Ren'Py Big Brother: Another Story Rebuild [v0.07.01] [Aleksey90]
- Thread starter Crazygamer43
- Start date
- Dec 22, 2017
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- Jan 7, 2018
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More paths ... please don't. Alexey has his hands full with the existing ones already.
But if you want something from him, you should ask on discord. As far as I can tell he hardly ever comes here.
says he expects to reach the previously abandoned 0.92 version story development timeline with this new thing by the end of year, we can only guess which year
what a comedian... there was zero reason to remake the whole thing again, basically wasted another YEAR, and 0.92 btw wasn't even close to where the original story ended(not)
I really don't get them, could have finished the 0.92 version, and start new chapter with this new framework, but no, regurgitating the same old crap, and not even in a really good way IMHO at least, because the sprite/layered rendering he chose to switch to makes it look like a cheap cartoon, which can of course be a style choice, but I think it is just the zero effort he is putting into this
p.s. the "old" one also used sprites I think, but they looked quite a bit better then this "new and improved"
I wouldn't say the new method handles it worse. It is actually better in technical terms.
(The white lining is where the cutout is done in the image below on newer ones. While the older ones had a larger cutout including environment props)
| I feel, the main reason for it to look cheap or bland; must be due to the decision on saturation level of the renders. I would say the "older" renders were "a glossy type", while the "newer" is more of "a matte finish" |
The point is,
he has changed the way the renders are edited for newer ones.
- or -
perhaps rendering with a different skin tone preset (Translucency / Diffuse).
With "Saturation" levels as shown below - you can notice the difference.
(I feel the right side saturated one seems to resemble the older renders)
P.S. This is not a direct comparison on what changes he has done.
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I CBA to replicate what he did (especially since rpa extract tool doesn't work with archives in this new version), but the result is sprites that are lit like 1990ties mediocre CGI, they just don't look like they belong in the scene
had he simply rendered all of those images in full, didn't screw around with PNG or 100% quality jpegs, he could simply not bother with sprites and have full images with perfect lighting
he could probably save time by not using sprites at all and just rendering it all out in full, if you use your brain and remove unnecessary stuff from scenes when rendering (which includes lights that barely have any effect, mirrors etc.), then 98% of the full images in this game will take 5min max to render to a reasonable sample size (I rarely go past 400 with nvidia filtering)
size wise - if they would use 80-90% jpegs, then size would also not blow out, 500 image update would 300-400mb in size, but these "devs" pixelfuck everything and blow up game sizes for absolutely no reason
bathroom scenes with mirros - that is different story, but how many of those images would be in the game, be smart with camera framing and you can hide those mirrors for majority of renders
these devs make these games for 4-5 or more years, that is a LOT of time to improve technique and increase productivity, but basically all of them tend to do exactly opposite, less and less content, more and more time between releases and so on
- Jan 7, 2018
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That would not work so well either
Don't forget that in one image also poses and outfits change.
Let's just take that one picture with Alice and Max on the couch.
Alice alone has 3 poses
I didn't check Max, but he should have 2 or 3 as well, let's just go with 3 for the moment.
Alice:
Alice has at least 4 different outfits (jeans outfit full, jeans outfit no pants, pajama, silk), Max at least 2, I think it will be 3, but let's just stick with 2 for the moment.
Meaning: 6 variations for Max, 12 for Alice = a total of 72 pictures for one single shot ...
And I don't know if Alices different hair styles will make their way into all scenes or if they are limited to certain rooms.
And then we have the shot with Ann from the same angle. He reuses the Max layers for that one. With full images we would have a huge amount of images again.
Pool? Same. Sometime's it's Lisa on the pool border on on the lounger or in the water, sometimes it's Alice.
And Ann will join the fun as well.
Yes, I saw that sometimes the lightning is not consistent, he definitly need to work on that. There is somewhere a error in his script that renders all possible poses. The biggest difference I saw in the couch shot, the left side of the couch has different colors for all poses.
And that's why you create tech demos, so there is still time to correct some erros that none of the testers noticed.
btw, unren works with the new version without problems. Check it's thread for a fixed version ,that also accepts space characters in the directory name.
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So is this game dead or will we ever see new updates? All i know is the new Big Brother game blows this one away its everything this game should have been .
- Mar 28, 2017
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Not really.
If you are talking about space version-there is even more grind in that one.
And practically you have nothing to do for the whole day.
