How do you do it? Development, timeline, and staging advice?

[shao0647]

So, I just finished (I think?) my first scene for a Ren'Py-based VN. Yay me, right? (I promise, this isn't a shitpost bragging about my work- far, far from it).

I had already written the scene- that's the easy part for me. I have this idea that's almost fully fleshed out in my head; writing it into Ren'py script is taking a little time, but it's not hard. That's actually where I started. I did that before I even understood how the art side of creating a VN works. So, I wrote the scene, and then, needed to do the art. Great.

I need a room. Found assets I liked. I need characters. Great, built my MC, and two others to start. Load the scene, watch 2 million videos on how the hell to do lighting, how X works in Daz, etc., start putting everything together. Render it overnight; looks like trash. Make adjustments, try to render it again (overnight, each night, because it takes for-fucking-ever). Trash again, but not quite as bad. More videos, more tutorials, read threads here and elsewhere. Finally, get a scene that I'm comfortable with as of this morning.

It took a lot of time. Now, I'm sure a lot of this time spent is because I know absolutely fuck-all about what I'm doing. I'm just starting out. A single shot, rendered, with only one character in the scene, a lit room that I had to do some post-render work to in GIMP to get some of the grain out, but it's done, it's mine, and it's my first. I get that. But...

Holy shit, this is exhausting! The ups, downs, frustrations, re-tries, the self-doubt...

So, here's the real question(s):

-How do some of you VN/devs/artists do it? I feel like I'm floundering a lot; like I don't have a good work process down yet. How do you prioritize? What's your order of operations? Do you write your entire story, script it into Ren'Py, and then go back and develop scenes/characters? Do you do something (close to) like what I did here, where I wrote a single scene, then put all the art together before moving on?

-What tools/software do you use aside from Ren'Py and Daz, and a post-process studio like GIMP or PS? Any tips for branching story trackers? I've downloaded Chat Mapper, but I haven't used it yet. Anything better? Any advice?

-How long did it take you to feel comfortable/confident in the content you're creating? I look at something and say, "this looks great, I love how this turned out"; how do you shake the feeling that others might not share your vision?

Thanks in advance for reading and for any advice you have for a beginner like myself!

 

[Saki_Sliz]

XD i don't, so many projects of mine die off because I know it is going to take a lot of time and work (I've made games mostly in an academic setting so that is where most of my experience comes from.), but my brain is already going to the next cool idea. But I try to avoid VN games, I want to make something more complicated, but I can never figure out how the project should end. I just keep redefining new ideas until I think I have one that has an ok amount of work, which I slowly work on then. so, for the most part, I just experiment, not really create content.

tools, I use blender a lot, I can render faster and pose/animate better than with daz. blender and gimp is really all I use. maybe inscape if I need to do 2D art.

to be honest, I have never felt comfortable with my content. they say true art is never finished, but you also may not be an artist if you don't share your art, according to some. so fare I have been trying to find my style, so that I never have to worry about art and I can just crunch out lots of art when I finally go ham on a project. 6 years ago I had never done art, so I started with 2 years doing 2D, then 3 years doing 3D, and only this recent year have I honed in on what I want my 2D and 3D art style to be like, and how it will look in game (many mock ups made over the years).

programming is my core skill, so I have never worried about that part, but I have spent the past 6 years looking into and making custom game engines, learning each engine to see what I like best, etc. I could easily make a rant about python, but i won't, yall do you. But again, only in the past year have i started to settle to something that looks like I'll stick to in the long run.

keyword, long run. As you get more experience, you start to see the limitations of your tool, so you have to look around some more, find newer or better tools and learn them all over again, things slow down fore a while, before they get better, but then you find new limitations, and the cycle repeats. So there will never be a true solution, blender is getting bettery, godot is better (now with mono support I actually give a damn about it), more daz models come out. but I say if anything, develop habits, as they can kinda lead to a style in your project, be it art, writing style, common focus points in all your games (ie red head girls or something), etc.



