In 1995, Pixar’s Toy Story revolutionized filmmaking by using the latest technology and hundreds of brilliant artists to make a big-budget computer animated movie.
In 2023, you can use a janky laptop to animate any character banging any other character you want without spending a dime.
There are thousands of 3D CGI artists cranking out millions of images and animations that showcase famous characters from film, television, and video games that rival the quality of any major studio.
We’ll explore the world of 3D NSFW art, hear from some of the major players, and learn how to make your fantasies a reality together.
Quick Glossary
To avoid needing to stop every few seconds and explain terminology, here’s a glossary of some common terms:
- CGI – Stands for Computer Generated Image, typically referring to an image or element made through 3D modeling
- 3D Images – This doesn’t refer to things popping out of the screen at you, but means images not drawn on a two-dimensional plane (think Looney Toons VS Finding Nemo)
- Models – Objects, including characters, made from a mesh of connected points in 3D space
- Materials and Textures – Information that gives model surfaces color and guides how light interacts with an object
- Render – The image output that is created by calculating light rays bouncing around the scene environment
- Rigging – Building a set of controls to puppet your character
- Sims – A computer simulation of natural physics like fluids, fire, smoke, and body jiggle
- NSFW – Stands for “Not Safe For Work”, meaning anything you wouldn’t want to be caught looking at when your boss or co-workers are around… like porn
- Rule 34 – One of the oldest laws of the internet. This rule means “if it exists, there is porn of it”. While that is very broad, these days it mostly refers to fan-created porn of popular characters.
Okay, let’s get into it.
Making Fantasy a Reality – Turning Art Into Porn
“If you do NSFW art, pretty much everyone hates you,” says artist and YouTuber Anime Nyan.
“No one is ever going to acknowledge what you do as real art,” he continues. “Because it’s porn.”
The debate over whether or not porn is art has raged for centuries, and the perception of people who make or consume animated porn is even more of a controversial topic.
The stereotype surrounding the fans of 3D cartoon adult art is that they are a bunch of creepy middle-aged basement dwellers who jerk off to My Little Pony.
Let’s be honest for a moment.
We’ve all had a funny feeling in our pants when seeing certain cartoon characters.
It’s almost an essential part of our sexual development. Characters like Jessica Rabbit, Lara Croft, or foxy Robin Hood helped us learn more about our sexuality before we could even articulate it.
Many queer people put experience their queer awakening through cartoon characters as a child.
So yes, there is a wealth of fetish porn in the 3D art space. It makes sense because if someone is turned on by something that is impossible to pull off in reality, CGI is the way to go.
We’ve all wanted to see our favorite characters naked or having sex, but there was always the problem of achieving that. Many of us would doodle boobs and butts in our spiral notebooks, but very few people can match the skills of a Disney animator.
Until now, that is.
With advancements in current technology, you could make some spicy content starring your favorite characters in minutes with 3D CGI programs.
Your first instinct is to probably consider how much money you’d need to put down on new equipment, the latest programs, and intense courses to learn how they work.
“Start with what you have. Render a few images, just try and see if you really like this.” Nyan says, “It’s accessible to everyone. In general, I think hardware isn’t too important. It’s just part of what helps speed up your process.”
“You can spend all this money on GPUs and graphics cards [and] they’re not what is important to art. It’s all just wasted in the end if you’re not interested in [creating NSFW 3D art}.” Nyan continues.
Despite Anime Nyan’s negative warning of hatred from others, Nyan is one of the most positive people you could hope to meet.
Nyan’s whole philosophy when it comes to making 3D porn is about learning, growing and connecting with other artists.
“My creed is that I don’t want to charge for anything I make,” says Nyan. “I just really love doing this to help others.”
Anime Nyan’s YouTube channel is one of the only places on the platform where you can find tutorials on how to make adult animations using free software and community resources.
The barrier to entry for making 3D animations and games has never been lower than right now.
