Is it possible to make a Ren'py game on crappy computer?

[Saturnus]

This may be in the wrong section & I only learned of things like Ren'py & HoneySelect a few days ago so please forgive any stupidity!

I was planning to start attempting some kind of Doujinshi once my drawing skills have considerably improved but having found this site I'm now far more interested in creating a game like Big Brother/Milfy City etc perhaps the more simple ones with 3D models.

I've downloaded HoneySelect and managed to struggle through character design with a slow computer but the minute animation comes into it my computer is useless.

Are there programs that are less intensive for creating models, animations & games, or do I just need to save up for a much better computer?

Thanks!

 

[Nottravis]

For actually writing your game on, say, Renpy it doesn't need that much of a powerful machine at all. The killer is graphics I'm afraid.

Once you start generating your own graphics, and especially try animations, you need some serious processing/graphics power else it will take an absolute age. Sorry...

 

[Rich]

You're in the correct section, and everybody has to start somewhere, so no worries!

Are there programs that are less intensive for creating models, animations & games, or do I just need to save up for a much better computer?

None of the game builders are going to kill you. You can go Ren'py, Tyrannobuilder or something else without too much problem, since the actual game development (and game play) isn't all that taxing on a machine. (OK, Unity might put a bit more strain on it, but not a lot.)

As @Nottravis said, it'll be the graphics that will kill you if you have an underpowered computer. That's true pretty much regardless of which 3D package you use. Some are slightly lighter-weight on you than others (Daz3D iRay will choke your machine) but 3D graphics are, by their nature, intensive. I don't have personal experience with HoneySelect. In the Daz Studio world, using the 3Delight renderer is much less intensive on your machine than iRay, but your choice of models and props is also somewhat smaller, and much of the world is kind of moving away from 3Delight.

As far as saving up for a computer, (obviously) do some research on what your graphics engine of choice needs. As one example, if you're going Daz/iRay, then you absolutely need to invest in an NVidia GPU, since GPU rendering is way WAY faster than CPU rendering.

 

[TeamInfernus]

You should be fine - I've used Unity and Blender on my potato mac mini '12 (patience is a virtue while building though...)
Also it's a great motivator to stick with it until you feel that you've earned the right to upgrade lol

 

[Saturnus]

Thanks for all the advice! I'll try Blender & Unity to see if they work better & start saving for some stronger hardware!

 

[stachelzelle]

before you buy a new computer you should educate yourself about 3D software, HoneySelect isn't what you think it is. real 3D software like Blender, Maya, 3Ds-Max, Cinema 4D or Houdini etc. are a complete different thing

by the way, most people use DAZ-Studio or Poser for their character models, this is also another charpter ...

 

[Saturnus]

before you buy a new computer you should educate yourself about 3D software, HoneySelect isn't what you think it is. real 3D software like Blender, Maya, 3Ds-Max, Cinema 4D or Houdini etc. are a complete different thing

by the way, most people use DAZ-Studio or Poser for their character models, this is also another charpter ...

I just tried Blender & Unity but they are so much more complex than HoneySelect! HS does seem quite limited now even if my computer was processing it well, looks like I'll have to do a hell of a lot of research.

 

[Kawus]

if you do upgrade your pc, and plan to use blender and I think daz is the same way, you need a gfx card with cuda cores, so a amd card won't work well, only ones with cuda cores the more the better.

 

[lancelotdulak]

Realistically for "real 3d" renders .. you'll need a gtx 1070... you can struggle a little with a 1060 6gb and a LOT with a 1060 3gb (scenes above 3gb will drop to cpu and be slowwwwwwwwwwwwww) ... just let your computer render while you sleep. Im personally waiting til 1080ti's price hits the floor to buy 2 of them. You should be able to get a used 1070 for $200+ A 1060 8gb for about $150. A 1060 3gb for about 100. ATM the 1070 is the sweet spot power/$$$. Note this is mostly using things like IRAY which do extremely good renders. You might try installing maya or cinema4d and see how their built in renderers work for you..

One alternative is lower resolution models and or 'cartoon shading' to speed up renders a Lot. It is the textures that slaughter your cpu/gpu/ram most. One of my favorite games is Cohabitation.. and its renders are very low end (probably > than cartoon renders though). The story/gameplay in the end is imho the most important part though i love high quality graphics

Another alternative is to use Daz or blender and use Amazon Workstations (AWS) . there are sites that will tell you how to set them up. As in all things it's time vs money. If i were broke and unemployed id become an expert on setting up AWS (they offer some pretty high number of hours for free).

My current system is a ryzen 1700x, 32gb ram , gtx 1070 and 1060 w a hard drive and 2 $20 ssd's. That's PLENTY to make 3d games. In fact ive sortof moved on to 3d video (movies) with it. In fact you could go to a much lower cpu. Im thinking my previous computer (4 core 24gb) would have been fine with a 1070 or 1080ti for daz.

If you told us what computer you have we could help more. Dont let limited $$/Hardware stop you. You can always use lower end graphics. Ive seen some amazing games here that didnt actually have many renders. Renpy games generally take a Lot of renders. Unity/UE/Sandbox games dont actually take that many because they reuse the same renders over and over.

Another alternative is to make a UE4 or Unity game. Make or download the models elsewhere , import them then build your game. Wild Life is doing this (though im 100% sure they have cutting edge software).

 

[OhWee]

If you have any talent whatsoever for hand drawn art for your game, well that just requires a suitable program for drawing/photo editing. I've actually done a fair amount of hand painting in Photoshop, but I'm hard headed that way. The layers make it a bit easier though in some cases. My art skill is just slightly above stick figure, and takes me a long time, hence why I use Daz Studio instead these days for my art hobby.

There's absolutely no shame in using Honey Select for your game. A number of popular games around here use Honey Select models.

Finally, you can 'make do' with Daz Studio (if your graphics card sucks/isn't an Nvidia card), but for low end machines I'd recommend staying with older models , i.e. Generation 4 (Victoria 4, Michael 4, etc.) and Genesis (1). They often require less resources than say Genesis 3, and often significantly less than Genesis 8. Plus there's a lot of free stuff for the V4 era, and if you end up buying stuff, a lot of the V4/M4 era stuff is pretty cheap these days when it goes on sale.

Your 'Daz' characters will look more dated, but at least you won't be waiting hours and hours on renders... just tens of minutes/hours, and maybe shorter times if you render the characters separately from the background.

But as for the game engine itself, as others have mentioned Renpy is designed with lower end machines in mind.

 

[lancelotdulak]

If you have any talent whatsoever for hand drawn art for your game, well that just requires a suitable program for drawing/photo editing. .

^^ Quality drawing tablets are CHEAP now. Im talking $20 used off ebay. And hand drawn art as im sure you know is big.. and there are 1000s of games with hand drawn art. Id buy a HOTD quality hentai game in a HEARTbeat

 

[recreation]

You guys realize that this thread is quite... old?

 

[Penfold Mole]

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