Status update Chapter 6 - Octane - Custom Melinda and Katarina

Hello,

1. Status update Chapter 6

The end cinematic I am rendering at the moment is taking a lot of time.

The cinematic is a total of 2:30min long.  I am currently at 1:50min.
So it's almost done.

The current render count is 4075 (Including animations) We're close.

I was about to dedicate one PC to SG, but I brought it back to WiAB to render animations.. And both PC's are rendering 100 Frame long animations right now.


I also had to re-do the gallery completely. A dev friend of mine made me aware of what was going wrong because I was experiencing "Performance" problems.

Well, turns out I made a mistake and had to re-do all images, etc.
I also used this to enhance the gallery and all other menus. It now works really smooth.
(Android would've died with the old code.)

But now I want to say.. It makes me feel really bad that I didn't make the April release. Like seriously.. It really does affect me because I promised you guys a release but my PC's just can't render faster.
This would be the time where I would pause my Patreon, but I just bought a 3000€ PC and this investment still scares me.

I do have the new PC but even with a 2080Ti, times like these are common:

(Different animations). 

Two PC's are awesome. I can produce a lot more now than before.. but it's still not enough power for 2min+ cinematics.
That's why I am going for another upgrade in June. (Another 2080Ti or even a Titan RTX), that depends on what the future holds for me.

I never ever made an update with 4000+ renders before.. It will probably get close to 5000.

But it's too early for that.
I don't have the hardware to keep that trend going. Even tho, I really like big updates.


What also took a lot of time from me was "Octane."

I dropped it.
Why?

Because I spent several days fighting bugs.. Bugs that Octane hadn't fixed for years.

 So, I tried to find out if Octane even plans on fixing their plugin, for which I was paying full-price subscription.

Then I found this:

No way DAZ Octane will get fixed. It's a dead-end.

I viewed Octane as a stepping stone.. to a much better software and away from Daz. 

Blender.
I am currently dedicating some time to learn Blender. (Converting materials, understanding nodes, etc.) 

Blender is the ultimate goal for the games and that's where we are heading.

My plan is to create WiAB Season 1 in Daz(Iray) and then switch to Blender for Season 2. The possibilities in Blender are endless. And I also do have some good help with it. I am not completely on my own.

It would be an enormous jump in quality.

What's really good.. The Gallery is a one-time thing. It did take a lot of time.. but I really didn't cheap out on it. I put a lot of effort into it. 

All the Galleries are saved as templates.. adding future content to the gallery will be very easy and fast. 

And the future half-chapters will be done much faster, especially with 2 PCs.

Custom Melinda & Katarina

As you guys know I am also learning Zbrush.
For those who don't know, Zbrush is a sculpting/manipulation software.

And for the rework, I also created 2 custom-sculpted characters.

Old Katarina:

New Katarina:

She will get more screentime in the rework but her story arc starts in Season 2, WiAB.

She's 75% custom sculpted. I had to use some preset morphs at the beginning.

Melinda.

She was planned as a side character. But I know fleshed her out and to fit her new story/personality, she also got a new look.

Old Melinda:

New Melinda:

She's 100% custom sculpted.
I did not go for beauty with her. For me, it's much more important that a character displays a certain "personality."
I also gave her some "asymmetry."
It's a lot more realistic.

I will still enhance both girls here and there until they appear in the rework. 

As I said.. it makes me feel uncomfortable that I wasn't able to release and that I underestimated the time this cinematic took. I will upgrade in the future again but.. I totally understand if people now "Unsubscribe/delete their pledge."

I totally get that.
I am sorry. I really tried.

Here a random preview:

- Ocean