Ren'Py Lab Rats 2 - Reformulate [v2024.08] [Tristim/LZ_Starbuck/Trollden]

[deviantfiend999]

LR2 wasn't designed using the typical practices that most other VNs follow. I stated a few pages back that it was designed as a game engine capable of adding/expanding on individual stories in a populated world fairly easily. Since it's times consume to hand craft 90 - 160 characters to make the world feel more "alive", Vren built several functions to randomly generate characters in a way that looks realistic enough, but definitely have flaws.

At this stage, Tristim and Starbuck are more focused on bug-fixing and converting unique character stories over to a template (love, lust, obedience storylines) that updating the character generation is low on the priority list. If you join their discord server Starbuck has started posting roadmaps of what she plans to accomplish each month.

I actually tried to generate different faces using Stable Diffusion; at this stage it's just a proof of concept, if anything; but my rough workflow appears to have a somewhat consistent result. However, it's not great, and I believe some more adjustment to the prompts will be needed to improve it (not to mention make them look better)

The idea so far is to use unren to extract image.rpa, then unzip all the character image zip files. Starting with character's faces by going into each pose and take crop the faces from each face pose image (since the body is separate, the face image contents on other information except bland spaces)

Use OpenPose to extract face pose image and use depth to generate a depth map (for control of the face shape)

Then use these two maps in Automatic1111 with openpose as first slot and depth as second (logic being it's the facial expression that's more important).

Then input descriptions into prompt, for example, with the angry face

Daz3D rendering of woman, (bald hair,no hair:1.3) mouth open, frowning, angry, blue screen, detailed face, frontal lighting <lora:caroline:0.65>

With Clara MA being a LoRA trained with images of Caroline from the game Milfy City, I'll try mixing it with other LoRAs later.

I do 2 batches of size 2 to generate 4 images, and use the results in GIMP to extract the face, matching the position of the original, and save as a new face. I will probably play around with color map at some point to see if that can fix the color inconsistencies.
Original

Test result (I will see if some image-to-image inpainting can fix the odd patches of hair later, and will have do something about the depth map which isn't optimal -- maybe using the depth map plugin instead of OpenPose depth map -- or try a different preprocessor). The SD model is also too biased towards realistic images, have to find another one


I will see if I can write a costume class that loads extra faces and body types if this is successful; I know there's one script for loading extra images outside the RPA file, so I'll be looking into that if the SD method turns out hopeful.

 

[slick97]

I actually tried to generate different faces using Stable Diffusion; at this stage it's just a proof of concept, if anything; but my rough workflow appears to have a somewhat consistent result. However, it's not great, and I believe some more adjustment to the prompts will be needed to improve it (not to mention make them look better)

The idea so far is to use unren to extract image.rpa, then unzip all the character image zip files. Starting with character's faces by going into each pose and take crop the faces from each face pose image (since the body is separate, the face image contents on other information except bland spaces)

Use OpenPose to extract face pose image and use depth to generate a depth map (for control of the face shape)

Then use these two maps in Automatic1111 with openpose as first slot and depth as second (logic being it's the facial expression that's more important).

Then input descriptions into prompt, for example, with the angry face

With Clara MA being a LoRA trained with images of Caroline from the game Milfy City, I'll try mixing it with other LoRAs later.

I do 2 batches of size 2 to generate 4 images, and use the results in GIMP to extract the face, matching the position of the original, and save as a new face. I will probably play around with color map at some point to see if that can fix the color inconsistencies.
Original
View attachment 2946262
Test result (I will see if some image-to-image inpainting can fix the odd patches of hair later, and will have do something about the depth map which isn't optimal -- maybe using the depth map plugin instead of OpenPose depth map -- or try a different preprocessor). The SD model is also too biased towards realistic images, have to find another one
View attachment 2946275

I will see if I can write a costume class that loads extra faces and body types if this is successful; I know there's one script for loading extra images outside the RPA file, so I'll be looking into that if the SD method turns out hopeful.

Bring this to the discord server and tag Starbuck, she would be thrilled to have someone go through and redo all of the character models. If you can create a solid workflow as well you could bring on additional help with modeling/rendering.

