Ren'Py Completed Caught in the Middle [v1.0] [ASM Studio]

[yasenib]

Denoisers are a great way to save time during renders (specially for still images). You can try going very low with the sampling and running the denoiser after then iterate with new renders going up with the sampling until you get the results you like

You can use intel denoiser, if you don't want to use Daz denoiser and you want to eliminate the grain fast https://f95zone.to/threads/intel-open-image-denoiser-1-3.35678/

Intel denoiser example:

Before
View attachment 1768289
After View attachment 1768288

Some renders get better than others.

 

[Arisushi]

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Greetings,

It's been almost three days since Episode 2 was released and....

CitM is facing a "weird situation" where it is NEITHER being loved NOR being hated. It just exists.

Still, as I've said in the past, I will continue to take this story further despite the lack of audience response - at least to the end of the self-contained first act.

Speaking of which, I have now finalized the full layout for the lives of Tony, Faye and Carina.

According to that layout, CitM will be ending by 0.4. (Giving a conclusion to what has been set up in the story so far.)

---

As for what will happen after the end of CitM - the stories of our leads will continue in an "yet-to-be-titled" story.

---

Now for the release dates, if everything goes well, I should be able to release:

- 0.3 by May 17th
- 0.4 by June 12th

 

[I Got No Strings On Me]

The story is a bit disjointed at times - the blond tsundere and the brunette whore next door characters are a bit dated but I mean if it works it works. The only main complaint I will state however is the lifelessly dull monotone single audio track through the entire thing. I probably nodded off 3 or four times prior to getting through it. If you are going to have audio have it fit the mood of the scene or just don't have it.

 

[yasenib]

Don't be discouraged by the audience response. For example, SummerTimeSaga took months of continuous updates to start having a lot of people playing it IIRC. Have fun with your project, learn what works and what doesn't and apply that learning as you go.

 

[Arisushi]

Don't be discouraged by the audience response. For example, SummerTimeSaga took months of continuous updates to start having a lot of people playing it IIRC. Have fun with your project, learn what works and what doesn't and apply that learning as you go.

Thank you That is exactly what I'm hoping to do.

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Of course, I won't lie.

It IS a LITTLE disappointing to see the game not being able to get even a single patron till now.

But at the same time, I was also expecting it to turn out like this. As I knew from the start that this game was going to have a hard time finding an audience.

Hopefully, (if/when they get published) the later acts of the story will slowly be able to reach out and appeal to a larger audience.

 

[MisterNephilim]

Faye: Push the protagonist and deuteragonist towards a relationship
Faye: Feel hurt when she accomplishes that

She surely is a complicated individual

 

[jufot]

Chapter 3 was great, congrats arisushimake! Quick thoughts below.

Spoiler

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I mentioned before I was considering subscribing to your Patreon, and after this chapter I no longer need convincing. I'm happy to be your first patron

 

[CamaroFan432]

I played this gem right from the first release after ignoring my own intention never to play a first or second release. I liked it right from the start and didn't have any regrets besides that the updates are quite small. Nevertheless they are interesting! After the first few lines of this update, I was quite concerned about the time jump, but it worked quite well for this update. My concerned aren't completly gone, because it affects also the upcoming updates. We will see.

Spoiler

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Still wish you good luck, dev. I will keep an eye on this gem, and at least spread the word!

 

[Arisushi]

Chapter 3 was great, congrats arisushimake! Quick thoughts below.

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I mentioned before I was considering subscribing to your Patreon, and after this chapter I no longer need convincing. I'm happy to be your first patron

Thank you very much. I'm truly grateful for the support (It really means a lot to know that this game/story clicked with someone.)

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Also, I'm so happy to hear those two characters came off exactly the way I was hoping them to. I'll do everything I can to deliver a satisfying conclusion to this first act in 0.4

 

[Arisushi]

I played this gem right from the first release after ignoring my own intention never to play a first or second release. I liked it right from the start and didn't have any regrets besides that the updates are quite small. Nevertheless they are interesting! After the first few lines of this update, I was quite concerned about the time jump, but it worked quite well for this update. My concerned aren't completly gone, because it affects also the upcoming updates. We will see.

Spoiler

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Still wish you good luck, dev. I will keep an eye on this gem, and at least spread the word!

