Hello Jurors!
I do apologise for a very delayed post. I essentially skipped the whole of February without even realising it! I can assure you I’ve been working hard on Episode 3.
I have run into more pc issues unfortunately – Basically the latest windows update has done a whole whirlwind of destruction on my already fragile pc. It’s going back again to the store this coming week, I’m assuming it will have a new motherboard/hard drive replacement.
The issues started quite a while back, as I may have mentioned, but I've tried to push though them just to get to a release point, then sort it out properly afterwards. To give you an example, to render an animation, I was having to restart DAZ (and sometimes the computer) every 2 frames. Often clicking on the 'Render' button would pull up an instant blue screen of death and you're back to square one. That was frustrating, but I could deal with it short-term.
However, since the last windows update (or whatever did this), it's become impossible to progress at all, hence the final NEED to get it resolved once and for all. I can't even keep a discord or Chrome session open for more than 2 minutes before it crashes with no error showing at all. If I leave the computer alone completely, it will blue screen within 15-25 minutes. Even re-installing windows is not working, leading me to think that this is ultimately a hardware fault.
I’ve already backed up all the content, files etc in multiple places, the machine is ready to be shipped back, and hopefully I'll get the machine back later this week and I can get cracking again.
I'm also going to book off some holiday from my day job to try and speed along the process further.
Episode 3:
So, where am I with Episode 3? The answer to that is, still quite a way off. I know I sound like a broken record here, but Episode 3 is far bigger than any of the previous episodes, and potentially I’ve been too ambitious with what I had originally planned to include in this release.
However, my latest plan/idea is essentially to release Episode 3 in 2 parts, but as a single DLC. They won’t be separate purchases.
I’m considering tidying up the day 5 of Episode 3 to a release standard (filling in missing images, spell/grammar checks, adding sound, achievements, diary entries etc). Once that’s done, I’ll release Episode 3, as ‘Episode 3, Part 1’. Then I’ll continue to finish up the episode, and release the remaining day within the same package (So essentially there will be a chunky update to the Episode 3 DLC). Day 5 has a lot of content, and might make a nice 'mid-point' to release.
I’d be really interested to hear your thoughts on doing it this way, or are people happy to wait it out – and to be quite frank, with the quality/frequency of animations, the full Episode 3 will be realistically finished at an estimate sometime in Q3 2025.
If I compare the overall current state of Ep3 against the previous episodes:
Episode 1 = 4644 images, 71 anims
Episode 2 = 7000(ish) images, 154 anims
Episode 3 - Day 5 = 6000 (ish) images, 260(ish) animations
The full Episode 3 will likely contain over 10k images and around 4-500 animations, if it continues at the pace it currently is running at.
The past week of having these PC issues has really saddened me, because it's kind of brought home just how much Jury means to me, and the enjoyment I get from developing it and being creative. I've always been a creative individual from when I was a child, and it's been a breath of fresh air to let that creativity flow again after all these years or it laying dormant, and even nicer to hear that others are enjoying the content I'm creating. That's a hell of a feeling!
I’m doing the very best I can to get you the content as quickly as possible and can appreciate the frustration in waiting (I've been on the receiving end of this in the past). Please bear with me, I will get there, and I don't think you're going to be disappointed.
Nickle3DArt