And always have a case packed in case you need to make a run from the law

 

[mickydoo]

You need to get your render times down, if you have a weak pc you will be pushing shit uphill no matter what you do. 99% of my scenes are rendered in 10 to 20 mins with a mid randed pc. Be handy if you post your pc specs, and if you are using a laptop unless it's a high-end gaming one you will always be on a losing streak.

We all know the main story arc, word for word scripts get thrown out as soon as you start putting renders in as you think of things when you see certain situations, most of us work off real or imagined notes per chapter, like what we want to achieve and how.

It took me a year from downloading Daz to releasing something I was remotely happy with, and after a year of making a game the difference between my early work and later work is like chalk and cheese.

Tools I just use DAZ and photoshop, no point in re-inventing the wheel. I do very little post-work though apart from adjusting the lighting and fixing fuck ups.

The only other tools I use are 3ds max to make the odd object I can't find but usually can't be fucked, and premiere pro to make animations, but that's only because I have it, it's way overkill.

 

[CarbonBlue]

-How do some of you VN/devs/artists do it? I feel like I'm floundering a lot; like I don't have a good work process down yet.

Yep! I felt the same way. Eventually I worked out what was best for me. Renders are your (and every developer's) bottleneck. So the immediate priority is to start rendering and to ensure your machine is rendering as much as possible. At the beginning of an update I concentrate on the first scene and create enough material so that I can start on enough renders to keep my machine busy for a while.

While you are rendering - and of course you're batch rendering overnight, I hope - then you can work on the rest of the script. Your goal is to make sure you always have enough writing material in a close-to-finished state so that you always have material to render.

Also, you have to keep some flexibility in mind. Personally, I'm a burst writer. All of a sudden I'll get an idea and I'll have an entirely new scene or branch to make. It's really annoying because it increases my workload, and is usually pretty inefficient, but those also tend to be my favorite scenes.

Flexibility also comes into play while you're working on a scene. Maybe the scene that you have planned is not possible to do. Maybe while you are posing the scene you've found a new way to do it. Have a script to give you structure and a plan, and don't be afraid to venture away from it.

-What tools/software do you use aside from Ren'Py and Daz, and a post-process studio like GIMP or PS? Any tips for branching story trackers? I've downloaded Chat Mapper, but I haven't used it yet. Anything better? Any advice?

I use the Nvidia AI denoiser, so I render in 4k resolution at low iterations (between 300-500 depending on the time I have), and then I use that to denoise the renders and GIMP to downscale to 1080p resolution. Then I use XnConvert to conver the images to webp's at 95% loss which lowers the size of the files drastically while the image quality loss is not noticeable.

-How long did it take you to feel comfortable/confident in the content you're creating? I look at something and say, "this looks great, I love how this turned out"; how do you shake the feeling that others might not share your vision?

If you shake that feeling then you are not taking enough risks.

 

[shao0647]

You need to get your render times down, if you have a weak pc you will be pushing shit uphill no matter what you do. 99% of my scenes are rendered in 10 to 20 mins with a mid randed pc. Be handy if you post your pc specs, and if you are using a laptop unless it's a high-end gaming one you will always be on a losing streak.

I'm running an i7 4790k @4.4Ghz w/ 16GB RAM and a single GTX 1080 (a second one is literally in the mail, will be running them in SLI by early next week). I'm guessing it's a combination of my hardware plus my render settings that's driving my render times so high? Or is it that I'm using Daz to render, rather than something else?

We all know the main story arc, word for word scripts get thrown out as soon as you start putting renders in as you think of things when you see certain situations, most of us work off real or imagined notes per chapter, like what we want to achieve and how.

Yes, I should've been more clear. I don't have a word-for-word script. I have a fairly clear idea of how I want the story to go, how to get there, the overall tone and a list of events to get there, characters involved, etc. I do not have a fully written on paper script.

