Suggestions After First Play

[jaedda]

Just joined the Patreon. Great work you're doing here. Very impressive. Few suggestions from first play...

Ideally you should simplify play with 2 modes, the default being mode 1...

1. The possess mode. Looking through the eyes of one of the protaganists with a button to switch between characters. Having to manually point to the character seems a bit unnecessary.

2. Hands-free possess mode. Here, you only take control of the head. The hands do their regular animation thing. Or even better, make the hand possess only active while actively gripping the side button. Some virtual see-through hands, could show your real hand position so you can align correctly.

2. The voyeur mode. Free-camera mode where you can fly around the scene without restriction.

Switching between these modes should be a simple toggle (ideally a main controller button) and should not require bringing up a menu.

In Possess mode, I can still see the characters head when I move out of what is probably IK range. Can the head be made invisible during possess to prevent this?

Default for pushing buttons, actions, etc. should really be the trigger, not the A button. It's far more intuitive.

Interface should be massively simplified and more VR-like. A wrist-watch that appears when you turn over your wrist approach is very easy to use. It should just contain the main icons. Any other advanced options (settings, editor stuff) that are not used as often (or maybe not at all) should be reachable from some kind of settings/advanced icon button.

Scrolling the scene list should be able to be done using the thumbstick.

 

[TToby]

Hi @jaedda, and welcome.

You have some good points.
The main issue I maybe can see from your posting is a very usual one:
This “game“ is not a game!
Many beginners are starting with VaM and are disappointed, why it isn‘t be more easy, more intuitive, not doing things automatically, aso.
This is because VaM is a kind of full size „sandbox“ creative tool.
VaM gives you all the tools to let you create almost all looks and scenes scenes you can think of….
and if i say „all“ then I mean „all“!
Like in many tools, most of the time it is much too much at the beginning, and you will have a steep learning curve.
VaM itself has only some few demo scenes to start with.
VaM is what you or other creators are creating with the given tools. Nothing more, nothing less.

Back to you suggestions:
Yes, VaM need some changes to the UI and some of the functions, urgently. For this you need to know, that the current version isn‘t in development any more. The creator’s team is preparing a brand new version for aprox a year now, with lots of very important changes.
One of the many ingenious things about VaM is the modularity.
Many of your suggestions can already be done by community created plugins.
For instance with plugins like Passenger, or other possession/voyeur tools …which are not ideal for VR, but that is an other story. If you want to switch the perspective, you can create (or maybe download and edit) a scene with buttons to do so.
It is not easy at start, but doable, like almost anything else.

 

[jaedda]

Thank you for the reply. Ah, I see what you're saying. In which case it probably makes more sense to have a separate application for users who just want to 'play', and then this becomes the content creation tool. There shouldn't be a steep learning curve for people who just want to play; it's just unnecessary.

 

[kretos]

I strongly agree with jaedda. VAM is too much complicated. Not necessary. I've looked through few hundred scenes and only maybe 50 are those astonishing. Why?

Because making good scene is too much complicated and there's technical overhead, that makes the process longer than necessary. You want to add single sound to scene? Click, click, click, click, click, click, click. I'm starting to believe that VAM is used as daily exercise software for relieving pain of shoulders. You just wave your hands for few hours... Good for heart, good for blood circulation, not very good for productivity. And VAM 2.x won't be any better because it's focused mainly on thechnical stuff (as I can see now).

You can extend VAM by using plugins but it's very limited because plugins can interact between with bad ways. There's no builtin "status" for persons - everything should be pretended in some plugins by using states, variables etc. There's no arousal, exhaust, tired status. There's no builtin wet system - for sweating, for crying. There's no ejaculation system. Breathing is not influenced by movement - you have to control it by yourself. Why browser scene cannot hide subscenes with simple checkbox and I have to find starting scene by myself? Why I cannot make categories for plugins? Because scripts included in scenes make a mess and browsing through is another nightmare. There are simple solutions for huge productivity problems.

You can say it's sandbox system for everything, but 99% of scenes is about sex. And inserting sth into a girl require plugin to make things easier...

 

[TToby]

All of this are very good reasons, but if you stop thinking of VaM as a game, and start to think of VaM as a tool, it all makes maybe more sense. If you, for instance, take a tool like Photoshop, one could say "the learning curve is too steep, please remove the advanced functions and make things more intuitive". But after doing this, it wouldn't be Photoshop anymore, but maybe something small like Windows Paint. A professional artists can do amazing things with Photoshop, that maybe you can't do.

