VN Ren'Py Friends in Need [Ch.10 v0.71] [NeonGhosts]

[NeonGhosts]

POV: You've hired an artist to babysit your date's kid for the night.



(Just a little scene brainstorming while I'm still on vacation. )

Not really. Neon has been wanting to rework chapter 1 for some time now. Someone posted one of the old renders and i could barely recognize Guy on it. Either the person who did used another model or Neon did a lot of customization on it from chapter 2 onwards.
Besides he also wants to adjust some story details and variables.

Guy's model is liiiiike 90% the same as the original. I think I did some stuff to soften his face a bit. But, it's honestly nuts how much changing a character's hairstyle, absent any other alterations, can make them look totally different. There's also x-factors like lighting choices changing how a character looks, and how people handle things like expressions and poses. I think even my Guy has changed a lot over the chapters, just because I got better at dialing in his facial expressions. Ditto for Madison, actually. For whatever reason, I struggled to get her facial expressions to look very natural, in Chapter 2.

I will say this: one character whose face did actually change was Nicki. I think it was in Chapter 4. Her old model had a small problem where her eyelids didn't line up and allow her eyes to close, because she was using a few too many face model sliders. So, I stripped some stuff out of her model and tweaked things until I had a more functional model. I've got a before/after somewhere, that I posted on my blogs.

It is comments like this that lead to chapter one reworks lol.

Hah! I honestly plan to make animations a thing that I pursue after Season 1 is done. And it'll most likely be something I hire someone to do, while I work on Season 2. I've long been of the mind that they don't really add much to any game I've played. They're basically just there to depict repetitive sex acts (i.e. thrusting, bobbing up and down during a BJ, etc.) and while I understand they look better than my janky 2-3 frame animations, I really don't think they matter much from a gameplay perspective. I'd rather give people a dozen different images depicting a scene, rather than 48 depicting the same scene, looping for two seconds. Plus, I come from a background of reading hentai and such, where animation wasn't necessary to give me a rich story (or a boner).

I feel like I'd be more inclined to do animations if I was doing something like the old Sogna Viper games, where 90% of the game is static sprites on a background. Then during sex scenes you get a handful of dope-ass hentai animations. Or if I was doing something like a touching/stripping game, ala the classic Super Deepthroat or Kasumi: Rebirth.

Allll that said, I understand that consumers see things like animation, voice acting, and music as an added value. So, it's something I want to pursue. Just not right now.

 

[TrixRabbit]

POV: You've hired an artist to babysit your date's kid for the night.

View attachment 4389625

(Just a little scene brainstorming while I'm still on vacation. )



Guy's model is liiiiike 90% the same as the original. I think I did some stuff to soften his face a bit. But, it's honestly nuts how much changing a character's hairstyle, absent any other alterations, can make them look totally different. There's also x-factors like lighting choices changing how a character looks, and how people handle things like expressions and poses. I think even my Guy has changed a lot over the chapters, just because I got better at dialing in his facial expressions. Ditto for Madison, actually. For whatever reason, I struggled to get her facial expressions to look very natural, in Chapter 2.

I will say this: one character whose face did actually change was Nicki. I think it was in Chapter 4. Her old model had a small problem where her eyelids didn't line up and allow her eyes to close, because she was using a few too many face model sliders. So, I stripped some stuff out of her model and tweaked things until I had a more functional model. I've got a before/after somewhere, that I posted on my blogs.



Hah! I honestly plan to make animations a thing that I pursue after Season 1 is done. And it'll most likely be something I hire someone to do, while I work on Season 2. I've long been of the mind that they don't really add much to any game I've played. They're basically just there to depict repetitive sex acts (i.e. thrusting, bobbing up and down during a BJ, etc.) and while I understand they look better than my janky 2-3 frame animations, I really don't think they matter much from a gameplay perspective. I'd rather give people a dozen different images depicting a scene, rather than 48 depicting the same scene, looping for two seconds. Plus, I come from a background of reading hentai and such, where animation wasn't necessary to give me a rich story (or a boner).

I feel like I'd be more inclined to do animations if I was doing something like the old Sogna Viper games, where 90% of the game is static sprites on a background. Then during sex scenes you get a handful of dope-ass hentai animations. Or if I was doing something like a touching/stripping game, ala the classic Super Deepthroat or Kasumi: Rebirth.

Allll that said, I understand that consumers see things like animation, voice acting, and music as an added value. So, it's something I want to pursue. Just not right now.

I agree that animations do not add much, and I'm saying that while currently playing Projekt: Passion. As for the other stuff - I almost always play with the sound muted and some other music I like playing so I likely won't notice the "upgrade" at any point.

