The insane world of variability and why so many developers stay away from it.
Yesterday I broke my record. All the images you see above were made in a single day of work. There are 42... My previous record was something like 34 or 35... Of course sometimes I've had more than that in a single day but only when it was animations and this is not an animation.
This has its explanation. I wasn't working from scratch since the scene already existed. This was the original scene from version 0.6a. I'll show you only the first image of the scene in its 2 versions:
Also, some images only have small changes. That's why the number of images produced yesterday was more or less double the usual.
But don't get it wrong, the only thing that was used as a base is the first image. The rest is just a smooth continuation of the work that comes after modifying that first image. That means even if I already have, for example, the original second image done, I don't use it to modify it with the new situations because the flow gets lost since the situations are different, positions are different, expressions are different. Even, as you can see, different number of images per Version. All the images above have their text showing the version of the scene.
Those 42 images are actually just 3 variations of the same scene... I imagine many of you have played "Being a DIK" and remember the party, and of course the banana costume... All of that with dialogue variations as well.
That happens because of past choices made by us... and that's exactly what many developers avoid, because it means a huge amount of extra work and many times even when they try to do it they get confused in the code and end up screwing it up...
I don't like pointing fingers at anyone but there's no better way to illustrate it. "Dating My Daughter" is a very good example of a developer getting lost in the code and screwing it up several times.
But I don't blame him... it's easy sometimes to get lost and screw things up without even noticing. And it all comes down to workflow. In my case, for example, I skip an important step. When it comes to the story, I don't have to go through the process of writing and creating a script. But many others have to start there. Imagine someone stuck doing only that for one or two weeks. I've seen developers claim they've been writing for a whole month, I don't really buy it but that's what they say xD.
Then comes the process of creating the images, you can easily spend 2 or 3 months just on that... and finally programming begins. And by then maybe two, three months, or more have passed since the last time you opened the code to program. Inevitably you're lost and have to try to remember what the hell it was that you did 3 months ago... It's not easy xD
Don't even ask me what this thing I made about a month ago does because I don't remember and I'd have to analyze it in depth. I just saw some more or less complex code and copied it without checking for this example...
Now add to that the dilemma of scene variations, all handled by variables. You need to jump from one point to another in the code, even between several different files with code, trying to remember what this or that thing was doing... That's why the logical thing is to try to minimize it, and in the end many end up giving the false illusion of choices.
Haven't you ever seen a scene with 4 or more choices with the typical "ask XXX" or "ask YYY" or "ask ZZZ"?
Well, all of that is useless because I can do the same thing to get information about someone without needing you to click uselessly, just by putting the dialogue and that's it. Making you click an option in those cases almost never affects anything and is used only as filler, to give the false illusion that you have control.
Control in an AVN is an illusion. The player never really has control, not even when facing an actual decision that needs to be made, because the outcome of any decision was programmed by the developer. The only real trick is that some hide that illusion better than others... I'm not going to talk about my own case because that's not for me to say. It's up to you to decide whether the illusion is well done or not.
And that takes us back to the start, the images. These are only three of the seven possible outcomes based on choices you've made in the upcoming version 0.6b. I can't tell you why it happens, but I can tell you why there are variations... it all depends on moods.
In this case the options are:
Kaoru happy
Josephine happy
Josephine serious
Kaoru and Josephine happy
Kaoru and Josephine serious
Kaoru happy and Josephine serious
Kaoru serious and Josephine happy
All those variations have to be rendered and completed with different dialogues... That's why not everyone does it and instead they just simulate it by changing some dialogue and that's it. Maybe there are some variations too, but by reusing already existing images.
And I'm not saying that at some point I won't use already existing images. In fact, I did it in past scenes of this same version, because if I have Sophia (for example) running in a certain place and I need to have 6 variants of that same thing in that same location, obviously I'm not going to make everything again over and over and over. Sometimes you can and sometimes you can't... But you won't always notice because I do mixed things and there are so many possibilities that you'll get lost xD
Combine your choices with randomness and you get "30 Days" 😋
Speaking of randomness. Once I finish these variants, I'll have to create a small scene that you might or might not see depending on past choices and then begin creating and rendering the 24 versions of the women reaching the finish line.
