Episode 4, Update #20

Hello everyone,

These last weeks were interesting. I'm currently trying my best to get to the end of the episode, so that at least I can do a full playthrough of one side. I still need to go back and complete the other side. The two band sequences I'm currently working on aren't small... but then again, everything I've done for this episode so far isn't small. It always sounds so easy on paper, and definitely doesnt seem like a massive amount of work initially. On top of that, I care about stuff that most probably won't.

-Steam, soundtrack and other general nonsense-
I've been thinking for a while about this project as a whole, but just using Patreon as a supporting platform alone doesnt work, at least not for me and this project. The next best thing thing to consider, is getting it on Steam. Bottom line is, I can't really survive on this platform alone. As a reminder, this isn't my full-time job. I do this on top of actual full-time job, which means I often work 16 hour days and have no weekends. I know, there's 8 hours more I could spend on the project as there are 24 hours in a day, but just call me lazy (just like a certain somebody recently felt was appropriate to tell me).

I won't be working on a Steam release until I've finished EP4 and got it out to you, as it requires a significant amount of extra work. I can wait and see if the upcoming release brings in any additional support, but considering the failure of that since the EP3 release, I have my doubts.

To get it on Steam, I have to make some changes. Mainly removing some material that I never officially managed to get a license for. I'm currently using a handful of music tracks, that I was hoping to obtain a license for once I got enough support. Unfortunately I didn't get to that point and can not afford it. So, these have to be replaced by something else. I looked into getting something custom, so it would still be good, but that's also too expensive at $300 a minute. It's totally reasonable for the quality bar, but again not something I can afford right now or the near future. This left me in a position where I'm going to have to lower some quality and expectations, rather than improving and making it better for future releases. Not a place I want to be, but it is as it is.

Since it had been a while since I promoted this project, I was nudged into doing it again. I despise self promotion and I'm not very good at it. In fact, I think I'm so shit at it, that it had the opposite effect. I lost more support rather than gained. However, I got something else very valuable instead! I was approached by somebody who loves producing heavy metal tracks and offered to make me a track, completely free of charge. I listened to a demo he sent me and it was very good, it could work! He's currently producing the track, and that's the one you'll see the band perform in the upcoming episode. If all goes well, hopefully we can work together more often and eventually replace the older sequences and maybe also future releases. A small light in the dark shadow...

-Taylor's re-work-

Taylor had to undergo a slight transformation. She hasn't visually changed much (at least I hope she hasn't). Her initial design from EP3, the skin always looked dirty to me, like she'd been playing in the mud. I fixed that with a hack in her earlier scenes in EP4, but they still had problems. I didn't notice those issues (mainly very visible seams), because she was pretty much fully clothed in her earlier appearances. The issues became more apparent, once I gave her more revealing clothes. So, I had to do something that I should've done since the start, and that's making sure her textures were every bit as consistent as the other characters.

The texture set came from a particular DAZ vendor that doesnt seem to know how to make seamless textures, doesnt know about normal maps and didnt provide some basic height maps either, so all in all it was like working with tech from the 2000's and didn't allow for me to quickly create what I needed. I liked the character that I bought, because of the awesome tattoos, but that also proved to be the massive pain point. I contacted the vendor and politely requested if perhaps he could provide me with a PSD of the tattoos, so it wouldn't take me a lot of time to transfer it onto a skin that works. Unfortunately, the request was ignored. The tattoo is what makes her unique, and makes it very hard to swap out the skin textures for something else that actually works. I painstakingly had to go through selecting all the tattoo parts very carefully in Photoshop, extract those parts, and transfer it onto a texture set that I was happy with, and one that can actually function properly. That work has been completed, but I'm yet unsure if I should re-render the previous scenes because of that or not. I kind of don't want too because of the time production is already taking, but we'll see.

Finally, a big thanks again to those that support me and have supported me!

Until the next dev-log,

Ezy