101: The Breasts That Broke The Game

[Sabrehawk]

And pr0n ... lots of pr0n.

I, for one, welcome Sabrehawk to this discussion.

That's what I'm here for. )

 

[Sylocat]

Imagine if Pixar released a DVD that had several nude models hidden on the disc. You had to rip the DVD and go through a few levels of encryption or something, but they were still there. There is no defense for that. Was the content on the disc. Yes. Did they distribute it. Yes. They would be guilty and so is Bethesda.

I think this example is flawed. When you're doing 3-D modeling, if you want the stuff that appears over a model to appear natural, there needs to be a natural layer under that stuff. Enter boobs on orcs. I'm willing to bet the princess from Shrek has them, too, and if Shrek had to render the movement on clothing and draw characters as the camera pans around randomly, there'd be some nude textures hidden away on an encrypted section of the DVD. It's like saying models shouldn't have skeletons or muscles.

They'd probably fake it with normal mapping and bone weights, anyway.

In the production of 3D movies, yes the models they use have layers and are most assuredly naked under the clothes we see them wear, but when exporting to the movie files, the frames are pre-rendered and flattened to image files. A frame of animation is not stored any differently on a DVD than a frame of live-action, or, for that matter, on a VHS. If you could get ahold of the source file the actual animators used on their computers, you could easily remove the clothes (and you wouldn't need to hack, just select and delete), but DVDs do not contain the sources, and once it's on a DVD, you can't hack something out of a scene. If you wanted to make Princess Fiona naked on the Shrek DVD, you'd need to open each frame in a photo-editing software and paint over what you see.

Video games, on the other hand, cannot be pre-rendered, because you can choose what your character does, so they have to render it on demand. So games actually DO include poly-models. Now, whether those models actually have anything under the clothes you see depends on the game. If you cannot choose the character's costume (or unlock alternate ones), or if you can only choose the color, generally speaking, animators don't bother putting layers on the model, we just make the outfit the skin texture. Now, it's still easier to make a nude skin than it would be on a DVD, given that you can just apply it once it's made and you don't have to do anything from then on if you've done it right. But you still have to paint it on as a skin, rather than just editing out the costume.

Now, if the game DOES allow you to choose a costume, then the programmers put nude textures on the models. However, usually, we don't add privates, which means that the characters lack defined genetilia. The space between their legs is just blank, a flat skin tone (unless it's an adult game where you're SUPPOSED to see nudity, but that doesn't involve modding). And that also means that we don't put nipples on female characters. If, on a given game, the nipples are visibly poking through the clothing, don't be fooled, that's not a texture on the breasts, that's a normal-map thrown on the clothing it's poking through. That's why a mod needs to do more than just remove the clothing, it needs to apply a new skin

What's more, some programmers now are anticipating mods, so they're tossing in a little trick where, when all the clothes are removed, a bra of some kind covers the model, and that bra is actually part of the skin texture instead of being separate, so when it's removed by hacking, the skin disappears and the breasts are invisible. That bra disappears when other costume choices conflict with it, but there are still no nipples visible, if the other costume is removed via modding, there are no textures. Just like The Sims.

The reason I'm yammering on about all of this is that the ESRB has literally no reason to use this as a reason to re-rate the game. If someone made a ROM hack of the original Sonic the Hedgehog game that featured pornographic images in the closing credits (thank you, Tyler Durden), would that be a reason for the ESRB to re-rate that game? I don't think so. It's exactly the same thing, since you don't just have to remove something from the code to get the good stuff, you have to add something too.

Anyway, if this is tl;dr for you, just read Sorcerer Arcane's comment. I realize it's a little late to be talking about this, but I just joined recently and only found this article in the archives. My apologies if this is just stirring up old shit, but I just wanted to offer my $0.02.

 

[Gilboron]

The problem is that the government does nothing about it, and takes people like Jack Thompson serious, while there's no proof that it influences children in any way. It's like taking people serious who say the world will end in seven days.

