenes for the more important (mostly spicy) parts, which are also modular. Doing 2D animations is another can of worms of which I have too little experience in to say anything other than shit's hard. This is how it works for most of the 2D AVNs I've seen (some notable examples are "Witch Trainer Silver", "Innocent Witches" and "SlutCraft). Now let's compare it to 3D: Once you have created a character that's it, you can pose them how you like and can create an unlimited amount of different scenes. Animations, whilst hard, are doable (speaking from experience). Now that one has the assets one can create games the same way as in 2D, e.i. modular scenes with static backgrounds and character sprites superimposed on them. Whilst easier, this approach takes away the biggest strength (in my opinion) of 3D: The ability to show a scene from multiple angles and create new scenes rather easily. This fact changes the approach to the "visual" part of AVNs. 2D VNs are more Ns than Vs, whilst a few hours of an 3D VN can easily be around 3000-5000 full screen renders (granted, not as space friendly as 2D VNs). This fact can change the way of storytelling quite drastically (I will list some examples later on). Now to the dead-eyed elephant in the room: The dead eyes. I have to admit I also very much dislike the dead-eyed look some games suffer from. My take on the cause of that is the attempt of creating photo realistic renders, which is the absolute hardest form of 3D rendering. That is why I will always prefer a stylized form of 3D over photorealistic. But it also comes down to personal preference, whether someone likes 3D or not. One more important point is that the bar for entry for 3D is arguably lower than for 2D. It still takes a great amount of skill to put 3D scenes together as you have to think about positioning, framing and most importantly lighting. No matter how great the texture of your characters is, they will look shit if you can't light them properly. (I'm still working on that part myself). Finally I will encourage you to go and look at some 3D VNs to see what is out there, here are some recommendations. Give them a try for at least an hour or two so that you can get used to their style, and then you might have entirely forgotten that they are 3D and not 2D. You should be able to find most if not all for free on itch or here on patreon. "Eternum" by Caribdis: 11/10 This is in my opinion the best 3D AVN out there. It's incredibly funny but yet still tense and emotional and it's free. It's made with Honey Select (a game turned 3D studio ideal for the creation of AVNs.) This is the game that heavily inspired mine, and also why I use Honey Select for my rendering. "Ripples" by Jestur: 11/10 Another great AVN also made in Honey Select. "Projekt Passion" by Classy Lemon: 9/10 This one uses DAZ as the rendering tool. "Star Periphery" by VoidPilgrim: 10/10 Might not be to your tastes however I consider this peak in terms of 3D visuals. I don't know which 3D software they use. "Android Life" by MateDolce 9/10 This one uses an very interesting blend between 2D and 3D. As far as I understand it they use 3D models for posing and framing and then hand paints over them. "Once in a Lifetime" by Caribdis: 7/10 This is Caribdis' first game and it shows the first few hours are rough on the eyes. The game and story themselves are fantastic, but the visuals are good representation of how you can expect your first few renders to look like if you do decide to look into 3D. This one is also made in Honey Select. And always feel free to ask me, I will try my best to help, since it was you that inspired me to get into creating AVNs.

David Croucher

The program you use and the lighting make a huge difference to the soulless dead eye look. Metahuman and Character creator offer way more "alive" looking characters that Daz, but they aren't as good for being anotomically correct which obivously would be a bit of a deal breaker for an adult game.