Status Update #72

It's a little past mid-January, which means I'm overdue for a game status update!

Today's cover image is the first look at Trevor's Grind'm scenario. Why wait to arrive at the hotel to get started when some road head could happen on the way?

In case you missed it, the public release of the Morning After Update was on the 7th. There ultimately weren't a lot of additions, but one of the CGs I did add will be of interest to all you Evan lovers...

I'll briefly touch on a few work items in particular, then we'll move on to the big checklist of what's done and what remains before Trevor's Grind'm scenario is ready to release.

Writing

Most of the Trevor Grind'm scenario is scheduled to be written after the art is completed, so I'm looking fine on that front. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get Isaiah's scene into the Morning After Update or some of the other reactivity I wanted.

Frankly, external events have made it difficult to focus on writing in particular. But I will absolutely make sure Isaiah's scene plus a few other additions are added to the game in the next release.

Coding

Galleries for the Grind'm scenarios have been a player request for a while, and now they finally exist!

The main galleries were made using a template I found a couple years back, and all told it's pretty basic. I wanted a more specific layout for these galleries, so I had to figure out how to get each element located in the correct place on-screen, and I also needed to make sure we can move between gallery pages without errors as well as back to the correct profile when you close the gallery.

This did take some time—as did making all the art for these screens—but turns out I now know enough about programming in Ren'py that it took me far less time to put together than it would have even just a year ago. Hurray for learning as you go!

I began by rearranging the main Grind'm page so that when you're looking at an unlocked profile, you see the full profile picture with the icons below instead of overlain. I also added a button to view a guy's "album":

You will need to replay Jordi's scenario to unlock all his gallery images since I only just added the code to unlock the CGs. The first time you open the gallery it will look like this:

Eventually it'll look like this, giving you easy access to the CGs you want to see again:

Art

Since I was working on additions to Jordi's scenario anyway, I went back and re-rendered all of his sprites and Connor's non-shirtless sprites to match the updated sprites in the main game. There weren't many, but I wanted Connor's smile, for instance, to match all of his other smile sprites.

Also completed were Connor & Trevor's clothed sprites from the upcoming scenario. This wasn't really as easy as it sounds because I made the decision to use actual cloth simulation via Marvelous Designer for both outfits. I think it looks better and I wanted to show off Trevor's VPL, but I mostly did this because I knew I needed them partially-undressed in some CGs. Trying to do that with conforming Daz clothing assets mostly leads to subpar results.

Trevor's full outfit is three different pieces that I needed to make sure layered correctly when simulating. I also needed to make sure the 3D meshes were subdivided enough that it was smoother and more realistic in the renders. Without doing that, Trevor's sprites looked like this after I applied custom shaders:

This mostly looks okay and I doubt anyone would have noticed if I used this, but the jagged folds and wrinkles, especially on his right side, made it looks unpolished to me. After subdividing the outfit mesh further and adding some thickness to the cloth, it came out like this:

Which to me looks much nicer and smoother.

The big problem with doing all this, though, is how incredibly long it takes my computer to actually make these changes and do the simulation. Just selecting all the garment pieces and changing the subdivision took my poor CPU an hour or so to complete. Simulating beyond that was maybe another hour.

And keep in mind I have to do this for every CG he's clothed in as well. I could have veered course to something simpler, but me being me, I had my mind set on using this outfit and wasn't gonna compromise.

Good news is I can use all that simulation time to finish things like the gallery screens. Plus, these boys won't be wearing clothes for very long, so it's a temporary hassle!

Among other things, I created/updated a few non-Grind'm CGs as well as created a new character that'll be in the next story update. In particular, I've picked away at Alex's stuff when I have time since the difference between his new sprites and his old CGs is jarring. Here's one before (top CG) and after (bottom CG):

To "memorialize" the original Alex model, I snuck in a little Easter egg that'll end up really obscure by the time the game is completely done! The female character model from which I took Alex's original textures has become a hotel employee in a background image. Just a fun fact you can break out at parties:

And last thing of note, I've been continuing to gather all the assets I need for the scenario, like street & hotel environments, Trevor's car, and items for a minor character.

Okay, let's look at the to-do list. Newly completed tasks and new additions are marked with an asterisk.