The main to keep in mind when using AI generated models it to ensure consistency between textures. A few modders for various different games (i.e. Skyrim) have taken this approach and failed to properly adjust their textures to remove obvious seams.

 

[depechedNode]

Probably deviantfiend999 is already aware, but if anyone else with capable hardware wants to try this out as an alternative to Loras, you can use celebrity names for more consistency. For example (Isla Fisher:0.7), this will give a consistent redhead face but not exactly looking like the real celebrity due to lowered weight. Also adding decades (2010s, 2000s, 90s, 80s, etc) to the prompt can add to consistency and help changing visual style.

 

[deviantfiend999]

Bring this to the discord server and tag Starbuck, she would be thrilled to have someone go through and redo all of the character models. If you can create a solid workflow as well you could bring on additional help with modeling/rendering.

The main to keep in mind when using AI generated models it to ensure consistency between textures. A few modders for various different games (i.e. Skyrim) have taken this approach and failed to properly adjust their textures to remove obvious seams.

I will have to test this out more, especially with different poses, but luckily (or not, depending on your perspective) vren didn't create separate maps for the limbs, so the bodies map are a single piece. The only parts that needs color correction is the face.

I will try using other 3D SD models to see if that makes the face less human like so the color there would be more consistent. If it is, color mapping with GIMP should be able to fix it well enough, even changing the skin colors so I won't have to generate three separate faces and three separate pose bodies maps.

Probably deviantfiend999 is already aware, but if anyone else with capable hardware wants to try this out as an alternative to Loras, you can use celebrity names for more consistency. For example (Isla Fisher:0.7), this will give a consistent redhead face but not exactly looking like the real celebrity due to lowered weight. Also adding decades (2010s, 2000s, 90s, 80s, etc) to the prompt can add to consistency and help changing visual style.

I chose LoRAs in particular because I wanted the result to be consistent, and that I don't want to use real people's likeness -- you know, legal and ethnical problems and all that. Although I can try prompt editing to see if the result can be made better.

 

[ramvivat]

Hi!
How and where to get Naomi? Naomi is a not-so-a-friend of Sarah-the-HR-director?
by the plot, first sight of here we have in the bar in the event "first date with Sarah" when Sarah run into the toilets from humilation what give here Naomi.

 

[Edwarf]

So still no 3D renderer...

 

[slobber]

Hi!
How and where to get Naomi? Naomi is a not-so-a-friend of Sarah-the-HR-director?
by the plot, first sight of here we have in the bar in the event "first date with Sarah" when Sarah run into the toilets from humilation what give here Naomi.

If you progress Sarah's story you'll eventually see Naomi again.

 

[bloodbus]

So still no 3D renderer...

There are no plans to port this to a 3d engine, and the renders would need to be remade from scratch since Vren never shared his daz assets or presets. Anything of that sort isn't being focused on in any shape or form by Starbuck or Tristim. You're welcome to try your hand though

 

[Edwarf]

There are no plans to port this to a 3d engine, and the renders would need to be remade from scratch since Vren never shared his daz assets or presets. Anything of that sort isn't being focused on in any shape or form by Starbuck or Tristim.

Sure, its easier to keep adding 2D items frame by frame rather than create a model and let the renderer do the dirty job.

That "renders would need to be remade from scratch since Vren never shared his daz assets or presets" sounds more like an excuse than a real problem.

The lack of new models and updated visual content is the real elephant in the room nobody wants (dares) to talk about.
Tristim, Starbuck and Trollden did their best upgrading the game mechanics; but right now what this project needs (IMO) is a true model revamp.

And yes, this (3D renderer over Live2D assets) was discused about 1 year ago, before VRen stopped working on LR2.

You're welcome to try your hand though

I love that line averytime I read it.

 

[MC Johnsson]

If you progress Sarah's story you'll eventually see Naomi again.

I'd like to know where she lives. She shows as me knowing where she lives, I've been to her place after a date, even have her employed as my maid, but her place not showing on map.

 

[slick97]

Sure, its easier to keep adding 2D items frame by frame rather than create a model and let the renderer do the dirty job.