 

[shao0647]

Yep! I felt the same way. Eventually I worked out what was best for me. Renders are your (and every developer's) bottleneck. So the immediate priority is to start rendering and to ensure your machine is rendering as much as possible. At the beginning of an update I concentrate on the first scene and create enough material so that I can start on enough renders to keep my machine busy for a while.

While you are rendering - and of course you're batch rendering overnight, I hope - then you can work on the rest of the script. Your goal is to make sure you always have enough writing material in a close-to-finished state so that you always have material to render.

So, I tried to set up an overnight render queue. Simple, right? Load the images, run the script, it goes.

...Except that it spent 5 hours rendering one image, and then I was up an hour and a half later, which means the second render was nowhere near complete.

Again, I have little to no idea what's driving my render times so high (see my previous reply in this thread for hardware specs). I'm open to advice on this particular front.

Also, you have to keep some flexibility in mind. Personally, I'm a burst writer. All of a sudden I'll get an idea and I'll have an entirely new scene or branch to make. It's really annoying because it increases my workload, and is usually pretty inefficient, but those also tend to be my favorite scenes.

Flexibility also comes into play while you're working on a scene. Maybe the scene that you have planned is not possible to do. Maybe while you are posing the scene you've found a new way to do it. Have a script to give you structure and a plan, and don't be afraid to venture away from it.

This is a key piece of my creative process. I don't put anything in stone until it's finished. If something's not working, I change it. If it can't be changed, dump it. If this character's story arc just isn't going right, go back and re-write it, and if that means re-rendering scenes, then that's what it means. It has to feel good. If I can't be proud of it, then what's the point, right?

The other piece of it for me that limits my creativity is the lack of knowing how to really build my own 3d assets- not that I'm looking to make my life any more overly-fucking-complicated than it already is but I find that sometimes, I'm looking for a room/house/building that kinda looks "just so" and I end up saying, "yeah, this is close enough". Part of that is me not looking in the right places, or hard enough. The other part of it is, I do this for fun, not for money (yet) and I'm not willing (again, yet) to sink a huge chunk of change into buying assets or hiring an artist.

 

[CarbonBlue]

So, I tried to set up an overnight render queue. Simple, right? Load the images, run the script, it goes.

...Except that it spent 5 hours rendering one image, and then I was up an hour and a half later, which means the second render was nowhere near complete.

Again, I have little to no idea what's driving my render times so high (see my previous reply in this thread for hardware specs). I'm open to advice on this particular front.

Could be a few things. Check to make sure that Daz recognizes your video card. Go to Render Settings, and click on Advanced. There should be a checkmark on your GPU. And make sure you're using Nvidia Iray to render.

Are you lighting through a window? If so, that will increase render time significantly. Mirrors or lots of translucent objects, like glass? Same thing.

How many characters do you have in the scene. Use billboards when possible (search for them in the assets forum).

Delete stuff that's not in the scene. You don't need the 2nd floor of the house if you're on the first floor.

Use Scene Optimizer.

Try posting your render here on F95 and asking for help. This forum is an amazing resource.

 

[GNVE]

I don't know if it is still possible for your project but it is important to start small. You'll get quicker with daz as you start to understand it more but an relatively early win is important. It took me about half a year to get my first game out. It is about 10 minutes long 1 set 2 characters.
My second game is not out but will have taken about a year of dev time (I'm taking more time because I'm planning my third game in the mean time which will be my first large game.)
Second reason to start small is because you will make giant mistakes (one of mine is having more than one render per line of dialogue on average in my second game). If I had made that mistake in a larger game I would have abandoned it quickly. Those early small games will make it possible to get your footing and workflow worked out so that when you start a larger project you can actually finish it.

to decrease render times I often render characters without the backgrounds. Daz can render a 360 degree image of the room which I use as an "HDRI" (it is not a true HDRI, Daz can do that as well apparently but I haven't really gotten it to work yet.) this decreases render times from hours to minutes for me (I was using a 1070 while testing actively).
This works well if you

1. can leave the camera static for a multiple images
2. You render any object they are interacting with that is in the frame (including the floor). I noticed my characters seem to float if I show the floor but haven't rendered it.
3. You accept the lighting isn't perfect and will change from a render where you have loaded the entire scene.