Once I'm done rendering that, I'd say I'm already a bit past the first third of the total done. Maybe I was wrong, I thought it would take quite a bit longer... I'm human after all and I underestimated the power of having a lot of things already done and only needing to modify the base to keep going 😒
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Comments (10)
Many of these renders are ideal for animation 😄. In some cases, only one frame changes, for example, the eyes are closed and the shoulders are raised three centimetres higher.
Yep, that shoulder shrug part from MC is a sequence of 3 images that will be shown all together (the 3 of them) in about a second and a half. But you're not seeing something... yeah, maybe it's not that obvious and it only looks right inside the game, there's breathing movement from Kaoru besides the rest... and something I noticed shortly after uploading the images, MC has clipping on his shirt during the shrug... I'll have to fix it in post 😔
While I have zero interest in developing an AVN, the processes in the creation of one fascinates me. One wish that I truly hope comes true, now that I'm almost 1 full year into my AVN era, is that there be more variety in future AVN's - especially when it comes to completely comical physical appearances of literally 99% of the characters. I'm sure there are some that love the DDDD breasts on EVERY female character, or the 40 inch hips with 20 inch waists. I don't. I also don't have a 15 inch long, 12 inch wide penis, so that's just ridiculous to me. Maybe some guys here don't care, but that's OK for them. For me, I want variety in the visuals and I absolutely love to be able to enjoy an original plotline with smart dialogue. I do appreciate your choices in 30 Days in so many ways and find it to be very entertaining. I'm looking forward to every upcoming chapter. I'm just starting 0.5.6 now. Keep up the great work.
Sometimes it happens for money reasons. Bigger women sell more than normal ones. There are things I can't stand and that's exactly one of them. I like normal xD My MC also has his own stuff that's bigger than average, even though I shrank it a bit after the fainting. That has an explanation too. It's easier that way for animation reasons, and in theory a lot of women like them big (yep and in practice too, unless it's too big), and that pushes them a bit toward the MC's side. For animation purposes, one that's too big makes things complicated, and one that's small or normal does too. The hip thrust looks more noticeable with something bigger than normal than with an average one, and sometimes you have to make shots that, if it's normal or small, look bad because the character blocks the camera... and you end up wasting time being extra creative to avoid the problems. Thaks !
Again wise words my courageous friend. May you be able to not loose your path like others.
Amazing! Basically, you have decided to enjoy the combinatorial explosion, instead of fearing it... :-)
Well said. Explosion, yeah, but controlled, like in a demolition. Even though sometimes it looks like the building is tilting where it shouldn't and it's gonna make a huge mess xD
My friend GPT told me something. Half a friend, because I often tell him to fuck off when he doesn't do what I want the way I want it xD Maybe I'm being unfair. It's possible that what would take me one week to write could take someone else a month... Because you already know some things about me... and among those things there's something I might not have mentioned. I don't remember everything because I talk too much, haha. Well, I have hyperphantasia. I think in images. I can easily manipulate images in my mind. That can save a lot of time because normally when someone writes, they listen to their inner voice and then turn that into text. That's normal, and that limits them. I have an image in my head, a full scene, and I just turn it into text. And that's also the way I work in DAZ. When I'm creating images, I'm basically remembering the scene I planned in my head... apparently not everyone works like that. I don't know if you're following me. I don't create text first and then make images based on that text. I create a scene in my mind, and there's mental text attached to it, then I move that into DAZ and that's it... it sounds the same, but it's not. Every time I look at something I wrote before, I remember the images in my mind from when I turned them into text. Most of what I'm doing is recreating in DAZ something that, for me, already existed.
The only downside of that is that you have to imagine and write things down as you go, in the moment 🫠. In other words, you can't imagine a scene from Day 22 without writing it down now, because it's so far away that when the time comes, you won't remember it unless you have a ton of memory RAM in your brain 💪🧠😅. By the way, I suppose everything ends on Day 30; that's the name of the game (without counting premature deaths). What day are these current events on?
👍👌- happy Weekend !