Thank you for the kind words of support. It really means a lot

As for the "situation" with Faye, I'll do my best to deliver an engaging story for the rest of the run and give a proper, justifiable conclusion for all the characters involved

 

[yasenib]

Glad to read you're still going forward with the game

 

[Arisushi]

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Greetings,

For the first time since the launch, I can start off the letter column on a positive note. "Caught in the middle" finally managed to get its first two patrons (Yayyy!!)

As much as I work on this game to satisfy my own desires as a writer, there's no denying the motivation you get when someone says your work is good enough to support it monetarily.

So, with the new found confidence, I'm now doubly excited to put the rest of the story out there.

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As for the development itself, I've already started working on the final episode of CitM. If all goes well, I should be able to release the update by Jun 12th.

I've also started the preliminary works for the "sequel" of CitM - tentatively titled "Alice".

Though Alice will focus on events after CiTM, it will also be a stand-alone experience that newcomers can jump right into. (And it's definitely going to be a lot of fun.)

But all that's for later. For now, I just want to say - Please look forward to Episode 4

 

[Arisushi]

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Greetings,

Just wanted to inform that Episode 4 is 90% done and we might have an earlier release than planned (I'm guessing around June 1st or 2nd.)

I've also decided to continue the story of CitM with the originally planned sequels, but in 2D

(To anyone who is out of the loop, you can find all the issues that led upto the decision

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.)

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I've already started testing out some preliminary sketches to decide on the visual style of the next kinetic novel.

And that's where I need your opinion.



From the above image, (though they're rough sketches and "seem" similar), I'd like to know how you'll rank the 4 styles in order

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Thank you and & I'll meet you soon with the final episode of CitM.

 

[jufot]

That was a very good ending arisushimake, well done!

 

[Arisushi]

That was a very good ending arisushimake, well done!

I'm really happy to hear you liked the ending

(And thank you very much for the support. It means lot to me - that I could tell a story like this and still be appreciated for the effort.)

 

[jufot]

I'm really happy to hear you liked the ending

All I wanted was for Faye to not leave Conner for Tony and Carina and you delivered that perfectly

 

[bacienvu88]

I agree with jufot, nice ending. I also liked that they revisited those ruins again.

 

[Arisushi]

I agree with jufot, nice ending. I also liked that they revisited those ruins again.

Thank you (Revisiting the ruins was my favorite idea in the script. So, I'm really glad you liked it.)

 

[moose_puck]

Point taken



Unfortunately, the grainy renders may continue in the future updates too - as this is pretty much all my PC can handle at the moment without dying on me. (That being said, I'm looking into ways to manually de-noise the images without making it look too artificial. Hopefully, I'll find something that works well enough.)

But I WILL definitely fix the text readability issues by 0.3's release - either by making the text box less transparent or having thicker outlines for the dialogs (whichever works the best)

EDIT: I should have finished reading through the thread first... I see a couple of other people mentioned the denoiser. It's a great utility.

I use

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- using the Intel one. I just take my 80% converged renders (with some noise) and drag it into the denoiser and about 2.5 seconds later, it's denoised.

I've also learned to do "base" renders of the environments at high res (usually while i am sleeping) then I can just pose the characters and add them to the scene with photoshop after. I draw them with no dome, but draw the ground so i get a shadow and then i mask that onto the original environment renders.

It's weird how Daz works... a simple scene with 2 characters might take me 1.5 to 2 hours to complete at 1080P (100% convergence) But I can do the environment in like 15 mins, then do the characters in like 30 mins. Hurts my math

I'm also loving the Spot render function. I can whip through several renders of conversations in no time (head shots), then just overlay them.

Honestly, I think working with Daz when you have a poor video card, is like doing those old claymation animations... you learn all the tricks you need to speed things up. When i can finally buy that monster GPU, I'm gonna be able to produce massive amounts of renders, lol.

 

[Arisushi]

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Thank you for the pointers

Although I'll be moving to 2D for my next project, I'd still like to continue learning with DAZ.

I don't know if I'm savvy enough to pull it off, but rendering the background and characters separately (while keeping the ground intact) sounds like a neat idea. I'll be sure to give it a try when I find some time.