cgi - Technically speaking, most animated works you see today are Computer-generated imagery. Some proposed this to be used for 3D animations that aim towards a realistic aesthetic (which is how the term being used in the film industry), but currently it’s also been used on many 3D animated contents that are toon-shaded.
mmd - MikuMikuDance is an animation software. However the term could also be used to refer to a genre of videos produced by the MMD community. These videos are made with the software MMD, but does not resemble typical MMD content. This video is an iconic MMD content, but is not made with the software MMD.
sfm - Similar issue as mmd. Frequently tagged on cgi videos not made with Source Film Maker or is not distinctive enough to tell.
hentai - Hentai is sometimes used to refer to adult anime episodes produced by studios (OVA). Should make clear if it’s just an art style, or this specific medium.
Some meta tags needed
#OVA - Anime episodes released for VHS and CDs. Usually produced by known studios. Most of the hentai anime we see falls under this category.
live2d - For 2D vector animations made with Live2d Cubism. They are distinctive for smooth movements but limit freedom, like a moving illustration.
Tag slots are limited
Imagine an animated cgi video featuring mmd-styled dancing, in VR 360 format. The script is multi-axis. It would be tagged animationcgimmdvrmulti-axis . Only one slot is left for kinks and positions.
That is my post and I made an oopsie. It is now being fixed.
On image boards such as danbooru, people fix this issue by using parental tags. That is, tagging hentai will also tag animation automatically.
Discourse does have a parent-child tag feature, but it does quite the opposite thing. Basically it makes the child tag invisible when editing a post unless a parent tag is used. I imagine this will only cause people missing out hentai because they don’t know you need to tag animation first.
I agree with your thought that the tags can be confusing, and the definitions aren’t exactly defined. I’ve been lurking for a while, but recently started posting some scripts I created. While posting, I had no idea which tags would be appropriate regarding animated content. In addition to maybe creating definitions for the tags, it would be important for people who are creating topics to have easy access to the definitions (ideally with examples).
This is the system I use for my personal categorization. It’s going to rely heavily on interpretation, so it is likely not suitable as an intuitive solution.
Hentai - 2D animations that have the distinct Japanese style. For me it’s definitely a “know-it-when-you-see-it” type of thing, but that isn’t really applicable to everyone. So it’s not exactly a good definition. Cartoon - It’s basically a catch-all for anything that is 2D but not hentai (like Derpixon’s work, for example). I also use it for pixel art animations. CGI - All 3D animations, whether they are made in Blender, SFM, MMD, or any other tool.
I like the general buckets of hentai, cartoon, cgi. and get rid of sfm,mmd
Not sure what to do with mmd though. Is there a better tag name for for the ones where it’s entirely music focused? Maybe just recommend a combination of cgi + pmv/hmv?
I think a live2d tag is fine. Remember that anyone with a high enough trust level can make new tags, but I’ll just go make it now.
And I don’t think that we need an ova tag, I don’t really know what the distinction would be with and without ova
Actually I totally regret this live2d proposal. I looked at that animation and couldn’t instinctively tell if that is made with Live2d or another software such as Adobe Animate.
I also don’t know if a lot would care. It’s an animation in 2D. What difference does the software medium make?
I’m in for removing sfm for the same reason. However mmd should be kept, as a genre rather than a medium.
I agree with your thoughts here. I don’t think the live2d tag will be very helpful, and it doesn’t seem to really communicate a style that is significantly different from what I would put in my personal “cartoon” category.
I also agree that sfm could go, and mmd should be kept. There is a pretty distinct difference between a typical MMD video and a typical CGI video, and it’s easy to tell right away once you’ve seen examples of each. My only thought to add is that we wouldn’t want to restrict mmd to be focused on dancing and music. There is a lot of content out there that is made with MMD (or at least looks like it was) but doesn’t have any music. However, it still has the art style and a general theme of how the video is going to play out.
Classic MMDs are about music and dancing. But given what the community has produced so far, the term can definitely extend beyond that.
