ImpiousMonk

Developer's Journal 5:18

Added 2025-06-01 04:45:19 +0000 UTC

Hello friends.

This week I realized that I needed an additional, unplanned scene--a phone call which can be made to any of the four LI's. Scenes like this may contribute to a "short but wide" final experience for Episode Five. Although I've been focused on Emmeline's route for the last few months, for some reason I wrote and rendered Jamie's version of this scene first. I'll start Emmeline's tomorrow.

It's sort of interesting to approach a scene like this now that I've had three years to get to know each of the LI's. MC--at least when he's not on the detached path--is the MC and is going to act a certain way, and consequently the scene doesn't play out that differently no matter who the MC calls. But each of the four LI's will have a slightly different way of responding to the MC's phone call. All four women are supportive of the MC, but their unique personalities and backgrounds mean they'll express themselves differently. To sit down and write each version of the scene is an interesting exercise in comparing and contrasting.

By the way, I wonder how many people tried out each of the three options with Tanner Koch in Episode Four (don't fight, win fight, lose fight) and noticed how it changed the later conversation with Malena in her apartment. I spent way too much time tweaking the alternate versions of that scene, but I think it is interesting to see the small but meaningful differences in each one.

The images I'm sharing this week, one is a preview for Jamie's version of the scene (no post-work), and the other is an alternate version of the same render which shows the original lighting for her office which I used for the first four episodes. The difference is subtle but you can clearly see that in the new version the light focuses on Jamie a bit better. Just another example to show you how my lighting has improved over the last few years.

That's all for this week. Thank you for your support!

--Monk