A lot of it depends on what hardware he has. If he's got a powerful system he could dramatically simplify his code by just rendering it all as 1 image instead of having separate background plus sprites plus layers, etc. If he's got a weaker card he might exceed his VRAM by rending everything unless he reduced texture quality or removed objects or lights which would make the render look worse. Any time you fall back to CPU rendering you're looking at orders of magnitude longer render time. Like going from a few minutes to several hours per image. The lighting makes a huge difference and the more lights you have the more memory and render time you're going to need.
Using my own low end system as an example if I take a complex scene with low light and reflections I can let it run for 8 hours or more and it will still have very noticeable fireflies and other defects that I would have to either fix manually with a paint program or by using a denoiser. My GPU only has 4GB of Vram so for the above render it wouldn't even be used, it would all be CPU. If I got rid of the relfections and rendered the background separately from the characters I could do the same scene as 2 separate renders in maybe 20 minutes (assuming both scenes fit inside a 4GB VRAM buffer) but it would look noticeably worse because of the missing reflections and missing or inaccurate shadows.
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at some point you have to ask - does that randomness and 5 outfits * 3 hairstyles * 4 poses for each matter in context of telling the story - which IS the main thing, the answer is very obvious
but if you want to redo the thing 50 times over and never ever finish it, it serves as a good excuse to delay
when someone first said here he is changing to G8 or something (I don't remember, was it this or Glamour), I immediately said it is a huge time investment, and look - a year to get to where he was with the 0.92, it is a complete joke at this point, and what is worse - discourages support for other projects because some people do learn
new version has its pluses I mentioned previously, but it would have been fitting to introduce it for Chapter II or something, once the new chapter is rolling, you can go back and polish a little the old one if necessary, I sound like a broken record - but I just don't see the point of this at all...
I mean, one might even release Chapter 1 (with a meaningful ending) on Steam for a price, and then sell Chapter 2 as a "new and improved" whatever, make a trilogy even, just don't screw around with the same thing endlessly
Definitely agree on that. That was what I originally thought he was doing when he announced the rebuild but it looks like it's going to be closer to a complete start over which seems like a waste to me. If it was me I would have left the existing content as is (or at least the renders) and use the new system only for the new content. Maybe go back and tweak a few of the older scenes if I really wasn't happy with them but not just throw it all out and start over.
- Jul 1, 2019
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I agree, almost anything that will bolster the storyline at this point I'll agree to. I understand the effort to increase the variations of scenes to make them more realistic but also that's like standing in one spot too long trying to analyse everything in that spot for me. It's cool but loses its appeal fast.
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- Jul 1, 2019
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On the plus side of the rebuild Aleksey has really cleaned up the grind on this attempt. Going forward once he keeps this up, he'll be able to get a lot more content in for players that prefer something with a story as well as get more sexual content in for others that focus on that aspect. Honestly, it's lost a lot of the game play aspect (which adds to the grind) for the gamers, and we'll have to wait to see how he rolls that out in future updates, I guess.
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My main concern with the rebuild is that it took us 3 years to get to where we were before the reboot and I am concerned it will be another year till we reach that part again.
the feelings i had after playing v9 was this game needs more filler content and then out of the blue he's actually doing it so I completely happy with him now filling in the gaps.
Ever get bored of walking into your room when lisa is changing and she gets mad and tells you to leave, even knowing she has been showing her boobs to you for the homework or having her watch porn with you? I find it really annoying, this will hopefully fix all of that.
Ever get bored of walking into your room when lisa is changing and she gets mad and tells you to leave, even knowing she has been showing her boobs to you for the homework or having her watch porn with you? I find it really annoying, this will hopefully fix all of that.
- Jan 7, 2018
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I think he asked himself that a long time ago and made a decision.
And it looks it was not in favor of delivering the same as everybody else but do something he likes. We are 48 steps away from the 50 times you mentioned anyway, so I think he still has some room. If he fails, he fails. But I am glad that he tries. We need more people who have their own agenda.
About the chapters: That's already a viable option. For a Steam release however the family setting has to go or at least be managed with variables. I really try to avoid Steam, so itch.io would be better for me and because they are not so restrictive. But if there's a Steam version, I hope he also goes to GOG or at least itch.
There's really no point in pondering here about how it should be done. It's his decision and it was already made. But if you do want to tell him what to do, you should do so on Discord. And there is always the option to start your own project and do it better yourself. The more the merrier.
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- Jan 7, 2018
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BlackPanther's and Lukumoide's posts for the legacy version, no savegames for the rebuild yet (pointless)