Some technical background: Ren'Py only supports 3D modeling in a "3D Stage" as outlined in the documentation. The 3D stage includes a z-axis that allows 2D models to be drawn closer or further from the screen. Ultimately, engines like Unity are far better for creating animated VNs as developers can use the built in rendering tools in a true 3D space.

That "renders would need to be remade from scratch since Vren never shared his daz assets or presets" sounds more like an excuse than a real problem.

That's because it is a valid excuse. If you don't have access to the 3D models used to create the 2D renders then you add significant development time either remaking them, or starting from scratch.

BioWare couldn't re-add Pinnacle Station into ME1:LE due to the very same fact that they didn't have the assets and source code anymore. The only reason modders could recreate the port was due to a toolkit that was developed over a decade that was designed to edit "cooked" files.

To put it bluntly: Tristim and Starbuck could be spending their time on being productive rather than wasting it rebuilding models.

The lack of new models and updated visual content is the real elephant in the room nobody wants (dares) to talk about.
Tristim, Starbuck and Trollden did their best upgrading the game mechanics; but right now what this project needs (IMO) is a true model revamp.

The first sentence isn't true, it's been discussed on this very forum even before I joined the discussion. It's even been discussed on multiple occasions in the Discord server by players and devs alike.

I'm not sure where this obsession with believing the models need to be revamped given the fact that they're not bad quality (aside from face 4 looking like a goblin). It's more baffling when considering Eternum - and various other games with similar art styles - all use low detail, high resolution renders.



Keep in mind that Tristim and Starbuck have specialized skills which focus primarily on storyboarding and game mechanics. It's a waste of their time updating models when multiple characters lack a finished storyline, and various game mechanics cause unintended issues that need to be fixed. That's exactly why they're outsourcing the work to the fans, especially since these guys/gals aren't generating an income from their continued support.

 

[GrizzlyUK]

Got some questions that I hope others can answer for me.

When starting a new game you're asked about various settings such as pregnancy content, story speed, game difficulty and random character generation settings. Yesterday I went through the Main Menu > Preferences settings to check other options. While the majority of options in there are fairly obvious there's a couple options which I'm not too sure as to what they actually do: "Always Ask Condom" I'm guessing that just enables/disables whether women always ask you to use a condom. Or is it something else? Then there's "MC Non Consent" which I have no clue as to what that actually does. Something to do with forcing women and/or taking control during sex? That one has three options: Disabled; Roleplay; Enabled. what's the difference between Roleplay and Enabled?

Elsewhere I seem to be missing / misplaced some serums. I noted down the details of the three serums you get from the box your mother gives you so that I could re-produce them. After creating the serums and researching them, I put them into production. When clicking on the "Check Stock" option it shows that I have 40 Blue, 70 Purple and 60 Red. However, when checking the "Production Stockpile" it shows I have 40 Blue, 0 Purple and 0 Red available. When I go to Marketing and choose the "Sell Serums" option it shows the same quantities as "Check Stock" available to sell. I haven't enabled the Auto-Sell option in Production, so where has the game put those 70 Purple and 60 Red serums? I can't seem to find them anywhere!

Finally, does the game make copies of save games anywhere other than the "..\game\saves" and "..\game\saves\sync" folders? I know that Ren'py games usually make and maintain a copy of the saves folder in "Users\<user name>\AppData\Roaming\RenPy" but I can't find a folder there for this game. Just want to make sure that if I delete the contents of the "..\game\saves" folder I'll be able to start a fresh, clean new game without any settings etc being used from somewhere else.

 

[slick97]

Elsewhere I seem to be missing / misplaced some serums. I noted down the details of the three serums you get from the box your mother gives you so that I could re-produce them. After creating the serums and researching them, I put them into production. When clicking on the "Check Stock" option it shows that I have 40 Blue, 70 Purple and 60 Red. However, when checking the "Production Stockpile" it shows I have 40 Blue, 0 Purple and 0 Red available. When I go to Marketing and choose the "Sell Serums" option it shows the same quantities as "Check Stock" available to sell. I haven't enabled the Auto-Sell option in Production, so where has the game put those 70 Purple and 60 Red serums? I can't seem to find them anywhere!