(Since I'm now primarily working on Trevor's Grind'm scenario, I removed all the Morning After Update tasks except those that have been completed since the last status update. Items like Isaiah's scene will be added back to the to-do list later.)

Completed Components

🟢 GENERAL 🟢

Revised Models

• Alex, full revision

• NC17, tweaks

• Trevor, tweaks

New Model

• Henri (Matt's former roommate)

• * Patrick (music teacher)

Revised Sprites 

• * Connor's Grind'm clothes for Jordi's scenario (8 of 8 completed)

• * Jordi's Grind'm clothes (5 of 5 completed)

• * Jordi naked erect (5 of 5 completed)

Coding

• * Jordi's Grind'm scenario CG unlocks

🟢 MORNING AFTER UPDATE 🟢

New CG

• * Evan Tease 6, which can be found near the end of the update

Coding

• Code review (ongoing)

• Unused/unnecessary variable removal (ongoing)

• Bug fixes (ongoing)

🟢 TREVOR GRIND'M UPDATE 🟢

Art - Menu

• Revised Grind'm menu screen

• * Trevor profile pics (4 of 4 completed)

• Trevor profile text (2 of 2 completed)

• * Grind'm gallery screens (3 of 4 completed)

• * Jordi's Grind'm gallery thumbnails (39 of 39 completed)

• * Trevor's Grind'm gallery thumbnails (2 of 74 completed)

Art - Sprites

• * Cell phone (10 of 10 completed)

• * Connor Grind'm clothes (24 of 24 completed)

• * Trevor Grind'm clothes (5 of 5 completed)

• * Trevor naked erect (3 of ? completed)

• Unlock pop-up notification sprite

Art - CGs

• * Scenario intro CGs (1 of 2 completed)

• * Scenario foreplay CGs (1 of 28 completed)

Art - Backgrounds

• * City (1 of 1 completed)

• * Hotel (5 of 7 completed)

Art - Character Model

• * Hotel Clerk

Writing

• Trevor profile text (2 of 2 variations completed)

• Scenario introduction

• Scenario foreplay

Coding

• * Trevor scenario unlocks

• * Revised Grind'm menu screen

• * Grind'm gallery screens (2 of 2 completed)

• * Scenario introduction

• * Scenario foreplay (2 of 5 segments completed)

Needed Components

🟡 TREVOR GRIND'M UPDATE 🟡

Art - Menu

• * Grind'm gallery screen (1 of 4 needed)

• * Trevor's Grind'm gallery thumbnails (72 of 74 needed)

Art - Sprites

• Trevor naked (total unknown)

• Additional character(s) (total unknown)

Art - CGs

• * Scenario intro CGs (1 of 2 needed)

• * Scenario foreplay CGs (27 of 28 needed)

• Scenario side CGs (28 of 28 needed)

• Scenario bottom CGs (29 of 29 needed)

• Scenario top CGs (27 of 27 needed)

• Scenario versatile CGs (3 of 3 needed)

• Scenario cumming CGs (69 of 69 needed)

• Scenario afterglow CGs (4 of 4 needed)

• Scenario ending CGs (2 of 2 needed)

• Scenario end screen CGs (3 of 3 needed)

Art - Background

• * Hotel (2 of 7 needed)

Art - Character Model

• Valet

Writing

• Scenario side/oral, part 1

• Scenario side/oral, part 2 (3 variations)

• Scenario bottom, part 1

• Scenario bottom, part 2 (3 variations)

• Scenario top, part 1

• Scenario top, part 2 (3 variations)

• Scenario versatile

• Scenario cumming (10 variations)

• Scenario afterglow (2 variations)

• Scenario ending (2 variations)

• Scenario end screen (3 variations)

Coding

• * Scenario foreplay (3 of 5 segments needed)

• Scenario side/oral & cumming (4 segments)

• Scenario bottom & cumming (4 segments)

• Scenario top & cumming (4 segments)

• Scenario versatile

• Scenario afterglow

• Scenario ending

• Scenario end screens

The Next Few Weeks

What's scheduled is art, art, and more art. I already have some CGs set up that just need clothing simulation, which is an annoying hurdle, but I'll very quickly be past that.

I noted above that external events do make it hard to concentrate on some days, but making this game is a good distraction, and I did manage to complete a decent number of the more involved tasks like making new menus. The next update should show a whole lot more CGs moved from Needed to Completed!