VN Ren'Py Matrix Hearts [v0.3.4] [Blue Otter Games]

[JJJ84]

Ello ello!

Coming mid-May is the Point and Click Sphere update. These are our middle updates between chapters that add the Point and Click Spheres once Patrons have given us their opinions on which areas of Chapter 2 they wanted to explore more. Expect to continue side-stories with the characters you met in the first Chapter's spheres and more! Again, this is all side-content and has no impact on the main story.

That also means we are about 2-3 months away from Chapter 3... and Chapter 3 is huge! We're talking about 2-3 hours long.

Thank you so much for playing our game, and we can't wait for you to swim in the waters we have for the future!

Whoa, 2~3 hours long for Chapter 3? Seriously?
Even games (that have been for a while, done by veteran devs) producing great updates, there really aren't that many out there who release such a lengthy update (for a chapter).

So I have to admit, I am a little bit skeptic (not saying you guys are lying, just saying that feels like it would be a massive endeavor to accomplish).

But seriously, I hope you Otters can prove me wrong (in fact, I'd be happy to be proven wrong!).

 

[Blue Otter Games]

Whoa, 2~3 hours long for Chapter 3? Seriously?
Even games (that have been for a while, done by veteran devs) producing great updates, there really aren't that many out there who release such a lengthy update (for a chapter).

So I have to admit, I am a little bit skeptic (not saying you guys are lying, just saying that feels like it would be a massive endeavor to accomplish).

But seriously, I hope you Otters can prove me wrong (in fact, I'd be happy to be proven wrong!).

That would 2-3 hours per normal reading standards. Now, if you fly through your VNs, then yeah, expect to get through it faster, but from test playthroughs of just the content we have (which includes the full script), then just reading took one of our Otters almost 3 hours.

Yes, it's a gigantic update! We might even trim the last scene to include as a cliffhanger to the next Chapter if production is running long.

Quality and quantity... that is the Otter way of life.

 

[Old Man Al]

For the completion: The Patreon Post

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Great news, Otters!
We are almost completed v0.2.2. Phew, this has been a marathon swim. We're talking swimming from the UK to Canada kind of swim. All new otters are funny trained, and Otter production is now in full swing again.
You can expect the beta for the 2.2 to come about nextweek-ish, with the public release coming mid-May. From there, we are full on into Chapter 3! More updates on that soon too.
We also have more news coming that is going to tickle your whiskers, but for now, we can't wait to get the next update for your to play!
Splish-splash!

-The Otter Team

 

[AJCasino]

2.2 coming soon??? Just literally downloaded 2.1 and yet to play it (just read all 29 pages of threads to catch up).
Enjoyed how things were looking when I finished 1.1
Rylee is cool and I love redheads, however she is 3rd behind Layla and Gemma on my list.

 

[SomeGuyWithNoImagination]

Rylee Fan Art

 

[agregen]

…The UploadHaven link in the OP seems to be still pointing at release 1.2 (based both on name and on much smaller filesize).

 

[Old Man Al]

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Ello Otters!
This is going to be a quality of life update about the game in general.

About a month ago, our artist Otter informed us that he wouldn't be able to work on the game anymore because of time commitment. Now, this wasn't ideal. Our team was specifically made up because our writing Otter wasn't very proficient at any sort of art program. We don't and never will blame our artist because life comes first. While he is still on the team in a very limited capacity, almost every responsibility fell onto the shoulders of our writing Otter.

In all honesty, it caused a lot of chaos. We were just about to release v0.2.2, and production of Chapter 3 had already begun. Assets for the game had to all be transferred to one Otter, a process that took an extraordinarily long time, what with how busy our artist was, and any and all art for the game was completely halted.

There were a few options: look for another artist to shift all the work onto (again) or fix the problem of too many Otter paws in the mix. Thus began the quest of our writer becoming the main developer. This in general would not be that big of a problem, but the issue was promises and expectations.

Learning a complicated program like DAZ or Blender isn't an easy thing, especially for someone who hasn't had much experience with these programs. The writing pool is enough of a swim! That's when we added a few extra Otters to the team to assist where needed. It is because of them that the Best Otter in the Galaxy hasn't pulled his fur out...
It wasn't that learning these programs is hard (which it is) and you have to have a machine that can do it all (which you do). The biggest fret was because of one thing: our players.

When Matrix Hearts was conceptualized, it was created with a promise to never give up as long as players enjoyed the game, and that we would always stay true to the game. We, especially our Writing/Programming/Artist/Everything Otter, felt like we were not delivering on that promise, and that's what has really ruffled our fur.

