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Hey fighters and metalheads!
We've grown quite a bit... so first of all, a warm welcome to all those that have joined recently. For those that are new, I usually post a developer log every two weeks that keeps you up to date on where we are, what I'm doing, some technical insights and improvements I'm making.
I'll also start up the bi-weekly special renders again soon between the developer logs, and go through each of the characters that you vote for. As you may have noticed, I ended up using some of them as new phone backgrounds that can be unlocked throughout the game. Making these, are a good source for me to use this way, but they're also a testing ground for me to explore different things and improve my abilities.
-Development-
I completed the opening scene from episode 1 last week. Took me a little longer than I wanted, but that's because I had to redo the song the MC and Nyah play with the new music system I wrote for the last release. But it's cool, previously it was just a bit random and losing the beat very quickly. Now, it actually stays on beat, and switches accordingly. There's a big difference between what I released a few years ago, compared to now. Episode 1, although not big, has a few unique elements that are only there one time, like meeting Agatha the admin lady, the imagination sequence during the altercation with Joe, etc. I'm looking forward to the scene where you meet Lily for the first time, and see how it compares to the old version. That's usually the common stopping point where people quit, as Lily is just too creepy and horrible looking.
While I set up these scenes and have little to render, I've taken the liberty to re-render the scenes I had to do at a lower quality from the last release. I've started with Natasha's scenes and they look so much better now. They still looked decent on release, but the muddy washed out shadows and details really bother me. Her skin textures were also of a terrible quality (lot of noisy details that make her often look dirty), so I spent some time doing it up a bit. They'll be added to the next release.
Although in general the quality has jumped quite a bit, there's still many mistakes I made. I was getting used to setting up new DLSR cameras and started using proper light exposure settings. Hence the earlier scenes in the episode look a bit ropey. I often ended up using far too heavy lenses, eventually setting up a rule to only use 24mm, 35mm, 50mm and 65mm, the lower numbers for wider group/environment shots, the higher for intimate and close up shots. In terms of exposure, I ended up bringing out too many fine details and heavy contrast, often ending up with noisy and dirty looking faces, skin texture and crushed colors. But hey, all part of the learning process, and getting better with each release going forward.
-Hardware improvements-
One man, one machine, one mission. This really killed it for me during the end phases of development. I had a huge queue of images to render, and having only one machine to render overnight, fucked me over and delayed the release. The new 5090 will be released this week, and I plan to build myself another machine that'll replace my current development rig. I'll then use the old one as my render slave, that likely won't ever stop rendering. That'll improve my update speed a little.
-Releases-
Once episode 1 is completed, I'll release that as the next update, which won't be too long from now. If you're not interested in replaying, I suggest you skip it, and wait for another.
-Fights-
I did a lot of work on the fight system last year, and wanted to release with the new "Fight now" system enabled. Unfortunately, it was a lot of extra work to make it work as a standalone thing. I need to separate all of the elements (like setting your combo and styles), and somehow make that available to you outside of the story. It progresses naturally as you play the story, but not if you're outside of it.
All earlier fights (Rosie and Diana), also don't have all final moves rendered, as you wouldn't have them at that point. When I get to Episode 2 and the Rosie fight, I'll make sure to add them, and then it can be available as a standalone option. There were other things I wanted to do and add to the system itself, that I didn't have time for. I briefly talked about it months ago, by adding a breakbar to the limbs, so you can't instantly submit an opponent in good health. You have to wear them down a bit first, before you can finish the submission. This is to stop it from being a little too easy. The other thing I still need to add, is takedown stuffing. The new block and evade features work well, but also need to be added for a chance to avoid a takedown.
Anyway, that's enough rambling... sex now, sex now!
Love,
Ezy ❤