 

[kikomascado]

POV: You've hired an artist to babysit your date's kid for the night.

View attachment 4389625

(Just a little scene brainstorming while I'm still on vacation. )



Guy's model is liiiiike 90% the same as the original. I think I did some stuff to soften his face a bit. But, it's honestly nuts how much changing a character's hairstyle, absent any other alterations, can make them look totally different. There's also x-factors like lighting choices changing how a character looks, and how people handle things like expressions and poses. I think even my Guy has changed a lot over the chapters, just because I got better at dialing in his facial expressions. Ditto for Madison, actually. For whatever reason, I struggled to get her facial expressions to look very natural, in Chapter 2.

I will say this: one character whose face did actually change was Nicki. I think it was in Chapter 4. Her old model had a small problem where her eyelids didn't line up and allow her eyes to close, because she was using a few too many face model sliders. So, I stripped some stuff out of her model and tweaked things until I had a more functional model. I've got a before/after somewhere, that I posted on my blogs.



Hah! I honestly plan to make animations a thing that I pursue after Season 1 is done. And it'll most likely be something I hire someone to do, while I work on Season 2. I've long been of the mind that they don't really add much to any game I've played. They're basically just there to depict repetitive sex acts (i.e. thrusting, bobbing up and down during a BJ, etc.) and while I understand they look better than my janky 2-3 frame animations, I really don't think they matter much from a gameplay perspective. I'd rather give people a dozen different images depicting a scene, rather than 48 depicting the same scene, looping for two seconds. Plus, I come from a background of reading hentai and such, where animation wasn't necessary to give me a rich story (or a boner).

I feel like I'd be more inclined to do animations if I was doing something like the old Sogna Viper games, where 90% of the game is static sprites on a background. Then during sex scenes you get a handful of dope-ass hentai animations. Or if I was doing something like a touching/stripping game, ala the classic Super Deepthroat or Kasumi: Rebirth.

Allll that said, I understand that consumers see things like animation, voice acting, and music as an added value. So, it's something I want to pursue. Just not right now.

I'm also kinda like this.
For me for the animation to really add value to it it have to be very well made, with realistic and natural movements, but at this point it will probably be too time consuming so it would affect the other areas and decrease value overall, but I do think we're the minority.
I see many people wanting animations on games that don't have any and they usually are satisfied with simple ones, so I think that it is a good thing to invest on for the general public...

 

[ffive]

Guy's model is liiiiike 90% the same as the original. I think I did some stuff to soften his face a bit.

If i may point out something, there's one thing on MC's model that could use a fix, and that's nipple placement. They're visibly quite a way outward from where they should be, which can end up feeling pretty weird. Meantime other male models don't seem to suffer from that. In any case, tweaking either the uv map or the texture itself should be fairly simple.

 

[NeonGhosts]

I agree that animations do not add much, and I'm saying that while currently playing Projekt: Passion. As for the other stuff - I almost always play with the sound muted and some other music I like playing so I likely won't notice the "upgrade" at any point.

I'd definitely be inclined to agree with you re: music and sound effects. But, this is another thing that I think I'm a bit of an outlier on, and consistently get critiqued for not including. Music would ultimately be a pretty minor thing to add, with me selecting a few royalty-free tracks to play during light/dark/neutral scenes. Maybe a few special songs for select moments.

If i may point out something, there's one thing on MC's model that could use a fix, and that's nipple placement. They're visibly quite a way outward from where they should be, which can end up feeling pretty weird. Meantime other male models don't seem to suffer from that. In any case, tweaking either the uv map or the texture itself should be fairly simple.

I'll look at it! I will say, my only thought regarding Guy's nipples, has been that his are on the large-ish side. It's not something I notice all the time, but every now and then I give them a second glance.

 

[NebulousShooter]

If i may point out something, there's one thing on MC's model that could use a fix, and that's nipple placement. They're visibly quite a way outward from where they should be, which can end up feeling pretty weird. Meantime other male models don't seem to suffer from that. In any case, tweaking either the uv map or the texture itself should be fairly simple.

Why you go looking at Guy's nipples when you can look at Breeddani's and Ashe's?

 

[soprano31]

If i may point out something, there's one thing on MC's model that could use a fix, and that's nipple placement. They're visibly quite a way outward from where they should be, which can end up feeling pretty weird. Meantime other male models don't seem to suffer from that. In any case, tweaking either the uv map or the texture itself should be fairly simple.

 

[NebulousShooter]

I'd definitely be inclined to agree with you re: music and sound effects. But, this is another thing that I think I'm a bit of an outlier on, and consistently get critiqued for not including. Music would ultimately be a pretty minor thing to add, with me selecting a few royalty-free tracks to play during light/dark/neutral scenes. Maybe a few special songs for select moments.



