Ren'Py Abandoned Heavy Five [Ch.2RS] [Nottravis]

[frap]

... stick to the plan, save new stuff for the next game.

The big point there being, have a plan before you begin.

I'm working on a project that probably won't see the light of day for another year or more - but I'm actively writing it and squirreling away cash for a render machine. When I do start rendering and putting a final product together the entire story (and all paths) will be written, and the only slow-down at that point will be rendering.

If I'm remembering correctly, that's pretty much what Notty's been doing with H5. The story's already set in stone, and the rest is the rendering.

What this means for me is, I can start writing on another project while one is rendering (if the one doesn't kill me - and I already know what it will be). I believe that's what Notty may be doing re: the Scarlet Pirate game - she's plotting and writing now, while rendering H5. The bonus for all of us is: another Notty game close on the heels of the finish of H5!

 

[I'm Not Thea Lundgren!]

Short of having warnings bodypainted on the girls

You know full well that that would draw complaints about ruining the girl's bodies with paint!

 

[Akamari]

*blinks!*

I finally got it!

 

[I'm Not Thea Lundgren!]

The only thing I even come close to doing that with is the bonus extra's. Bored Pilot etc

Those of us that back at the level for the extras know full well what we are getting!

*LAUGHS HARD!*

Something else may be coming soon too; Thea may have gotten herself into all sorts of erm, stuff.

 

[frap]

Yep, those are hopeless. Short of having warnings bodypainted on the girls I doubt anything can be done about that.
...

Or writing like:
Chris: "Squeeze my tit if you're into femdom, you want to be dominated, and you want me to dominate you."

 

[DA22]

Yeah that is the point you should not just add cause of requests, but you also should not take out parts of the story, since you might offend some people. Both are in a way equally as bad, the only thing we can ask of a writer is to tell the story they want to tell. Up to us then if we wish to follow that story or not.

Besides how could you ever think that might lead to Chris wanting to dominate you, completely a surprise.

 

[Dripping]

but I'm actively writing it and squirreling away cash for a render machine.

The good news is, you don't really need a beast of a render machine (like some try to make you believe at the DAZ forums). Notty's been rendering on a 4 or 5 year old videocard. A few months ago, I was actually rendering on my CPU, which is REALLY slow. Don't bother with SLI, everything points to NVidia phasing it out anyway. A new RTX2080Ti is better than an RTX2070, yes. But that 2070 which costs less than half as much is sufficiently fast for most people (including professionals!) already.
It's probably more beneficial to already start rendering "fun stuff" (I render backgrounds for my mobile phone, for example). Getting nice lighting can be really hard, so do practice already! Working out how to make your own poses (much cheaper than buying them), how to make clothes fit properly (especially clothes for other model generations), there's a lot to figure out before you want to publish something.

 

[frap]

..."Aaaargh, I didn't want that" to which I wonder if they can read.
...

To them I would say: you do realize that you are playing a Visual Novel, right? Novel: as in lots of words... to read... not "spam the space bar and hope for nudes.

 

[TheDevian]

The big point there being, have a plan before you begin.

I'm working on a project that probably won't see the light of day for another year or more - but I'm actively writing it and squirreling away cash for a render machine. When I do start rendering and putting a final product together the entire story (and all paths) will be written, and the only slow-down at that point will be rendering.

If I'm remembering correctly, that's pretty much what Notty's been doing with H5. The story's already set in stone, and the rest is the rendering.

What this means for me is, I can start writing on another project while one is rendering (if the one doesn't kill me - and I already know what it will be). I believe that's what Notty may be doing re: the Scarlet Pirate game - she's plotting and writing now, while rendering H5. The bonus for all of us is: another Notty game close on the heels of the finish of H5!

Yeah, I am in much the same boat, been working on things for months, and if I am luck, I might have something to show for it by the end of the year.
My last story took me 3 years before I published the first chapter, and then several months of editing.

Yeah that is the point you should not just add cause of requests, but you also should not take out parts of the story, since you might offend some people. Both are in a way equally as bad, the only thing we can ask of a writer is to tell the story they want to tell. Up to us then if we wish to follow that story or not.

Besides how could you ever think that might lead to Chris wanting to dominate you, completely a surprise.

Tell the story you want to tell, and the right audience will find you.

Chris dominating someone?!? Parish the thought!

 

[Dripping]

To them I would say: you do realize that you are playing a Visual Novel, right? Novel: as in lots of words... to read... not "spam the space bar and hope for nudes.

That actually sounds like an awesome minigame.
Gotta make sure to disable the rollback key for that part though.

 

[frap]

The good news is, you don't really need a beast of a render machine (like some try to make you believe at the DAZ forums). Notty's been rendering on a 4 or 5 year old videocard. A few months ago, I was actually rendering on my CPU, which is REALLY slow. Don't bother with SLI, everything points to NVidia phasing it out anyway. A new RTX2080Ti is better than an RTX2070, yes. But that 2070 which costs less than half as much is sufficiently fast for most people (including professionals!) already.
It's probably more beneficial to already start rendering "fun stuff" (I render backgrounds for my mobile phone, for example). Getting nice lighting can be really hard, so do practice already! Working out how to make your own poses (much cheaper than buying them), how to make clothes fit properly (especially clothes for other model generations), there's a lot to figure out before you want to publish something.

Oh, I'm playing with it lots. I've already got the models sorted - took lots of tweaking from available models to get what I wanted. I'm working on poses and lighting as I go - although rendering strictly CPU (on a Mac) so anything more than 2 characters (no background) and I can forget it. Trying to render an entire scene (background, emissive light sources, etc) I can let it go all night long and only have a grainy mess that might pass for a "magic eye" print.

