30/12/2024 Development Update

Hi, it's been a while since the last development update. I've been busy with lots of stuff but of course, I've progressed quite a bit on the development. Here's what I did so far.

Progress:

I've only been rendering during the mean time, and so far I've hit 300~ renders from scene 1 to scene 5. Rendering has been going pretty slow, not gonna lie, but I'll definitely come up with something to speed the process up. I've done a lot of rewriting on the story as well, since there are always some incoherence here and there. I've also began writing character profiles, and a story board to gather all my thoughts in the same place, so I can always go back and reference it. And oh my god I'm genuinely addicted to writing characters. The process in creating personality and backstory is thoroughly enjoyable, let alone the thrills of plotting the story in each chapters... ah, I probably shouldn't spend too much time planning the future while the present is still in absolute shambles. Anyway, know that I'm trying my best in delivering a quality product as quickly as I could. Trust me, I'm just as eager to release chapter 2 as you are.

Characters rework:

I've spent a little time reworking some of the skin textures on the main characters. I find that the version of the characters in chapter 1 is has very rough skin. I've since put a new texture on a few of the main LIs and the the MC as well. You can check them out in my Discord forum. None of the LIs look too different to their previous version, luckily. The only major change to a character is for the MC. I had to change a lot of his facial feature to make him look less like an alien. Hopefully, the people who didn't read any of my documentation would not notice the difference.

Fast release small update / Slow release big update:

This is a question I've been discussing with myself for a while. Now, I want your opinion. I'm sure all of you would love fast releases, but of course, there are drawbacks. Fast releases means the update will contain less content. If i continue releasing small updates... let's say every 3 months. It'll be a constant edge fest where a chapter may not be satisfying to read at all. The real problem, though, is the way I construct each chapter. My style of writing is a fast-pace/to-the-point style where the main story is continuously progressing, with occasional side objective. If I were to release update with smaller content, I'll have to "slice" a chapter in half, and release them separately. I can't release one half and call that a chapter, and I can't put enough content in it to make the progression seamless. So, what comes out would be something like "Chapter 2: Part 1", where I turn the chapter into 2 parts. I absolutely hate this idea. On the other hand, a slow release isn't what everyone desire but it does give me more time for quality checking. So far, I'm on the side of keeping a slow release but a big update, but I'm open to suggestions and ways I can improve my development.

Blender migration:

This is still a thought! Nothing is certain but the idea of it is quite tempting. As of now, operating in Daz has been a pain. I would kill for a more efficient and comfortable working environment that doesn't work against the user. I've gotten almost everything to work, from transferring assets to Blender, to converting rigs, to posing and animating... What's left is to figure out the texture transferring. Of course, I'll think about this more seriously after chapter 2.

Translation:

I'm looking into getting translation for my game. I hope this can help my game to reach out to a wider audience. So far, I'm thinking of getting Chinese, Spanish, Russian and French translation. I also see some people who would use ChatGPT to do translation and I'm wondering if that would be a good option, since it'll be fast and free of charge. Tell me what you think about this.

Chapter 1 revisit:

Looking back to Chapter 1, I noticed a lot of renders which I need to rework. I'm not going to redo all of it, of course. Just the ones that does satisfy me. I'm also thinking about redoing the animation, but that depends if I can get chapter 2 done quickly enough. And you know what? I can actually try rendering in Blender as well, because importing and exporting animation to Daz is a pain and if I can do everything in Blender, that will be a blessing. So yeah, I need to fix up some renders, replace the black figures with static mesh figures, fix the random blotches in a DoF effect, and so on. We'll have to wait til I finish the chapter 2 renders though.

Acknowledgement:

Thank you so much for my patrons and members. Without you guys, I wouldn't have much motivation for continuing my work. You guys are the ones who make me realise that there are people out there who enjoy the work I'm doing. I'll try my best to not disappoint you guys. Call me overly confident but I truly believe that the story will only go more and more exciting with each update. Thank you very much, I'll see you all in the next development update. Oh, don't forget to join my Discord!