New Year's Day(e) Progress Report - 7/2/26

Hey Everybody!

I’m still plugging away at this beast. I swear, it’s like one of those competitive eating challenges where you have to eat like six pounds of mac and cheese or whatever. The more you eat, the more it looks like you haven’t eaten anything.

I’m 1000+ renders in, and I haven’t even started on the spicy bits yet. I probably have another 200-300 total still frames to do plus the animations.

The point being that I somewhat miscalculated my estimated release date range. I’m still putting in 6-10 hours of work into it for about 5-6 days a week, but I’m gonna be straight with you: these waterpark scenes are slow. Like painfully slow. For those that understand DAZ, it’s an enormous environment with lots of light sources and a bunch of water, a giant geodesic dome (i.e., reflective surfaces) with up to 18 characters running around. I’m pulling all the tricks I know out of my butt to speed things up, but at some point you reach a set of diminishing returns, and you just have to start rendering.

All that being said, it really is shaping up nicely. As final episodes/chapters go, I feel good about this one. I know the disappointment that seems so pervasive in final episodes in shows (Lost, Dexter, and whatever the last two Indiana Jones movies turned into - note to self…Indiana Jonesy?). I’d like to think I dodged that bullet, but I guess that’ll be up to you to decide.     

I’m basically finishing up the waterpark scene right now. Maybe 20-30 renders to go for that, then I can finally start the New Year’s Day portion of the story. I’m really getting excited about that part. I’ve done so much work on the writing side, making sure the dialogue and pacing are good and feel appropriately emotional in a loving, earnest way, not in a “make you cry” way while still being lighthearted and fun.

I’ll be back soon with more updates. Until then, stay cool, and to echo Lockheart, stay hydrated! Like, for real. It’s hot out there!

Love Y’all,

~ Jonesy

Look, they're even counting down the days until it gets released! Well, Lily isn't, but that's Lily for you.