New Year, New Update!
Warning, wall of text ahead!
Above is a repost of one of the last Daz Studio renders that I did before my OS drive failed on Uber Laptop Note that my Daz Studio stuff is on another drive, but I need to back said drive up before I do anything else/attempt to 'resurrect' Daz Studio on my new machine. Unfortunately hard drives are a bit more expensive right now, and more than I want to pay, so I'm watching for a good deal on a trusted brand. There are a couple of companies that use drives from the major manufacturers that don't meet QC standards of said companies that I could grab, but I don't trust 'secondhand' drives sooo the wait continues...
So, I've pretty much finished updating my gameplay mod for Space Journey X to work with SJx 1.20.11. Details here:
https://f95zone.to/threads/space-journey-gameplay-mod-for-sj1-20-11-version-1-20b.180608/
It's mostly interface tweaks, designed to help reduce scrolling and the need to jump between screens to find out things you might not remember off of the top of your head, but it does also modify a couple of gameplay elements (mostly Sexbot upgrades related) to my own personal taste. Here's one of the screenshots showcasing a screen that I repurposed to show off the sexy bot shells you currently have working at the Sexbot Arcade in your current game.
I'll probably go back and rework the left side of the screen a bit at some point to mention bot traits, cat & grade of parts, etc. but for now I need to move on to the next project.
As to what that project will be, I'm still pondering ATM. There's SU ReImagined that I could jump back into, but right now I'm just not 'feeling' it. I tend to follow my muse, as it makes me happier, and when I try to force myself to work on stuff, the joy just isn't there for me. Since this is something I do as a hobby, it should bring me joy.
This is also one of the reasons I don't have a Patreon or whatever yet. Since I tend to chase my muse from project to project, I can't guarantee that any one of my projects will meet whatever deadline. If this was a 'paying' gig, that'd be different, but then the joy often ends up getting sucked out of whatever I'm doing, replaced with extra stress and such. I don't need extra stress in my life, so I prefer to keep my artistic endeavors as 'hobbies' and not 'a job'.
Until My Daz Studio install is restored/back up and running again, my Daz Studio artwork creation is at a complete standstill. As I've mentioned above, I won't do anything else with my dedicated Daz Studio drive (which is thankfully still intact) until I back it up, and as I've previously noted, I'm watching the sales for a really good deal on a large HDD (internal or external) from a trusted brand (new not renewed/secondhand) to stretch my pennies.
There's a few renders that I still need to do for the next release for FmF. I could cut that part of the story out of the 'Girls Game Night' short story that is mostly
RustyV 's work anyways, but I do want to include a few related story elements, so that's on hold for now.
My heart really isn't in FmF either atm to be completely honest. I have other ideas of stuff that I do want to do, but right now I'm in a bit of a holding pattern, sooo...
Enthralled Pt. 5 is still on the backburner of course. Note I do have goals for 2024, which include:
1) Compete Enthralled
2) Revive FmF, finishing work on a couple new stories for it
3) Tackle SU ReImagined a bit more, fleshing out the other ideas I had in mind for it.
4) Move on to a new project.
Note that I have a very long list of projects/new story ideas that I'd like to start work on in 2024. I'm kind of burned out with playing in other people's sandboxes atm. I should elaborate on that point.
SU ReImagined:
SU ReImagined is 'stalled' because other people currently aren't working on it. My goal always was just to get the ball rolling. Adapting/creating new girl artwork and transcribing content over from SU is the major holdup right now.
xMendoza has his own Ren'Py effort going on, SU Rebuilt 2, which also splits the efforts to make cool, moddable Ren'Py ports of SU.
Right now, what I'd really like to do is abandon SR7's artwork entirely and use the work I've done bulding a framework to make my own game. It's a pain working with the separate sprites (body/costume parts, etc.) used to assemble characters in SU, and I can't draw so my preferred medium is Daz Studio renders. Also, I'm more of a fan of 'inspired by' characters rather than dabbling in other people's IP, as then it's less likely that you'll have a bad day with the copyright police.
And, to be honest, SU just doesn't interest me right now. I haven't played in several updates, simply because the new additions don't interest me.
Space Journey:
I actually enjoy tweaking the interface and gameplay elements in Space Journey. It's alway a new challenge trying to figure out other people's code structures for modding purposes, and a lot of game code frameworks simply don't agree with me. I recently took a look back at the code tweaks I made at the time for Brothel King, and was compelely lost again. I did help improve the gameplay flow in that game but I have no desire to go back into that code again... I also haven't played the latest update 'cuz my muse simply has moved on from that game.
I still want to keep my mods updated for Space Journey, for probably a couple of more updates, but it's becoming more of a chore each time to re-do my interface tweaks. I wouldn't mind rendering new stuff for that game to add new story related stuff, but it's rendered in Blender and I don't have the models used and have no desire to try to recreate them, sooo...
I want to just enjoy that game and tweak it to my own taste, for as long as I'm interested in the story.
Sexbot & Power Vacuum, also Jen's Dilemma, probably a couple of other games:
Although I rather enjoy these games despite the highly excessive amount of grind, yeah I won't be modding those. The gals in those games do interest me, so I may use a few of the characters from those games for cameos in my own efforts. Some are essentially just tweaked versions of existing Daz Studio models, which makes things a little easier, and myself and others have made some pretty good recreations of said characters.
