Good morning, everyone!
A nice push in progress this week. I got through the main scene of the party. What remains in terms of this last sequence is visiting the various INK girls/Kindra as you enjoy the party. This segment is completely optional and has no impact to the story other than just interacting with the girls, collecting bonus renders, etc. Like roaming around in Kindra's loft during the first chapter, you could end the freeroam immediately and initiate the ending sequence that closes Book 1. I, unfortunately, did have to cut two of the planned interactions which were asking any of the girls to dance. As most saw me discuss on Discord, working with shots that involve the majority of guests in a single shot begins to break DAZ. Be it hitting the memory threshold or DAZ functionality in general. One of the main issues was the posing tools just stops working and I have to delete the character and import them back. Then there's loading the scene for each girl for me to pose them. Generally my scenes take about 1-2 minutes to open maybe 3. But the dancefloor that has most the guests takes me about 10-15 minutes to open and work with. So, unfortunately, I have to cut that one activity (also MC's solo dance).
This has been a big learning experience for me though. Because I have big scenes planned for future chapters. Scenes that involve large crowds, city streets, etc. DAZ lacks the ability to have LODs, which really does suck...to put bluntly. Which is why I hope to learn enough of Blender to move to that platform without seeing much change in model textures.
Anyways, enough of that. That whole story related sequence is done. All that remains is freeroam part of the party and the end shot which is a few shots and an animation. Great thing is I plan to move the camera away from the dancefloor when working on these shots so I can work faster on these scenes. After I complete these remaining shots, I need to do the touchup work on the renders, and insert them into the code. Work on any UI assets that need to be updated and build the BETA build. I have a few other things to work on, but I intend to work on those items while the testers test the game. This should help move things along faster.
Thank you all for being so patient with the update. I don't want anyone to think I've ignored this update, in particular, taking longer than usual. I think about it every day. After releasing CH4, I will need to start working on the code and getting the Steam version setup and sent to Valve for review. So I'm considering making CH5 a smaller update, how small I'm unsure. But the idea is me doing that so I can get the normal release schedule back on track. Also, post CH4 release, maybe 2 weeks after the release, I'd like to host a live Q&A on Discord. You can ask your questions like what took this update so long. Questions regarding CH4, or Book 1. What's next in terms of Book 2, etc.
Thank you all and have yourselves a great week!
- digi.B
