After Dark- The new Moviestorm Pack

Seems there is quite a stink over the newest content pack released by Moviestorm called "After Dark".

The pack is the first content of "adult material" officially released by the company. It contains nude characters, with morphable breast size for the ladies and an erection morph for the dudes. As you might have guessed from the erection bit, this pack also contains some sexual animations.

A lot of the fuss I've seen so far is from those who have a moral objection to this. That's perfectly fine. If you don't like the content, you certainly don't have to buy it or view any movies using it. That's entirely your choice.

Iain Friar recently blogged about it, and his take on it wasn't about moral issues. He has no problem with the content itself (nor do I for the record, but is concerned about where the Moviestorm team's priorities stand, especially in context of recent discussion about releasing skeleton information for creating custom characters and animations.

When I read his blog, I come to the same general feeling about it as he seemed to have, which is WTF!?

Okay, it wasn't that, but we did question it. Now, there are two sides to this director, the reactive side and the intro/retrospective side. I generally like expressing my opinion if it is appropriate to do so, and is welcome. Unfortunately, sometimes my first go at expression is of the reactive sort. It's only over time that I process everything and come to a full understanding of how I feel about it.

So, despite my reservations about it that I expressed on Iain's blog, here is my non-reactive, thought-out take of it.

I think the pack has a lot of potential, and in some ways is a boon to directors. I'm sure many directors have wished they could have a nude skin for their MS characters. For example, a shower scene. Now you can do that. You can now include full frontal nudity for any character (well, the non-alien/monster ones anyway) in whatever artistic or gratuitous way you desire.

Many films have sex scenes in them. If you wish to do the same, you can. Again, you can be as artistic or gratuitous as you want. Just remember that if you actually show male or female genitalia, you have entered the land of Porn.

And what of porn? I've certainly seen plenty of directors take a stab at porn with The Sims 2 and Second Life. In fact, I do believe there is a site dedicated to machinima porn. Pornography is a major market, and with the Moviestorm License it opens up a possibility for any director that wishes to do so.

But again, if you have no interest in doing any of this, you don't have to.

There are shortcomings. There aren't enough animations in the form of positions or variety in the existing positions. There aren't any oral options for pleasing the lady. These particular shortcomings really limits it's potential for pornographic films.

But despite the shortcomings, there is a lot of potential with this, whether it is something utilitarian like taking a shower with the clothes off, or something a bit more carnal.

I do have reservations about this. In the matter of priorities, it bothers me that now our characters can have sex, but they still can't use the computer in the core program. Nor can the eat that nice pudding pie in the holiday pack. Getting in and out of car, even driving a car, would be nice.

I know that some of these things, like the eating and getting in and out of cars, is in development. The computer thing, no one really knows why that is still an issue. Maybe that too is in the works.

I would have rather seen these things get done before the sex stuff started coming. They can have sex but can't use the computer to watch it on the internet? What's up with that?! ;)

Anyway, I do hope that this isn't an indication of any misplaced priorities, but it does help to see that there is creative potential in the latest content offering.

Now, turn down the lights, put on some Barry White, and make a movie dammit!

....or not.