More Demo Polish

The demo is looking a lot sharper. The patch notes are getting long. I will let you all play it as soon as it is ready. I am trying for a release around the end of the month but it might take a little bit longer. My productivity rates are quite high now. I am consuming a lot of caffeine. 

Part of me hates redoing art and voice work but now that I see how much better everything feels I am not conflicted about the choice. The main development obstacle is that everything is interconnected. For example, to finish the trailers and bios page properly I need the final art of characters and graphics from throughout the story. So to finish that, I have to finish a bunch of other stuff too. Then to finish the demo I basically started at line one and worked my way through it.

This has led to more graphical replacements and altering how some scenes display. I’ve also done more 3D work towards the end of the story to get a more varied bank of renders to display in trailers. I can’t redo things endlessly but I also can’t put out something I see as containing obvious flaws.

Taylor’s male model is also getting an upgrade because I hated his original clothing with its floating buttons and I found something to be off about his aesthetic in general. I had a similar feeling previously a year and a half ago and I realized the issue was he had no eyelashes. Literally like 40 renders and I never noticed. It was odd, like I knew he looked strange but my brain could not process why it was the case. So I added some lashes, reshot the renders, done. Except now a year plus later I realized that by giving him female eyelashes by accident it made him look unnecessarily feminine and kind of weird… again. So Taylor got a few minor tweaks in this update that make him look a lot more like the presentable, handsome, clean-shaven young man I intended.  I think I need to add him into the banners and such where appropriate.

I have also tried to customize a few of the backgrounds while I still have a chance. I’m trying to make the character’s homes look more like the characters lived in the spaces vs a stock background image. Throwing up a few posters and pictures, adding clutter and that kind of thing. A lot of games are kind of asset-flippy nowadays and since Transfigure has already taken a bunch of time and effort it seems wrong to not put in the minimum to make it look like it’s own thing.

I have replaced the Julie model because I didn’t think she was attractive enough and she lacked the “imperious” vibe I want to give her. The new Julie model is a lot better. Finishing her model was a hassle because I couldn’t get all of the elements to work in sync but I spent a lot of time fiddling until I got something suitable including whack-a-mole freckles. I ended up discovering a few tricks I might be able to use for other situations but still had to cut the main hairstyle I picked because it looks terrible from many angles. What I might do is have Julie “get a haircut” at some point in the story if I figure it out.

Now that Julie is finalized, more of the banners and art can be completed. I have improved both trailers but they still need a few more screenshots. I intend to make 3 total trailers: a SFW teaser trailer, a NSFW teaser trailer, and the fun Badass Bambi one with a SFW generally F-F themed montage. I added a bunch of new CG to that one. It makes me wish I had animations to show off. Thanks to Darkman and the others that offered feedback!

I’ve pushed a lot of finalization right to the end because the assets and tech needed more time to develop. I don’t want to finalize something that sucks and then have a bigger issue down the line. My 3D prep work is really paying off though. I’m munching through tutorials and different software and techniques to try and up my art game to the highest possible levels I can during this production phase. I have models I am happy with for almost the entire cast and Transfigure has a lot of characters! 

Taylor’s voice has been finalized as sample #B. The audience did not confirm my choice but enough of you voted for model B I will differ to the patrons and that is what we are going with. I was surprised by the votes because I thought #B had a bit of a nasal note to it that I didn’t think people would like but she does sound realistic. For the record, my top pick was the last one, model E.

There have been so many minor changes they are hard to remember and report. I am encouraged to have a lot more to discuss and post than just "I'm working ZzZz." I have another important devlog discussion coming soon!

Thank you in advance for any comments or feedback!