Supporter Progress Update

Hey everyone!

I just wanted to finally reach out to you and give you some updates on everything that I'm working on. As with everything with this project, I'm always learning; this includes having to discover and practice the best way to communicate with you all as supporters about my progress with the game.

I don't have a perfect system yet, but in time I expect to get the hang of it and make things more regular so you can have a steady understanding and perspective of where things are headed for the game! :)

So for now, here’s a breakdown and sort of ramble of what I've accomplished and been working on for the game. These will get cleaner and more precise with time. But I just wanted to communicate with you all as fast as possible.

Scene Work and Script Final Draft

I finally have a "pretty" solid idea of the amount of scenes we are going to have in 0.1.

Even though the script has been written for a while, and only minor adjustments are happening here and there, I'll explain why it has been difficult to narrow down just how many "scenes" there are going to be. Every developer has a different way of doing things, so I think it's also useful to describe what a "scene" is in my process.

In my process, I mostly define a new "scene" as a new "environment" from the previous, OR a sex scene. So the number of "scenes" in an update generally reflects the amount of times you will transition to a new location in the update, as well as the number of sex scenes that will occur. The number of sex scenes is a "total sum", meaning that if you choose to opt out of some content, you may have a smaller amount of scenes in your playthrough.

From there, scenes are then broken in "branches". Not all scenes have branches, but scenes that are manipulated by attributes and player choices will have different dialogue shown for each "branch", as well as alterations to the renders generally.

A scene is not defined by length, but by a location and a lighting scheme. So they are not all the same amount of content. Two scenes can take place in the same location, but if the lighting changes, I consider it a transition. So a morning conversation with Brooke in the kitchen, that has 100 lines of dialogue, is one scene. An evening dinner in the kitchen with Nicole, Amelia, and Evelyn, that has 740 lines of dialogue, is one scene.

What was becoming difficult was finding the right environments for each scene, as there are only so many I can choose from online, so alterations needed to be made in the script to accommodate what environments I could put together. And from there, I then needed to ensure the environment allows the script to play out correctly. It's a bit of a juggling, but I'm getting better at finding the balance here.

For example, if there is a car ride with two occupants that are meant to go through a lot of dialogue, I need to make sure the environment outside the car has enough detail and size to make it seem like the car is actually continuously moving.

I'll be able to showcase some renders soon! The first two scenes of this update, being as they are the "grabbers" or "openers" are the most complex scenes I've worked on so far in my 3D experience. The game kicks off with a bit of a bang, and does not have a mundane "cold-start". I know you all will love it!

When I share the amount of scenes for each progress update, I likely won't share which scene number is the sex scene, and also probably won't be sharing how many there will be. I would prefer the game's sex scenes to always be a surprise and less of a pre-installed notion in your head. But for 0.1 I'll be giving you a lil more info as it's the start of all of this.

• As of now, 0.1 is slated to have 18 scenes. 4 of which are erotic scenes.

"Erotic scene" is the blanket term I use to refer to ANY SCENE which is, in some way, advancing the sexual relationship of two characters. So while "a deep make out and groping session" isn't actually "sex" per say, it is under the same category of "sex" in the game's code. Basically anything "steamy" falls under this category, as it also requires more detailed pose work.

A New Posing Workflow

Speaking of posing, that's something that has been a REAL pain in my butt and I have finally figured out a proper workflow for it.

To start, if you've never used Daz3D, know that while it is a wonderful program, it is widely known to have terrible optimization. Much of your experience in Daz is simply spent waiting. Waiting for loading scenes, waiting for simulation data, waiting for renders, etc.

But one of the most frustrating things recently is the slowness of posing. Posing is done with the 3D skeleton and up until now, my pose work has been hell, as after moving every bone in posing, I usually have to wait a second or two for Daz to process it. It may not sound like much, but posing is hundreds and thousands of tiny micro movements and having to wait each time was becoming hell.

BUT! I have figured out a workaround for this that is working wonderfully!