I agree with what @TheObsidianGeneral said above and I think it’s better to keep its organic usage. MMD as a genre is very difficult to draw a line around.
For what it’s worth, HMV Mania just groups content into 2D and 3D.
2D doesn’t have a Live2D distinction.
MMD is 3D animations made with the software MikuMikuDance. It doesn’t have to be the character Miku. But I can see how this can get confusing because a lot of people will end up labeling something as MMD just because it has 3D motions (camera angles changing, 3D physics, etc.). At the end of the day though, MMD just means a specific software was used to model the character and the motions.
HMV is a loaded term. It originally stood for “Hentai Music Video” but over time become a blanket term for any fictional video involving music and explicitly exposed genital flesh.[*]
So this means you can have a 2D HMV, and a 3D HMV (which can include MMD).
This also means you can 2D AMV and 3D AMV.
[*] you’ll find examples on the site with videos labeled AMV that have lots of sex and/or nudity in them, but without the genitals. That aligns with what you also find for series like Harem in the Labyrinth of Another World, Interspecies Reviewers, Redo of Healer, and so on.
My issue with MMD as a software is that there has been an increasing number of creators making videos with softwares such as Blender. These were still the classic dance formula but with better shading and fabric physics that were unachievable in the original MikuMikuDance.
And there’s also VaM and its MMDLoader plugin, which allows MMD contents in VaM.
But you have a point. MikuMikuDance is still involved in the production as it is the software that was uses to key in the character motions and distributed as asset.
As far as I know, there is no definition for the duration of an HMV/PMV. However, there is a distinction for FH/CH. They tend to be compilations of HMV/PMV videos from the same creator with some narrative or Goal narrated. ASMR has an uptick in popularity outside of this site, and the few posts that are created for this genre have a small overlap with low-effort videos that are marketed as “ASMR”.
I understand that tags like Audio Based are more of a catchall for FH/CH/HMV/PMV as well as “ASMR”. Also that a FH video can be tagged with HMV if it is a compilation but this does not work vice-versa and it is debatable if WIP compilations should have the full FH tag vice HMV before the final product is made.
Going through new posts and commenting, “This video is only 5 minutes and too short to be tagged FH/CH” would be useless without a community guideline.
I am not blaming the creators just vocalizing inefficiencies that could make our sorting system pointless.
I once though about giving animation content its own category. This way it can have its own sets of tags (tentacle, animated-bestiality, hentai, etc). Though based on the existing structure of the site this would spawn two additional categories to separate paid scripts from free ones, which would be unnecessarily complicated.
I don’t know how much control we have over the database structure, but here’s an idea. We could create a “Style” field that is a single-choice list with the following options:
Live (or “Real” or something)
2D Animation (or “Hentai”, “Cartoon”, etc. Gotta pick just one though.)
3D Animation (or “CGI”)
PMV
Audio-Based (intended for content with static images. i.e., not music videos. Rather, things like JOI or scripts for music without accompanying video)
Varied (or “N/A”, for the posts that are compilations from a scripter or things like that, and contain links to several styles of content.)
In a perfect world, this would be a dropdown menu that could also have a brief description for each option. The idea here is that the style of the content is a required field, and then users can select which styles they want to see. I would guess that at least 90% of posts will fall distinctly into a single style, and so one of the five available tag slots is always used to show what style it is. This would hopefully help clear up some the tags clutter. Just an idea to chew on!
Mirroring hmv pmv
A music video where porn scenes are edited together and synchronized to the beat.
I went through multiple sources and found similar descriptions to the ones that @Falafel has added to the Wiki. It appears that there was no consensus on the duration of a fap-hero like I though there was.
So my recommendation follows the logic with FH/HMV and CH/PMV with their respective pair.
A Fap Hero requires a beatbar synced to the music or beat.
Without a beat bar, it would classify as an HMV
Fap Hero(s) with multiple rounds should then receive a different tag to not overlap with HMV compilation is in the wiki and matches the description
It is now being fixed.