"Check Stock" and "Access Production Stockpile" are intended to be linked inventories. Does the disparity still exist when you produce more serums?

Finally, does the game make copies of save games anywhere other than the "..\game\saves" and "..\game\saves\sync" folders? I know that Ren'py games usually make and maintain a copy of the saves folder in "Users\<user name>\AppData\Roaming\RenPy" but I can't find a folder there for this game. Just want to make sure that if I delete the contents of the "..\game\saves" folder I'll be able to start a fresh, clean new game without any settings etc being used from somewhere else.

Any settings you change will be applied to any save file you load up. Deleting or modifying saves doesn't change any settings values.

 

[SenPC]

I'd like to know where she lives. She shows as me knowing where she lives, I've been to her place after a date, even have her employed as my maid, but her place not showing on map.

Some NPCs have their home location "known" to you, and they disappear to their home at certain times during the day, but their home is not an actual game location, just an abstract placeholder. You can't go there other than as a scripted event.

 

[MC Johnsson]

Some NPCs have their home location "known" to you, and they disappear to their home at certain times during the day, but their home is not an actual game location, just an abstract placeholder. You can't go there other than as a scripted event.

Thanks for clearing that one up for me.

 

[GrizzlyUK]

"Check Stock" and "Access Production Stockpile" are intended to be linked inventories. Does the disparity still exist when you produce more serums?

Yes, I've changed the Production settings to produce Purple Serums on line 1 and Red Serums on line 2 (lines 3 & 4 are empty) with both lines producing 50% each. After producing more serums and then selecting "Check Stock" there's an increase in the numbers for both Purple and Red Serums, but when selecting the "Access Production Stockpile" there are still 0 Purple Serums and 0 Red Serums under the Business side so I cannot transfer any to the player. For some reason the Purple and Red Serums are not being made available in the Production Stockpile, so where are they and how can I get access to them?

Any settings you change will be applied to any save file you load up. Deleting or modifying saves doesn't change any settings values.

Yeah, I know that simply deleting save games does not affect settings, hence why I said "if I delete the contents of the "..\game\saves" folder" because that will delete save games and the "persistent" file which, as I understand it, is the file where the Preferences settings are stored. So deleting both save games and the "persistent" file should allow for a clean, fresh start with zero settings carried over to the new game.

 

[deviantfiend999]

I looked into the image loader code, which, unfortunately, will be more effort than it's worth to implement a custom loader for replacing original images. Basically, the default python libary included in RenPy probably does include some utility py packages needed to add binary files into zip files, meaning I will have to extract the original zip file, then a modimages.zip file and overwrites any conflicts, and repackage them together, programmically at runtime and overrides the cached image handlers after the orignal images are loaded

Honestly, a lot easier to just zip those images yourselves, if you use the gitgud library, which included the zipped images on the dev branch, instead of the package from the download link on this site. On the other hands, since poses are loaded as individual zip files, I figure I can add new poses as the game is loading -- the problem is, the pose files are huge, since all pieces of clothing has to also be included

Regardless, for the bodyshapes, it's not as consistent as I'd like, so it woudl require some PS to get them. However, using masking layers I just enlarged a something that looks like a DD to DDD and shrink to D for the same pose. F is harder, it's not easy to control breasts beyond a certain level



Also when it comes to skin colors, I just tone mapped it in Gimp using the original body's colors (same with how I matched the white skin to the original -- the heads are the same as the ones currently in-game, I used them to for compatibility -- after all, the face swap thing might not work out)

Edit: To be sure, I'm not saying it's not possible to edit the original images -- just I don't want to maintain a separate series of zip files somewhere for a graphics mod, and installing it would require users to manually replace the images.
If Tristimdorin/Starbucks/el al want to change the graphics themselves, they can do so easily; I, on the other hand, have no desire to pack the RPA files myself.
If this goes well and I can at least finish an entire pose, I might do something about it. Until then, it's just gonna be mostly me telling people how they might do it
Of course one can also use Daz or Blender; if ones has a similar pose file and try to set up a series of cameras, lighting, materials to match, that's proably better since it means better controls

 

[Porrvald]

There are no plans to port this to a 3d engine, and the renders would need to be remade from scratch since Vren never shared his daz assets or presets. Anything of that sort isn't being focused on in any shape or form by Starbuck or Tristim. You're welcome to try your hand though

I'm still thinking that it would have been the better option, to remake the entire game in a 3D engine.