-How do some of you VN/devs/artists do it?

I first have a sense of what my game is. Basically a few paragraphs of plot.
Then I set the scenes more fully. (for my first and second game I new all the scenes for my third game I have a more global idea with Landmarks where I want to end up and I'll write my way towards them.
For the actual writing/rendering I usually write a little bit of dialogue and then make the scenes in Daz to go with it. In between that I do other things like programming, adding music etc. I like to change it up every so often to keep the flow going.

-What tools/software do you use aside from Ren'Py and Daz, and a post-process studio like GIMP or PS? Any tips for branching story trackers? I've downloaded Chat Mapper, but I haven't used it yet. Anything better? Any advice?

for daz I use the

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script so I can render a lot more images while sleeping/working/doing another hobby/etc. (there is another one that is newer but I couldn't find it as quickly).
for making animations I use Hitfilm mostly because it is free and you can load in image series (not all free programs can do that)
I use

You must be registered to see the links

to reduce file size of images.
To keep my world building in check I'm using Zim which is a personal wiki. I started with mindmaps but they get out of hand quickly.
Otherwise I use GIMP like yourself to touch up some of the images.
And currently I'm using google to back up my files. (will change to backblaze when that is more interesting price wise).

-How long did it take you to feel comfortable/confident in the content you're creating? I look at something and say, "this looks great, I love how this turned out"; how do you shake the feeling that others might not share your vision?

Ehm I guess I went with acceptable. Just getting something out there is more important then trying to get perfect renders. That takes practice and going for perfect will suck the fun out of making a game. Getting positive and constructive feedback helps you improve. It is amazing when people say they enjoy your product.

 

[shao0647]

Could be a few things. Check to make sure that Daz recognizes your video card. Go to Render Settings, and click on Advanced. There should be a checkmark on your GPU. And make sure you're using Nvidia Iray to render.

JUST the GPU, or both CPU and GPU? It looks like both are checked presently.
... I suppose I could try unchecking the CPU and running a render rather than asking

Are you lighting through a window? If so, that will increase render time significantly. Mirrors or lots of translucent objects, like glass? Same thing.

This goes back to what I was saying previously about room assets I've downloaded being "good enough" and not exactly what I'm looking for. This particular scene is a bar that I downloaded. 1 and a half of the walls in the room are windows to the outside, and there's glass in the room also. I knew it was a factor (rendering the reflections of the ceiling lights in the glass above the booth where the character sits, for example), I just don't know how to get around it. Not sure if there's a setting to dial down reflectivity or tell Iray to ignore certain surfaces, or if there's a way to change how a specific object in Daz behaves (tell Daz it's a wall rather than glass, thus not reflective).

How many characters do you have in the scene. Use billboards when possible (search for them in the assets forum).

Delete stuff that's not in the scene. You don't need the 2nd floor of the house if you're on the first floor.

Not familiar with billboards; I'll look into that. So far, the scene I have, and the next 5-10 I want to make are literally single characters in an environment. I render at 1920x1080... I read a few things that suggest rendering at a larger resolution and then scaling the image down later in GIMP might be beneficial?

Use Scene Optimizer.

No clue what that is; I'll look into it.

Try posting your render here on F95 and asking for help. This forum is an amazing resource.

I might just do that. I agree that the community here is amazing, which is why I felt comfortable at all posting here to ask for help in the first place. No "git gud scrub" shit here; no judgments... just genuine questions and answers. It's a strange thing to see on the internet

 

[ImperialD]

So, I just finished (I think?) my first scene for a Ren'Py-based VN. Yay me, right? (I promise, this isn't a shitpost bragging about my work- far, far from it).