The main problem is that my models are very detailed and very asset heavy. They each have hundreds of morphs, textures, lie overlays, and high SubD levels. Which puts a strain on the program. What I have done to remedy this is to create basically much lower definition versions of each of the game's characters and use those "puppets" (as I call them) to do most of the pose work. Then I import one of the main high definition figures into the scene, import the puppet's pose onto them, and then do small touch up adjustments (with the lag) to wrap it all up.

This has made my life SO MUCH easier in the long run and something I would share with newcomers in the future! Suffice to say, this discovery will speed up dev time! :D

Custom Morphs and Texture Work

Part of this game development journey was to use it as a springboard to learn more about 3d art and design as I go. While I could have just used basic assets and changed very little, that was never my intention for the game.

I often look for ways to innovate and add my own flair to things to give myself an opportunity to learn more about a part of 3d art/modelling. And by doing so I become a better artist overall, and have the ability to put out more visually unique, impressive, and beautiful work to you all.

Something I have been working on lately is custom morphs to my models and also custom texture work to create things that aren't possible with the base DAZ figures.

An example of this work (something I can share super soon), is that Laura is going to be given heterochromia (two different eye colors), which isn’t actually possible by default for the Genesis 8 series--as the texture for the "eyes" is a single map. So I have had to learn how to customize these textures by hand and make changes to them to get the results I want!

It again, adds a personal touch to the game, and makes me happy to see a unique feature that I can go "hey I figured out how to do that!" This also isn't just for aesthetics, and ties into the story of the game too!

What Your Support Has Helped Me With So Far

Finally, I wanted to take a moment to thank each and every one of you for helping me along this awesome, scary, and beautiful journey! I am so glad to have you here with me as we build this world together and you support means so so so so much to me.

I'm terrible with coming up with what to say in thanks for all this, as half the time I'm just an anxious mess when it comes to receiving support.

I cannot wait to see what's to come in the future and I can't wait for you all to be able to dig into this game and eat your heart out with all the fun stuff we have planned! You all are so amazing and wonderful I don't know how else to say it, but thank you again so so much! You are making this project a reality!

And even though it's not necessary, I find comfort in sharing a little bit about what and how your support is helping me so far!

So here are some examples of things your support has helped me achieve that is directly advancing the progress of the game.

• Air Conditioner. It has been a crazy hot summer this year, and I'm sure you could imagine just how difficult or basically impossible it would be to work on the game and render with a screaming hot PC going. Now anytime I get home and want to dev, I can flip on some cool air and actually be comfortable while I work on the game! It is such a blessing this year!

• Medical Bill. I had an outstanding bill for an x-ray that was on the verge of getting into late-fees or whatever they are called. While it may not seem like something game related, this outstanding purchase was my only serious "expense" I had to deal with. Now that it is dealt with, all my financial focus can be towards the game. It honestly just also helped with removing all the anxiety around it too.

• Up To Date Adobe Licenses. Full Adobe suite! Post work is what makes good renders into great renders, and having an up to date version of everything and cloud storage makes life so much easier!

• Many Beautiful Daz Assets. As you might expect, the more assets I can get, the more beautiful and interesting I can make the game! It's actually really fun to shop for assets, but can be dangerous! Hehe!

• An External Hard Drive for Backing Up the Game. I FINALLY have the entire game, script, models, environments… EVERYTHING backed up on an external hard drive. Now if anything should fail with my pc, I will at least be able to have a recovery of the game's files. It is such a sigh of relief!

• Breakfast With Mom. It may sound silly, but I was able to take my mom out to a simple breakfast this past month and was able to pay for it for both of us. A lil something to share love with her and also act as a sort of "confidence" boost to see just how real this hobby and craft is becoming. It was nice to have a decent breakfast for once and an ACTUAL cup of yummy coffee and not just cafeteria "coffee water"!

That's all for now, but I'll be reaching out again real soon!

Always feel free to reach out to me in the Discord channels with anything! The Chamber and Council are always where I respond the fastest!

Cheers,

Coffee! <3