Everybody would agree to the fact, that VaM needs some drastic changes for better usability. This has some "historical" reasons. The current appearance is a result of the development process. It all starts with some few functions, but then grows bigger and bigger from every monthly release. Like a small hut you have grown to an full size apartment building with adding room by room over time without having a plan. The developers have done a clear cut at some point and the result will be VaM V2.
But from my point of view, it will hopefully still be more like Photoshop, than like Windows Paint!

 

[kretos]

I'm not complaining about complexity. I'm complaining about time wasted on unnecessary things. Just imagine photoshop how you change one colour to another - pick tool, pick two colors. Done. Vamified way? there are four plugins to do that. Each works in different way and not exactly what you want. Build in way: add "change scene asset", choose properties, set working behaviour to change colour, choose blindly colour using rgb codes, choose another color because choosing from scene is almost impossible, add second asset, choose properties, select shape, define range, choose second asset in first, hit play. Observe that the colour you wanted to change in first place is not the one that was changed...


I like "smooth" software where basic problems were solved and there's time to smooth different issues and think about workflow. VAM is not that case unfortunately.

 

[Miserywhip]

I'm not complaining about complexity. I'm complaining about time wasted on unnecessary things. Just imagine photoshop how you change one colour to another - pick tool, pick two colors. Done. Vamified way? there are four plugins to do that. Each works in different way and not exactly what you want. Build in way: add "change scene asset", choose properties, set working behaviour to change colour, choose blindly colour using rgb codes, choose another color because choosing from scene is almost impossible, add second asset, choose properties, select shape, define range, choose second asset in first, hit play. Observe that the colour you wanted to change in first place is not the one that was changed...


I like "smooth" software where basic problems were solved and there's time to smooth different issues and think about workflow. VAM is not that case unfortunately.

What program ever starts out "smooth"? Try comparing the first version of Photoshop to VAM 1.0. VAM is in development, not a finished version ready for regular updates.

All the things you mentioned may or may not be changed in the future. You may just want to check back in a year or two.

 

[qoosh]

VAM should be compared less to Photoshop and more to Blender or Daz 3D. It's a 3D creation suite and Photoshop is (mostly) 2D art software.

 

[TToby]

VAM should be compared less to Photoshop and more to Blender or Daz 3D. It's a 3D creation suite and Photoshop is (mostly) 2D art software.

Thank you for this correction, unfortunately I couldn't think of any well known counterexamples for the other programs mentioned.

 

[qoosh]

Another thing is if you look at Blender or Daz (and VAM), there is a pretty high learning curve compared to Photoshop. The difference between Blender and VAM is marketing. Blender is marketed only as a creation software, but VAM is marketed more as a game. If people go in to VAM expecting an easy video game, they are going to be disappointed no matter how simple they make the UI.

 

[jaedda]

All of this are very good reasons, but if you stop thinking of VaM as a game, and start to think of VaM as a tool, it all makes maybe more sense. If you, for instance, take a tool like Photoshop, one could say "the learning curve is too steep, please remove the advanced functions and make things more intuitive". But after doing this, it wouldn't be Photoshop anymore, but maybe something small like Windows Paint. A professional artists can do amazing things with Photoshop, that maybe you can't do.

Everybody would agree to the fact, that VaM needs some drastic changes for better usability. This has some "historical" reasons. The current appearance is a result of the development process. It all starts with some few functions, but then grows bigger and bigger from every monthly release. Like a small hut you have grown to an full size apartment building with adding room by room over time without having a plan. The developers have done a clear cut at some point and the result will be VaM V2.
But from my point of view, it will hopefully still be more like Photoshop, than like Windows Paint!

I think a good UI hides complexity until it's needed. This can be done in a number of ways using buttons leading to more options, tabs, etc. I don't think it could hurt having a UX expert look 2.x over at an early stage and make some suggestions in that area.

My main point though was more towards having an app for purely 'playing' the game (most users), vs making content. I guess this could come later though, as allowing people to create content is obviously a priority.

 

[TToby]

If people go in to VAM expecting an easy video game, they are going to be disappointed no matter how simple they make the UI.

Agree, that is what I said above: VaM is no game. If this would be communicated more clearly, less people would be disappointed. But how to explain that with simple words? There are so many different ways to use VaM!

'playing' the game (most users), vs making content

I think you can't make a clear cut like that. Many interested users, who have started with only using existing stuff (playing), will sooner or later edit some scenes, like replacing figures, load different clothes, or rearrange things. For me, this is 'creating', too. Some of them will even start to learn doing complicated stuff, or adding things they are otherwise interested in, like textures, sound/music, 3d models, MMD dances, etc... And only a very small percentage will finally do the last step and will share their stuff. Don't underestimate the amount of users who are creative with VaM, by only looking at the download section. It is about your sex fantasies, so things that you maybe rather want to keep private.

By the way, there already is/was an 3rd party app for purely playing VaM stuff: VamX