Enthralled Pt 5:
Enthralled Pt. 5 has been waiting on the dedicated rendering rig that is now built and is awaiting my Daz Studio install. The final scenes are 'orgy style' scenes with lots of characters interacting, so the 12 GB RTX 3060 just wasn't going to cut it. There was an issue with the Uber Laptop not being able to successfully render larger scenes (larger than 12-16 GB of VRAM for said scenes) because of weird Daz issues. Dedicated Rendering Rig has 128 GB of ram, which should mostly solve this issue and allow me to get full usage of the RTX 3090 that i bought a few months ago.
I'm still a bit burned out on rendering such scenes, as posing multiple characters to be rendered in the same frame is very tedious, when they are all touching each other. Aligning all of those fingers, mouths, arm/legs, etc. takes time, and while Uber Laptop does have an 18.4" screen, the associated interface text is still pretty tiny, and the genius over at Daz3D that decided that light gray on a darker gray text was a good idea should be shot.
In any case, yeah, once I finish setting up my Dedicated Rendering Rig, I'd like to finish up Enthralled and move on.
FmF Stuff:
There's a lot of content created for FmF already (mostly by
RustyV ), but there's more stuff that I need to do on my end for said content. I also have a couple of small stories that I'd like to do in the FmF setting, but my muse isn't quite ready to jump back into that yet.
Consent, Kissin' Triplets, etc.:
These project have been on the backburner for a while now, and in the meantime I have a bunch of other new story ideas that interest me. So I don't really know what I'll tackle next. At the very least, I'll probably use the characters I came up with for these efforts in whatever project I decide to tackle, and 'truncate' their storylines a bit. I also have some other characters I've put together that I haven't shown off yet.
I have a few interesting story ideas of course, and I've talked about a few of those in previous posts in this thread. But most/all of them are currently waiting on finishing the setup of Dedicated Rendering Rig.
My computer situation:
I'm typing this post right now on a USB keyboard that's attached to Baby Laptop, the 13.3" laptop with the dead battery and failing chiclet keyboard. Getting the letter 'E' to show up on baby laptop's keyboard is a major pain at this point. It'll eventually register, but Baby Laptop was retired for a reason.
Uber Laptop is mostly ready to go again, but until I back up my other drives, and take a stab at recovering as much as I can on the failed OS drive, I'm not using it.
New Laptop I've been using for Space Journey Ren'Py editing and also to play the latest releases of games that I like, which may be found elsewhere here on F95zone. I'll eventually move my USB modem over to New Laptop, but I want to squeeze a bit more life out of baby laptop here before retiring it for good. Baby Laptop remembers a lot of my internet stuff (passwords, browsing history, etc.) from when I was using it regularly a couple of years back, so it's just easier to use it for now. It'll take time to bring New Laptop up to speed internet wise, and also to install my 'go to' programs, so I've been putting that off.
Most of my passwords are backed up on my other drives, as I've been assuming that my OS drives will fail eventually so backups on other drives are just a good idea, but it's still a pain to 'start from the beginning again' when you have another machine already 'good to go' for such things.
Dedicated Rendering Rig:
I've talked about the specs for Uber Laptop before, but to recap:
Ryzen 5700 G 8 core, with integrated APU.
Asrock X570 Creator
128 GB of GSkill DDR 4 3200 Ram
2 TB Samsung 990 Pro NVME SSD for OS Drive
8 TB Samsung 870 SATA SSD to move my Daz install over to.
24 GB RTX 3090, maybe also my 12 GB RTX 3060 will be installed into this rig.
I will need to get another 8 TB SATA SSD eventually, I'd love to get an NVME SSD but those are about twice as expensive as the 2.5" SATA SSD drives and I'm pinching my pennies. I do have extra NVME slots for when 8 TB NVME Prices come down, but that may be a while... or may never...
I want to get another 32" monitor to attach Dedicated Rendering Rig to. I have a 32" monitor already that's currently attached to Baby Laptop here, but I like doing the 'dual screen' thing so that I can have more windows visible at the same time, say if I'm playing a movie on one screen while working on the other screen. Again, pinching my pennies atm, so it may be a bit before I buy another monitor.
Getting another income stream going to help subsidize for my Daz habit/hobby:
I have a few models sitting around that I eventually want to spruce up for sale somewhere. I was orginally thinking Renderosity maybe, I'm considering other options as well. I learned about 3dshards.com today, supposedly they offer a better percentage to vendors (over 50%?). Both Daz3D.com and Renderosity take a larger cut of any sales, and Daz3D.com is a bit more particular about things. You'd see higher visibility on Daz3D.com for a product, but since stuff is often discounted over 80%, yeah your 'cut' of whatever the sale price is will be smaller...
In any case, that's a few months down the road as I'd need to spiffy up the stuff I've built. There's a bikini, and some environment/set related assets that I might be able to sell. Again, the main goal here is to offset my Daz Studio related spending, not expecting to make a lot of money here.
As for setting up a Buy Me a Coffee or whatever, I'm more reluctant to do that, as my muse is fickle sometimes and I'm done 'working for the man'. I just don't want that sort of obligation if that makes sense, I've seen how people savage other developers on this forum if they don't meet deadlines or content expectations, and I just don't want that in my life.
So I'll continue to ponder that for a bit. I don't mind people throwing my way, I just don't want the assocaited obligation...
So, to summarize:
1) I want to get a few of my existing projects out of the way so that I can focus on new projects
2) I need to find a way that works FOR ME to get an income stream started that is low pressure.
3) I really want to work on my own things at this point. I don't mind playing in other people's sandboxes, but I'm ready to move on from that.
4) Make more Jen renders for
Emma M and others, 'cuz they make people happy which makes me happy!
That's it in a nutshell. That's my 'New Year Resolution' post/wall of text for 2024!
Happy New Year Y'all!
OhWee