And yes, I am actually considering to do that myself, as an experiment / learning project in Godot.

But, if I go for it, then I would definitely save any work related to the visualization of the girls to be done last, and most likely not bother at all with the old models.

It would probably be more interresting to use new models and to make them interact with the enironment, like sitting on bed, on the floor, at desk, etc.

The main advantage of remaking the entire game would however, be to have nice fresh game world, which is not stuck with Vrens, early design choices, such as for example 5 time slots per day, where all actions either take no time at all or several hours.

If that was replaced with time, then chatting with girls would take time, not energy. And having sex would require time and energy, making it impossible to give a girl 20 orgasms in 0 seconds, while the next one is waiting.

But, I will most likely, either find my self too lazy to do it or give up half way through

 

[bloodbus]

I'm still thinking that it would have been the better option, to remake the entire game in a 3D engine.

And yes, I am actually considering to do that myself, as an experiment / learning project in Godot.

But, if I go for it, then I would definitely save any work related to the visualization of the girls to be done last, and most likely not bother at all with the old models.

It would probably be more interresting to use new models and to make them interact with the enironment, like sitting on bed, on the floor, at desk, etc.

The main advantage of remaking the entire game would however, be to have nice fresh game world, which is not stuck with Vrens, early design choices, such as for example 5 time slots per day, where all actions either take no time at all or several hours.

If that was replaced with time, then chatting with girls would take time, not energy. And having sex would require time and energy, making it impossible to give a girl 20 orgasms in 0 seconds, while the next one is waiting.

But, I will most likely, either find my self too lazy to do it or give up half way through

I encourage you to do so. Godot seems like a really promising game engine. Much better than that other "free" option lol. I thought about learning it myself a short while ago. I definitely think the body transformations would translate better in 3d, although I would likely try to keep it a 1:1 port as much as possible - excluding the 3d real time renders

 

[RandomFapinator]

Sure, its easier to keep adding 2D items frame by frame rather than create a model and let the renderer do the dirty job.

That "renders would need to be remade from scratch since Vren never shared his daz assets or presets" sounds more like an excuse than a real problem.

The lack of new models and updated visual content is the real elephant in the room nobody wants (dares) to talk about.
Tristim, Starbuck and Trollden did their best upgrading the game mechanics; but right now what this project needs (IMO) is a true model revamp.

And yes, this (3D renderer over Live2D assets) was discused about 1 year ago, before VRen stopped working on LR2.



I love that line averytime I read it.

I don't know, I kinda enjoy text based games too. I think better graphics is not everybody's main priority, but maybe we should put that to vote? Personally I think the code architecture/optimization is the main priority, this can be done alongside new content.

I'm still thinking that it would have been the better option, to remake the entire game in a 3D engine.

And yes, I am actually considering to do that myself, as an experiment / learning project in Godot.

But, if I go for it, then I would definitely save any work related to the visualization of the girls to be done last, and most likely not bother at all with the old models.

It would probably be more interresting to use new models and to make them interact with the enironment, like sitting on bed, on the floor, at desk, etc.

The main advantage of remaking the entire game would however, be to have nice fresh game world, which is not stuck with Vrens, early design choices, such as for example 5 time slots per day, where all actions either take no time at all or several hours.

If that was replaced with time, then chatting with girls would take time, not energy. And having sex would require time and energy, making it impossible to give a girl 20 orgasms in 0 seconds, while the next one is waiting.

But, I will most likely, either find my self too lazy to do it or give up half way through

Yeah that's a good idea, we would get rid of the annoying legacy code and build an architecture that would allow more gameplay customizations and easier maintenance, while working on the 3d engine at the same time. This however looks like a many people's job, or a very dedicated dev's job, so I doubt it will happen. Happy to be proven wrong though