Programs like Blender, an all-in-one 3D/2D creation program funded by community donations, gained widespread popularity in the early days of Covid-19 lockdowns thanks to its robust features and mindblowing cost of $0.
3D creation suites like Unreal Engine 5, which has enough power under the hood to be used in major productions like Disney+’s The Madolorian, and modeling programs like Daz3D have followed Blender’s example and are now free to use for anyone.
In addition to the base programs, the global community of users develop and offer paid and free goodies like addons, models, materials, or characters that they have poured hours and hours into.
Another literal game-changer was people using the software Source Filmmaker to rip whole characters, models, textures, and sets from popular video games.
Artists can then take the base model for a character, Batman from the Arkham game series, and alter them to give them genitals and custom features like outfits and expressions.
People get very creative with this part of the process.
Here’s two fun facts I learned while browsing Smutba.se, a resource for NSFW assets that are ripped from video games:
- Fact I learned #1: The Predator, from the Predator franchise, comes from a species called Yautja
- Fact I learned #2: What a Yautja boner looks like
Creations like the “Preda-dong” are simultaneously horrifying and hilarious. Sure, there is someone out there that gets off on it, but at the end of the day it is just fun for the sake of fun.
The artists and enthusiasts behind this new wave of digital erotica may create intense and explicit material, but they are a wholesome bunch.
“I’m always constantly learning from other artists,” says Nyan. “I’ve been so lucky to meet, learn from, and be inspired by other artists.”
One of the artists Nyan has connected with is Its-gergless, a professional 3D porn artist and rigging specialist who typically makes classy, fun, and cinematic images and animations.
“I’ve done an interview with him,” Nyan explains, “He’s one of the most friendly people I’ve known. He always pops into the voice chat. I’ve had the opportunity to chat with him and become close friends with him. He’s just an amazing artist and person.”
When interviewed by Nyan, Its-gergless shared their thoughts about the value of engaging with the NSFW art community.
“My love for NSFW content I think not only comes from the content, but the people I have met,” says Its-gergless, “[They] are probably the most generous, kind-hearted people. It’s just the vibe. To vibe with them and share ideas and collaborate.”
Collaboration is the name of the game when it comes to making NSFW 3D art. Almost every tool, model, or material has been made for you and is typically shared with others for free.
Feel however you want about the content, but you can’t deny that the 3D porn space is an artistic community with incredibly talented and supportive people.
The Computer Does All of the Work, Right?
So, now that you’ve downloaded Blender and a handful of Q*bert character models (no judgment), you’ll need to learn how to bring it all together.
YouTube is a great place to start learning the basics and moving up from there.
Making Blender tutorials on YouTube is almost an industry unto itself. Some of the most popular are BlenderGuru’s Donut tutorials, where you are taught every step of creating 3D animations and art by making a donut.
You can learn how to do anything in Blender, from Hollywood-grade VFX to short cartoons, on YouTube.
Everything except making porn.
Thanks to YouTube’s content policies, the few videos on the subject are overstuffed with euphemisms and are almost impossible to find.
Anime Nyan’s channel, on the other hand, gets right to the point.
There’s no nudity or explicit sex, but he doesn’t mince words when teaching you how to create a cumshot using fluid sims or getting those cheeks to clap perfectly with physics.
Nyan’s tutorials stick to using as many free tools and resources as possible and avoiding tedious programming talk.
“I do come from a programming background,” says Nyan, “…but, it’s much more of an artistic thing. Especially in Blender.”
Even with their programming knowledge, Nyan says he is still learning.
You do not need to be a programmer or math wizard to use programs like Blender or Unreal Engine 5, but there is a lot more to creating CGI animated porn than hitting a button on your computer and sitting back.
Here is a great visual explanation of the basic workflow for 3D CGI animation:
Thanks to the 3D NSFW community, most of the first steps are taken care of for you.
All that is left for you to do is an absurd amount of tedious animation, lighting setups, running sims, rendering, noticing a mistake and going back to fix it, rendering again, realizing you forgot to update the sims with your new animation, running calculations again, cry, troubleshoot, render, stare into the abyss, bring all of the elements together with compositing, and that’s it.