I'll look at it! I will say, my only thought regarding Guy's nipples, has been that his are on the large-ish side. It's not something I notice all the time, but every now and then I give them a second glance.

I think only people set in their ways downplay the importance of sound and music in how a scene is enhanced. Almost half the praise Leap of Fate got is for its soundtrack that fits the mood of the scenes, its pretty similar for DIK. And for those that disagree, just look on youtube videos of movie scenes with swapped music and see how much of a difference it makes in the emotion it conveys.

 

[ffive]

Why you go looking at Guy's nipples when you can look at Breeddani's and Ashe's?

Because his torso is right there in all fuck scenes and half the time right next to breasts which naturally draw the eye there?

 

[ffive]

I'll look at it! I will say, my only thought regarding Guy's nipples, has been that his are on the large-ish side. It's not something I notice all the time, but every now and then I give them a second glance.

That's great to hear, although i think now i'm gonna need to eat some crow here -- i went back in the game to try to get a screenshot of it, and then did a google search for some comparison pictures and then it turned out that placement can actually happen in RL too. So all things considered, it's probably perfectly okay the way it is, just something i haven't really seen before. :v

 

[Joshy92]

This is still one of my favourite scenes in the entire game.

Spoiler: Nicki.

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The whole scene is just so good. It's when I really fell in love with the game.

 

[NeonGhosts]

I think only people set in their ways downplay the importance of sound and music in how a scene is enhanced. Almost half the praise Leap of Fate got is for its soundtrack that fits the mood of the scenes, its pretty similar for DIK. And for those that disagree, just look on youtube videos of movie scenes with swapped music and see how much of a difference it makes in the emotion it conveys.

I can definitely see your point. But, the fact remains that if I did it now, I'd probably have to half-ass it a bit, purely due to time constraints. I think it'll be better to wait until I can really devote some time to the sound design of the game, than to rush the whole process.

 

[Joshy92]

One thing I hope we don't see or more to the point hear is characters voiced. I have seen some games implement that and it totally kills immersion for me.

 

[Dessolos]

One thing I hope we don't see or more to the point hear is characters voiced. I have seen some games implement that and it totally kills immersion for me.

voiced characters is a iffy thing for me cause of how I grew up playing video game I do prefer voiced even bad voice acting. I even played a AVN recently that has really good voice acting which makes it feel more immersive for me almost feels like im watching a tv show. But on the other hand it's something that usually not worth the time , money and effort to do as well as you need to include a way to disable it as I think it's only a small amount of people that do like it.

 

[Karmadive]

I think voice acting works best when it was integrated into it from the start of the game. I always struggle with anime to listen to the English dubs that I have watched before subtitled with Japanese voice. Not because of the quality but for the fact I have associated the one voice to the characters and it ends up not feeling like the same character without the original I heard.

I feel like same for games that don't have voices and then adding it in later on. I have a preconceived voice in my head and struggle with associating the character after that point with a new one so to speak.

 

[Dessolos]

I think voice acting works best when it was integrated into it from the start of the game. I always struggle with anime to listen to the English dubs that I have watched before subtitled with Japanese voice. Not because of the quality but for the fact I have associated the one voice to the characters and it ends up not feeling like the same character without the original I heard.

I feel like same for games that don't have voices and then adding it in later on. I have a preconceived voice in my head and struggle with associating the character after that point with a new one so to speak.

yeah I hate going from english to sub on anime cause of this same reason. But thankfully im a visual person so I can't do different voices in my head so would be no problem for me but yeah I do see your point.

 

[War Lizard]

I have yet to find an adult game where I felt the soundtrack or voice acting really enhanced anything. Even the ones like Leap of Faith where people said, "Oh you have to turn the sound on, just give it a try" the sound went back off after about 10 minutes. It doesn't add anything for me, same with voice acting.

 

[ffive]

I have yet to find an adult game where I felt the soundtrack or voice acting really enhanced anything.

Personally, i find it adds a lot in games like Pale Carnations, Being a DIK or Our Red String. It largely depends on how much effort the author puts in the song selection and binds them to scenes and/or characters.

 

[War Lizard]

Personally, i find it adds a lot in games like Pale Carnations, Being a DIK or Our Red String. It largely depends on how much effort the author puts in the song selection and binds them to scenes and/or characters.

Don't know - I tried it and turned it off in Pale Carnations, but I haven't tried Our Red String at all and don't like BaDIK.

 

[Green83rry]

A good soundtrack while not necessary can inhance the experience. Personally though, voiceovers almost always break my immersion.

You're already using the reading imagination part of your brain with VNs. Voice acting &/or *ahem* moans tend not to live up to headcannon voices.