Bound By Night

Status update on Build 0.2a

Added 2021-02-19 14:54:08 +0000 UTC

Hi all. I thought I'd give you a status update on the work on v0.2a, which will include Chapters 2 and 3. In short, I think we're looking at middle of next week as a reasonable target.

As I've been doing editing and QA on Chapter 2, I decided to redo the opening shots, switching from a 2D background to a new 3D environment I picked up. I also added additional shots to a dialogue sequence, which -- after I played it -- I felt were necessary to keep the sequence visually interesting and more relevant to the script as it had developed in editing.

For Chapter 3, what had originally started as a (mostly) SFW sequence with an internal monologue followed by a phone conversation is now going to include an optional explicit NSFW sequence. While it may not be immediately obvious, I found a way to add it to the scene while still having it relevant to the plot (my goal for all of the explicit scenes). But, as I mapped out what was going to be necessary to complete Chapter 3 with the new sequence, it came to another 25 or 30 images.

With the improved quality settings I'm using now, each image takes about 20 to 30 minutes to render, which doesn't count the time posing, adjusting lighting, finding the camera angles, then fixing any rendering errors/artifacts that appear. However, I just bought a utility that will allow me to setup all the scenes and shots, then have them render overnight while I'm sleeping instead of having me kick off each render manually. So, that should be a big timesaver.

But, even after all that's done, I need to QA the script and code, add in sound, and tweak the timing and settings. And, on top of all of that, the arctic blast sweeping across the U.S. is impacting our home situation and requires me to divide a lot of my attention.

Regardless, even with all of this, I am confident I'll have the next build (v0.2) released to patrons at the Hunter tier and above by middle of next week. A revised version 0.1 (aka the demo) with new shots and some tweaks to the code will also be publicly available.

If you're interested, here is the changelog in its current format:

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Version 0.2a*

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* Some updates also incorporated into 0.1b, the updated public demo build containing the prologue and chapter 1

1. added new chapter(s)/scene(s)

2. added two new characters

3. revised some dialogue in Prologue and Chapter 1

4. changed name of hospital

5. fixed some pause and transition coding

6. increased default volume of footsteps

7. implemented relationship tracking