The process can be frustrating.
Even for full-time pros like Slayed.coom, it can be hard to stick with it.
During an interview with Anime Nyan, Slayed tried to explain his workflow.
“I try to come up with the vibe,” explains Slayed “I have the idea in my head and I churn them around for a while. Then I work on another project, then start another project, then another project I never finish because I start a whole bunch of projects I never finish.”
While that is a half-joking answer, Slayed does go on to explain one of the most difficult parts of animation.
“Physics sims are the absolute biggest nightmare,” says Slayed. “Like, I’m at the end of my sanity.”
There is something reassuring that even for someone who is well known in this community for their work with physics and fluid sims, making convincing animation is a challenge.
Are physics simulations necessary, even for cartoons where the rules of reality are thrown out the window?
Yes, because our brains know when something is off. Think about seeing someone walk and how every step brings a cascade of motion from head to toe. Visualize all of the jiggles and wiggles our soft bodies express as we shift our weight through the world.
When those physics or even smaller animations such as finger movements or skin deformation aren’t up to snuff, you have bought a one-way ticket to the Uncanny Valley.
The need for accurate fluids in 3D porn should be self explanatory.
One way to avoid the headaches and high blood pressure that comes with the animation process is to stick with making single images.
Creating your own photoshoot can have problems of its own, though.
Posing a character correctly can be a challenge because there are no real bones, ligaments, or muscles to help keep the body from bending in terrifying ways. Even a small mistake like turning the character’s wrist too far can stick out like a sore thumb and ruin the final result.
Having a good understanding of framing an image helps, but little mistakes like objects going through one another (known as clipping), grabbing the model and not the rig and accidentally dismembering your character, or using the wrong render settings can build enough frustration to call it quits.
“The big thing is to never give up,” encourages Its-gergless. “If there is something you want to improve on when it comes to your content, just go for it. You can try it and see what happens. You might be surprised.”
6 Steps to Create 3D CGI Porn At Home
Enough theory, let’s get into it.
I’ll do my best to create a sexy image with the tools available to me. I won’t be making an animation because my slow-ass computer will grow a neck and try to hang itself under that amount of stress.
Step 1: Find Your Muse
Many artists recommend using reference materials as a starting point. After spending a few hours looking around and not seeing anything that struck my fancy, I decided to go the Slayed.coom route and focus on a vibe.
I know I want to make something that is more sexy than explicit. Not only is that what I prefer at the moment, but it will help me avoid needing to worry about fluids and cloth sims, which are used for penetration.
While perusing the scenes, aka sets, available on the free community resource site Blendswap I found this cozy cabin attic scene created by akashdlfps.
The cold forest through the window mixed with the warm light of the lamp made me think of those little moments on vacation where your partner is just sitting there, doing their thing and relaxing, and seeing them sets as much fire to your heart as it does your loins.
For the star of this photoshoot, I already knew who I wanted to cast. Either The Incredibles’ Elastigirl Helen Parr or Cass Hamada, the aunt in Big Hero Six.
Seriously, whatever executive at Pixar mandated they make all the mother figures in their movies super hot with dump trucks and cast Hollywood’s sexiest voices deserves a raise.
After checking around Smutba.se, I decided to go with Mavixtious’ Cass model.
I recognized it from Redmoa’s animations, which boast impressive voice acting, animation, and humor.
Step 2: Bringing Everything Together
Now that I have my assets, this should go smooth as silk.
And my computer immediately crashed.
This happened a few more times, which was frustrating, but I let Its-gergless inspire me to keep going forward.
This character model came with a custom-built interface to change settings for outfits and body behaviors. I swapped out her French maid costume for a green top and jean shorts. Now I needed to bring the cozy setting in from a different Blender file.
Which meant having to go back into Youtube to learn how to do that.