 

[Artheval_Pe]

If I understand well what you said, ESRB changed the rating from Teen to Mature because a modder created topless textures for the game, using different assets presents in the game ?
So, in the end, Bethesta is blamed for what a user did using the devellopement tools at its disposal ?
What's next ? General Motors is going to have to stop selling 4X4 because people got killed in car accidents involoving these vehicules ? I wish it could happen...

The problem is that the video game industry is victim of original policies. Devellopers and publishers are being held responsible for what people do with their games, whereas this happends in no other commercial branch.

And what was the issue ? People could see topless women in the game ! That's very dangerous ! Oh, yes, a lot of people or children get sick, mad or are getting killed around the world because they see topless women on beaches ! Wait, no... What happends to children that see every summer topless women on beaches... ? nothing.
What happends to teenagers who see people getting killed in a violent way in front of their eyes ? They have to consult a psychiatrist for the rest of their lives.

But of course seeing someone getting killed in a video game is less shocking, because it's a video game, and to they get Teen ratings. And that's the same for everything.
So, why seeing something that is by no means shocking, even for children, in a video game should earn it a M rating ? There's absolutely no logic in that.

There's no logic because that's a religious and cultural problem. Sex has been for centuries something regarded by religion as "dirty","evil","bad". Why ? Because it procures fun freely. And someone who is happy will not need faith. Faith is something that is a lot more easy to get when people are miserable, because through faith, they can expect more, and through priers, they forgot their situation. That was the whole point of religion during the middle-age in Europe.
And this idea that fun is bad, continues to exist, sometimes subconsciously today. Why are nude persons and representations of them in public considered not only innapropriate (that's what they are) but also shocking and bad ? Because watching them procures pleasure, and because a seing a nude body of the opposite sex is generally what happends before having sex.
This cultural fear of nudity continues to exist today, some people know why, for other, it's just subconscious.
Why ESRB didn't like the fact that teenagers could see topless women in the game ? Because they think that teenagers shouldn't see topless women... Why ?... They would have hard time explaining that with real arguments based on facts. They don't like it because there's a fear that lies in their minds. They fear that teenagers could be masturbating in front of these images... And my god, they might experience pleasure doing it !
We need to put a M rating on it ! quickly !

And I think that's why the most recent form of entertainments (today video games) are so much bashed. Because they are fun !

Personnaly, if I had 13-year old children, I wouldn't mind that they being able to see nude content in video games, when they would become teenagers. Because having them excited about women seems to me a lot better than seeing them enjoying the view of dead ennemies and exploded torsoes.

 

[Relgaro]

What i still dont get is how they were all going on about the sex scene in Mass effect... this i mentioned on another thread, have you seen the Indigo Prophecy/Fahrenheit sex scene
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/usermovies/41890.html as a warning thats the sex scene on the link. But people are right ESRB do complain about these things after they were released.

 

[poleboy]

What i still dont get is how they were all going on about the sex scene in Mass effect... this i mentioned on another thread, have you seen the Indigo Prophecy/Fahrenheit sex scene...

I have, and I distinctly remember thinking: "What the hell? Isn't this porn? How did I unlock this"?
What's Fahrenheit's rating, T? I guess the reason it slipped under the radar is because it takes place in the last part of the game and as such is easily missed by someone playing the game just to get a feel of its general level of inapropriateness or whatever it is those ESRB people do when they rate things.

 

[likalaruku]

I've seen boobies & blood in movies since I was a tiny tiny girl, so I'm left wondering what crawled up the ESRBs butts. Breasts are a natural & beautiful thing, ask any suckling baby when a naked breast last traumitised him.

 

[Orcus The Ultimate]

i Loled so hard at this Article !

 

[teisjm]

So anything that get's rule34'd even mildly by a single person will be re-rated?

So if I dress up with my girl-friend and make some less child-friendly teletubbies episode, the retard-brigade known as the ESRB has to make the show M rated?

Stupidity matched with legalpower like that of teh ESRB will eventually be the bane of good gaming.