Developer Update #11

Hello everybody! It's the time for the last developer update before the V4.5 release. I'm happy to announce that I'm finished with renders for the next release. The last renders included the rest of Vixen GTS content and the tavern scenes for Suzanna. While working on Suzanna's scenes, I have decided to revamp the tavern scene setup. The tavern scene setup is quite important since it will be the background of most interactions between npcs and the player in his house. In the end, I have changed the lighting and put some additional details in the scene. This overall took longer than expected, but in the end I'm very satisfied with the results. Here's the comparison:

I also tested this setup for other characters too:

Apart from the rendering I did some work on the Encyclopedia. I have decided to fully change my approach to implementing this feature in game, as the plugin I initially wanted to use proved to be quite tricky. Luckily, I have found a way to do it in the way that suits me. Here's the preview of how the bestiary pages will look like:

As you can see the bestiary is providing some lore and few tips about the enemies. There will be separate entries in the encyclopedia providing some more information on enemies and characters for the DD:B lore enthusiasts out there. Apart from that, I'll include some tutorial/hints/explanation for the game mechanics in the encyclopedia itself. Is there anything you think should be included in the Encyclopedia? If so, make sure to let me know.

As for the QoL improvements, I have done some testing on the compressed version of the game and things look good so far. During that I have checked how the compression affected the initial load time of the game and the results are very good, however they should be taken with a grain of salt since it will surely differ from machine to machine. On my current rig the non-compressed version loads up after about 50 seconds, after .webp conversion it does so in a single second. I have also changed the font of the game since the current version one can be hard to read at times.

Additionally,  I have finished Nimardentia's redesign. Here's how it turned out:

I even did a special render for her, similar to the ones I made for Astarte and Liliett. 

Here's a bonus shot of that scene:

And that's it for the update #11, hope you liked it. Make sure to let me know what do you think of the encyclopedia and the redesigns of both the tavern setup and Nimardentia.

As always, thanks for your support.

Cheers!