I had already written the scene- that's the easy part for me. I have this idea that's almost fully fleshed out in my head; writing it into Ren'py script is taking a little time, but it's not hard. That's actually where I started. I did that before I even understood how the art side of creating a VN works. So, I wrote the scene, and then, needed to do the art. Great.

I need a room. Found assets I liked. I need characters. Great, built my MC, and two others to start. Load the scene, watch 2 million videos on how the hell to do lighting, how X works in Daz, etc., start putting everything together. Render it overnight; looks like trash. Make adjustments, try to render it again (overnight, each night, because it takes for-fucking-ever). Trash again, but not quite as bad. More videos, more tutorials, read threads here and elsewhere. Finally, get a scene that I'm comfortable with as of this morning.

It took a lot of time. Now, I'm sure a lot of this time spent is because I know absolutely fuck-all about what I'm doing. I'm just starting out. A single shot, rendered, with only one character in the scene, a lit room that I had to do some post-render work to in GIMP to get some of the grain out, but it's done, it's mine, and it's my first. I get that. But...

Holy shit, this is exhausting! The ups, downs, frustrations, re-tries, the self-doubt...

So, here's the real question(s):

-How do some of you VN/devs/artists do it? I feel like I'm floundering a lot; like I don't have a good work process down yet. How do you prioritize? What's your order of operations? Do you write your entire story, script it into Ren'Py, and then go back and develop scenes/characters? Do you do something (close to) like what I did here, where I wrote a single scene, then put all the art together before moving on?

-What tools/software do you use aside from Ren'Py and Daz, and a post-process studio like GIMP or PS? Any tips for branching story trackers? I've downloaded Chat Mapper, but I haven't used it yet. Anything better? Any advice?

-How long did it take you to feel comfortable/confident in the content you're creating? I look at something and say, "this looks great, I love how this turned out"; how do you shake the feeling that others might not share your vision?

Thanks in advance for reading and for any advice you have for a beginner like myself!

i would like to say congratz to ya ,, hell i feel if i even tried to do what you have done so far .. i would be close to 80 by now ... i just wish i had half the brains you Dev.s have to create these game .... dont give up i would like to see what you come up with

 

[Lockheart]

No "git gud scrub" shit here; no judgments... just genuine questions and answers. It's a strange thing to see on the internet

Well, honestly, I've spent an incredible amount of time researching every problem and question that you've asked. And while I'd love to explain it all to you in a cohesive and organized document, the thing is it's already all here on the internet. What I recommend is to just get your hands dirty. Dive in. Start playing with settings, researching online, watch tutorials. When you have a question, google it. And then in 6 months, you'll have a good grasp on everything. I did a scene just like you. And then I did another. And another. Until I had five scenes. And the entire thing was garbage. I scrapped the whole project.

But it wasn't a waste. I experimented, I learned and my next project was Avalon. And I consider Avalon a success. But it's only because I spent those first few months creating garbage and figuring out what worked and what didn't. If you really want to get into this, you have to spend the time. And I'll be honest, there's a lot of other fish in this pond. It's hard to be competitive here among others that have years of experience and better equipment and a solid following. You'll struggle for a while.

And burnout is a real thing. You have to take breaks. I've been going to hard lately and I'm starting to get a rock in my stomach when I think about getting back to work on my novel. Don't make that mistake. Get some sunlight once in a while, go for a jog, meet up with friends. Seriously.

I guess I'm the Negative Nelly here. But I'll leave it on a positive note. If you commit the time, you will figure it all out. And you will have something your proud of in a few months to a year. But it's up to you to answer the question of if it's all worth it.

 

[mickydoo]

I'm running an i7 4790k @4.4Ghz w/ 16GB RAM and a single GTX 1080 (a second one is literally in the mail, will be running them in SLI by early next week). I'm guessing it's a combination of my hardware plus my render settings that's driving my render times so high? Or is it that I'm using Daz to render, rather than something else?