Step 3: Posing
Once that was all sorted out, I was ready to start posing. Thanks to the rig, moving Cass around was pretty easy. It reminded me of playing with action figures in my room.
There were problems like being in the wrong mode or selecting the wrong controls that lead to some nightmare fuel at first… but I kept plugging along until I had something I liked.
The process is incredibly tedious and can take forever to get just right, but it is fun to get absorbed in the minutia.
Once I had Cass placed in the right spot and roughly the pose I wanted, I wanted to add a little something for some story detail. I went back to Blendswap and downloaded Gabriel’s book model to have it look like Cass was reading in bed.
Now that I had almost everything in position, it was time to frame up the shot and light everything.
Step 4: Make it Nice
“Lighting is one of my favorite bits,” says Anime Nyan. “Lighting is something so important, I’ve realized. Without good lighting, things don’t look great. It doesn’t look realistic, it doesn’t look alive.”
Like film and television, cinematography can make or break your art. Dialing in the lights and colors is a delicate process that requires real practice and skill.
Making 3D CGI porn has an advantage over lighting a scene in the real world since I can put lights wherever I want and not worry about seeing them in the end result.
I take my time placing lights around to give the image a warm and comfortable vibe.
When I’m happy with how things are looking to me, I hit the render button and wait.
Step 5: Rendering
And wait…
And wait…
After one hour and nothing to show for it, I shut down the process.
This is a situation where having a powerful GPU would help speed things along, but I’m working with what I have.
I’m not alone in this situation, and the benevolent creators on YouTube have plenty of information to help speed up the process.
There are many settings to futz with, but that doesn’t shock me.
Rendering is a complicated process, with your computer calculating how light travels and interacts with different objects.
Choosing the right render engine is a task in and of itself. Some materials interact with light differently depending on the engine.
Blender has two main options, with one being easier on your computer but offering less realism and the other looking fantastic but taking forever.
Since I committed to a model that needs the more taxing engine, I fiddle with settings until I can get something I like with as little as possible.
Then, boom:
I’m pretty happy with this. Sure, it may not be as hardcore as some might enjoy, but it works for what I want.
Step 6: Compositing
Compositing is the process of bringing all the elements together and enhancing the image with filters.
This process is instrumental in creating digital art, especially if you are rendering pieces of your image separately. It can be complicated but is necessary for that extra sauce to make your work pop.
To be honest, I skipped this step and just got things how I like and rendered everything together.
I’m happy with the image as is, but I know it could be better.
So do the users on the NSFW Blender Discord.
After posting in the critique server, I received some constructive criticism about framing and little touches I could make to help the body look real like adding more volume to her shoulder when Cass’ arm is raised.
All in all, it was a rewarding experience to make some fun art.
You should try it.
Tips and Tricks
Here’s some quick fire advice for making your own Blender 3D NSFW art:
- Work with what you have on hand – Yes, better hardware would be nice and probably save some major headaches, but the important thing is how you express yourself
- Use free resources – There are millions of free models, textures, addons, and tutorials to help you out. Don’t stress yourself out trying to make everything yourself.
- Connect with the community – The NSFW Blender Discord server is brimming with fellow Rule 34 fans and artists that can help you learn and improve your art.
- Do what you like – Unless you want to start a career in making CGI porn, don’t worry about what other people get off on. The best aspect of making NSFW 3D art is letting your imagination run wild.
- Have fun – Don’t take anything too seriously and focus on enjoying the process.
Horny Art for Horny Art’s Sake
While some may clutch their pearls over taking cartoon and video game characters and making hardcore porn with them, others are more open-minded.
“Sex is natural,” says Nyan, “Everyone does it, and this is just an extension of that. Making NSFW art is a way of fulfilling fantasies and experiencing things we can’t in real life.”
There may not be content you like, but like animation in major media, 3D animated porn is just another medium with a wide variety of styles and genres we can use to express ourselves.
It is easier than ever to make your own 3D art at home, so download some free programs, watch Anime Nyan’s tutorials, and bring your fantasies to life.
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