 

[Akamari]

Or writing like:
Chris: "Squeeze my tit if you're into femdom, you want to be dominated, and you want me to dominate you."

I bet at least 50% would still got it wrong (for them). They'd stop reading after the "tit" part if not earlier.

 

[Huitieme]

Oh, I'm playing with it lots. I've already got the models sorted - took lots of tweaking from available models to get what I wanted. I'm working on poses and lighting as I go - although rendering strictly CPU (on a Mac) so anything more than 2 characters (no background) and I can forget it. Trying to render an entire scene (background, emissive light sources, etc) I can let it go all night long and only have a grainy mess that might pass for a "magic eye" print.

You could try rendering the elements separately and then use an image editor (gimp, photoshop, paint.net) to merge the renders. For example: each character on a transparent layer, then the scenery. Only issue would be the lighting...

 

[Akamari]

Yeah that is the point you should not just add cause of requests, but you also should not take out parts of the story, since you might offend some people. Both are in a way equally as bad, the only thing we can ask of a writer is to tell the story they want to tell. Up to us then if we wish to follow that story or not.

I disagree a bit. I think having patrons participate in the development is not a bad thing. However, they shouldn't take over.

 

[frap]

You could try rendering the elements separately and then use an image editor (gimp, photoshop, paint.net) to merge the renders. For example: each character on a transparent layer, then the scenery. Only issue would be the lighting...

Yeah, scenery is where it craps out for me - tried to render a room, killed it after 9 hours and still having only a grainy mess. Whatevs - I can still set scenes up, including lights and cameras, do some small spot test renders for levels and tuck them away for when I build a render box.

But enough of that - what's the latest from Thea? Is she still terrorizing Patreon or has she moved on to another target?

Wait, am I Thea Lundgren and don't know it? I have derailed the thread a bit without meaning to, or did I mean to?

 

[frap]

Yeah that is the point you should not just add cause of requests, but you also should not take out parts of the story, since you might offend some people.
...

I disagree a bit. I think having patrons participate in the development is not a bad thing. However, they shouldn't take over.

I think Notty hit a good balance here - patrons can vote on side content - the story is already set.

Keeps the patrons engaged and involved and doesn't dilute her vision for the story.

 

[TheDevian]

I disagree a bit. I think having patrons participate in the development is not a bad thing. However, they shouldn't take over.

Yeah, you want them to be an active participant, but a good dev, with a vision, should have their plan, and the supporters only influence minor things, like someone's new outfit, or the name of a ship, or whatever.

Even if you are letting them vote on which character gets the next update, you need to limit it, if someone just got an update, then you can't put them on the next few polls. You have to spread the love around.

Yeah, scenery is where it craps out for me - tried to render a room, killed it after 9 hours and still having only a grainy mess. Whatevs - I can still set scenes up, including lights and cameras, do some small spot test renders for levels and tuck them away for when I build a render box.

But enough of that - what's the latest from Thea? Is she still terrorizing Patreon or has she moved on to another target?

Wait, am I Thea Lundgren and don't know it? I have derailed the thread a bit without meaning to, or did I mean to?

You might look into the denoiser under filters, it can take a bit longer, but you can turn down the quality to make up for that, and get a better result sometimes. Play with your settings, I am sure you can do better than that.

 

[Akamari]

Even if you are letting them vote on which character gets the next update, you need to limit it, if someone just got an update, then you can't put them on the next few polls. You have to spread the love around.

Oh, I hate that approach. I quit one game just because my favourite girl wasn't popular enough and lost several polls in a row. When she finally got an update, I didn't care anymore.

 

[Huitieme]

I disagree a bit. I think having patrons participate in the development is not a bad thing. However, they shouldn't take over.

I think Notty hit a good balance here - patrons can vote on side content - the story is already set.

Keeps the patrons engaged and involved and doesn't dilute her vision for the story.

Exactly, having patrons decide on side or optional content is all good, but if you let them takeover a good part of your story points or your pacing, you've kinda failed as a dev. I could mention quite a few games that lost their appeal because patrons insisted on content that even the dev hadn't plan. One of these dev even admitted that this system made him stop working on the game, which is sad.

Feedbacks on the story and polls are a good thing, but before starting your game, you should have at least a fairly advanced idea to where you wanna go. For example, when I write, I usually have the big picture in my head and quite a few key scenes that WILL be implemented. Then, if I have interesting new ideas during production, I try to work it into the scenario. If it blends, that's good, if it doesn't, I write it down for another project.

As for Notty, she told us several times already that the story was planned well in advance, and you can't not believe her when she mention that X event will blow our mind in chapter 5. This gets us to trust her because we know that she won't be pulling some event out of her ass at the last minute that will negate all she layed out until then. The way she does polls is great because of that: polls for the additional content (bored pilot, scarlet pirate) or poll for some of the side events (which sexual acts would be the most interesting with this character, should I make Mike a gay love interest, etc.). Results to these polls won't change the overall plot. That's the best thing with a dev who loves her story and her characters, you've got a sense of direction.

 

[I'm Not Thea Lundgren!]

The good news is, you don't really need a beast of a render machine (like some try to make you believe at the DAZ forums). Notty's been rendering on a 4 or 5 year old videocard. A few months ago, I was actually rendering on my CPU, which is REALLY slow. Don't bother with SLI, everything points to NVidia phasing it out anyway. A new RTX2080Ti is better than an RTX2070, yes. But that 2070 which costs less than half as much is sufficiently fast for most people (including professionals!) already.

So are you telling me the quad GV100 system I have picked out is a bit of overkill?