Dev update #215
Hi!
It’s been some time since I started working on the new project, so here’s where things are.
Story & characters:
Most of my time went into writing. Figuring out the main story points, what needs to happen, the characters’ journey, their personalities and the love interests. Right now these are rough shapes, nothing is set in stone yet.
Leaving Daz behind:
I’ve confirmed that it’s 100% possible for me to fully leave Daz. That means no Daz Gen 8/9 characters, no Daz hair and no Daz clothing.
Daz is a great tool, and a lot of games, mine included, were made with it. But because so many of us use the same assets, the same faces, hair and outfits show up in a lot of games. For this project I want every character to have a look that’s truly their own.
I want to be clear about what this means, though. Daz does a lot of the work for you. Clothes fit automatically. Hair fits automatically. By leaving Daz, I lose all of that. Clothing, hair and hair physics now each need their own separate tools and workflow. It’s a lot more work, but it means unique looks and room for much better quality.
Speaking of hair, I’d love to have at least some basic hair physics this time. Real strand-based hair that actually moves. I’ll go deeper into clothing, hair and physics in future updates.
Skin:
But what are characters without proper skin? That’s what I’m working on right now, and it’s one of the most important parts of the whole project.
I’ve learned a lot since CS, and skin is the area I want to push the most. I’m building it in Octane with a node-based setup, which means a lot of moving nodes around, testing and tweaking, and using Color Correction nodes to squeeze every bit of detail out of the textures. The material uses subsurface scattering, so light goes slightly into the skin and spreads under it, just like with real skin. That’s what makes skin look soft and alive instead of plastic. All characters get 4K texture maps, and the main characters even get 8K maps, so you’ll see details like pores up close. The goal is to get as close to real as I can.
It’s too early to show skin renders, but here’s a small peek behind the scenes at what a skin material looks like.
What’s next:
More writing: figuring out the story points, characters, and their choices.
Building the 3D characters (the part I’m most excited about)
Texturing the characters, especially skin. This one is super important and also the most challenging to get right.
I’ll try to post an update every two weeks or so. Sometimes it might take a bit longer, because I’d rather post when I have something worth showing.
Thank you all for sticking with me while I start something new. It means a lot.
Take care!
Comments (15)
Love ur work keep going❤️
Thanks a lot!
Great work! Hope we have more characters like Lilith!
Hair is one of the hardest features to deal with considering that environments cause changes in how hair behaves.. Showers, rain, swimming, and long sessions of full on sex, make hair wet and matted, Wind causes hair to fly wild, and let's not forget gravity.. Hair, despite light weight, is subject to the effects of gravity.. Some positions will require hair to fall down toward the ground which brings a clipping issue for some games along with not looking realistic in the scene. Same with wet and matted hair. Even wet hair is subject to the pull of gravity. Longer hair will pull away from the character's body to move downward. This does not happen in many games due to limitations of the software used to create the scenes. There have been times where DAZ even failed to provide this "Touch of Reality" for games it was used to create. Every tool has a purpose and everyone who finds that tool will end up with the same images as everyone else using those tools so that may be something you cannot totally get away from. I hope for the best for your plans and goals. Can't wait to see what you do with your games from here!! New ventures find new goals and prizes! I am sure you have got this!
Exactly. Most hair assets are hair-cards with opacity maps rigged just like any other skeleton. It allows some movement, but not that much and it's not very realistic in animation. Daz turned more towards strand-based hair, but... Daz is Daz. I haven't been using that software in years and I'm still pretty sure the hair simulation continues to be... annoying there. To put it lightly. I have my eyes on a dedicated hair plugin. It looks amazing, but I haven't tested it yet. As for how hair looks, Octane has dedicated hair material, so no matter what you click, you will get realistic results. I tested it and it does look REALLY nice. Much, much better than in my previous games. That's a good sign. I still have plenty of testing to do. Still, I'm quite optimistic. It's unlikely that I will be able to do EVERYTHING I want to, but I'll do my best to provide great results without stretching the development time.
Will there be sandbox in the next game or it will be VN because in the previous dev update you mentioned free roam?
Honestly, I don't know. I would like some systems present, but definitely no grinding, no repeating actions to unlock a scene etc. If I add something, it'd be more similar to the heist planning system. But I'm still considering it. Right now, I'm leaning more towards no free roam.
Stay safe and strong 💪🙏
Thank you!
Thank you so much for information, it's great to know that you are still active and working behind the scenes 😄, thankyou prepare are memorable game , add voluptuous female characters also .
Yup! I'm super excited about the project. So far it looks great! And of course, I'll keep in mind your suggestion.
Hello 1thousand, how are you? Greetings from Venezuela! I’m glad to see that you’re making progress on the development of this project. I’d like to know when we might see the tags that this game will feature—I realize it’s still very early to ask, so I’ll understand regardless of your answer.
Thank you. It's still very early in the development, so it's impossible to say, sorry. As for when exactly will I know... Again, hard to say. Maybe later this year?
Best of luck in your endeavors!
Thanks a lot!