GTX 1080 is only marginally worse than my GTX 2070, so two would be super(ish) btw as far as I know DAZ does not need SLI

This my basic goto render settings, keep in mind I do a lot of close-ups so there is minimal objects in the scene. and try and stay away from three people at once unless I have too.



Those settings get me this in about 10 mins


Thats with no post work, simple scene. Not exactly photo realistic, but I have to draw a line somewhere between speed and quality or I'll never get anything done.

 

[recreation]

I don't have much to add here, most have been said already, but...

GTX 1080 (a second one is literally in the mail, will be running them in SLI by early next week)

Don't use SLI for rendering! It makes rendering slower. iRay is (and many other renderer are) optimized to use multiple cards independently, so using SLI will give you a disadvantage here, instead of making it faster.

 

[shao0647]

I don't have much to add here, most have been said already, but...

Don't use SLI for rendering! It makes rendering slower. iRay is (and many other renderer are) optimized to use multiple cards independently, so using SLI will give you a disadvantage here, instead of making it faster.

Run dual cards, but don't turn on SLI. Good to know.

 

[shao0647]

GTX 1080 is only marginally worse than my GTX 2070, so two would be super(ish) btw as far as I know DAZ does not need SLI

This my basic goto render settings, keep in mind I do a lot of close-ups so there is minimal objects in the scene. and try and stay away from three people at once unless I have too.

View attachment 577044 View attachment 577045 View attachment 577046 View attachment 577048

Those settings get me this in about 10 mins
View attachment 577061

Thats with no post work, simple scene. Not exactly photo realistic, but I have to draw a line somewhere between speed and quality or I'll never get anything done.

This is interesting. I'll have to play with this some, because I set my render queue last night, for four shots, at 11:30p. I finally sat down about 20 minutes ago (about 8:30a), and it rendered two of the four, and was an hour and eleven minutes into the third.

My settings have to be all out of whack. I'll go read some more, and play with some of the adjustments you mentioned. Thanks!

 

[shao0647]

This my basic goto render settings, keep in mind I do a lot of close-ups so there is minimal objects in the scene. and try and stay away from three people at once unless I have too.

Those settings get me this in about 10 mins

Thats with no post work, simple scene. Not exactly photo realistic, but I have to draw a line somewhere between speed and quality or I'll never get anything done.

So, I gave those settings a try. I let it run for 20 minutes this morning after reading. I've attached the 20-minute render below.



As you can see, there's a LOT of noise left in that image. Even post-processing blurs and despeckle isn't going to fix a lot of that: near her hands, her neck, her hair, and by the door handle top-right of scene.

I have a few theories, and I'm not sure if any of them are accurate. Hell, I'm still new to this; I'm just guessing at this point.

I think the big one is lighting. Whether it needs more, or just different angles is a question I don't have an answer to yet. I'll keep playing with it until I'm satisfied. I'm actually about to go back and delete all the lights in the scene, and just start over. See what happens. Can't get much worse

 

[recreation]

So, I gave those settings a try. I let it run for 20 minutes this morning after reading. I've attached the 20-minute render below.

View attachment 577489

As you can see, there's a LOT of noise left in that image. Even post-processing blurs and despeckle isn't going to fix a lot of that: near her hands, her neck, her hair, and by the door handle top-right of scene.

I have a few theories, and I'm not sure if any of them are accurate. Hell, I'm still new to this; I'm just guessing at this point.

I think the big one is lighting. Whether it needs more, or just different angles is a question I don't have an answer to yet. I'll keep playing with it until I'm satisfied. I'm actually about to go back and delete all the lights in the scene, and just start over. See what happens. Can't get much worse

The denoizer clearly didn't kick in. Set it (denoizer start iteration) to one iteration and let it run for the same amount you did it with this render, you'll see the difference.