Which brings us to the big reason this post is being published. You have our Otter word that we are going to complete this game for you no matter what! Training on DAZ is going relatively well. Although extra Otters are needed for a little polish and rendering power, all posing and looks are designed by the main Otter to keep the same exact personality that you've been playing for two whole chapters now. Characters are going to sound the same, they are going to act the same, and their mannerisms are going to be identical. Best Otter was already in charge of the story and how each render would look, he is just designing the renders now too.

You might, however, notice a slight change in the art style. Our game had been rendered in a program called Cinema4D because that's what our artist used. Learning one program like DAZ is a task enough, so it didn't make sense to use a program that no one in the VN atmosphere hardly used anyway. We are going to change to rendering in DAZ or using Blender, a program one of our extra Otters is very proficient at. But before we do that, we figured it would be wise to let all Otters have a say in the matter! We are going to make an image and render it in either program and get your feedback.
Once we have made our decision, we don't want to change again.

Now, don't let your fur get too out of whack. We know it sounds like the next update won't be out for a while and everything is on hold, but we promise this isn't the case.

All the posing for v0.2.2 is already completed, we just need to render it, so you have an Otter promise the next update is coming out in May.
And while this has been a crazy month, this is going to guarantee one major thing: Chapter 3 production and further Chapter development is going to be much, much faster. There won't have to be anymore waiting between writer and artist to get renders completed. And once we reach certain Patreon goals, better graphics cards are going to guarantee that Best Otter can render as well.

Thank you for being part of the Otter Pool! Because of you, Matrix Hearts has gained a lot of momentum, and this has ingrained in our own little Otter hearts the passion for completing this game. Thank you for your patience, thank you for the support, and thank you for keeping your paws at the keyboard enjoying our story.
The future of Blue Otter is promising!
Splish-splash!

-The Otter Team

 

[Blue Otter Games]

Here is a preview image of our new Daz renders. Please keep in mind, our writing Otter is now in charge of renders as well...

To be honest, we are incredibly nervous. We went from an otter with years upon years of experience with 3D art to a writing Otter who has all of a month of experience. It isn't going to be perfect, but it's going well so far!

The next update is still coming in May! We are working on rendering right now, learning what needs to be fixed (lightning, clipping, general fuckery), and most likely having to render more.

Thank you for your patience! We promise this is going to make for much faster releases in the future!

 

[kcoope89]

View attachment 1816263

Here is a preview image of our new Daz renders. Please keep in mind, our writing Otter is now in charge of renders as well...

To be honest, we are incredibly nervous. We went from an otter with years upon years of experience with 3D art to a writing Otter who has all of a month of experience. It isn't going to be perfect, but it's going well so far!

The next update is still coming in May! We are working on rendering right now, learning what needs to be fixed (lightning, clipping, general fuckery), and most likely having to render more.

Thank you for your patience! We promise this is going to make for much faster releases in the future!

Long time, first time. You guys ever think about using a service like Fiverr?

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[dmmt]

ermagerd...these ladies are freakin gorgeous....Rylee, Leah, Xia, Gemma.....beautiful work on those.

 

[portgasdluigi]

Wanted to pop in and give a small update, I've checked out the playtest for the upcoming Point and Click Sphere update. Things are looking really good. The new Artist Otter is working on touching up the lighting and fixing some clipping issues. In my opinion the new art fits in perfectly with what we've seen so far in Matrix Hearts. The wait shouldn't be too much longer.

 

[Old Man Al]

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Ello ello Otters!
The Playtesters have gotten their hands on the game, a few got to play it while others gauged the renders through Discord, and we are in the final phase to launch (a phase that won't be used for any other release because this is our first time using these new renders).
The next release is going to be the early access! We are still working as much as we can to get this out in May, but there are a few things we needed to work on.

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For example, this render needs a lighting adjustment. This is something we can do in Photoshop. There are a few that fall into this category.

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Here is another thing (we are currently changing it in DAZ). The lighting we were using before was very wonky. We are adjusting the atmospheric lighting to make it appear more afternoon on a sunny beach. You can also tell these assets aren't the best quality, but we are going to work with what we have for this update and change to only the best assets in Chapter 3.

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This is the last thing we are fixing. If you are familiar with cameras (which Otter isn't, ammi right!?), you'll know the technique called Field of Depth. That's where your eye is drawn to when you look at the picture. We are fixing this in a handful of renders, as well as a few random clipping issues with hair.
Before we would have released the update already because the artist Otter was proficient at it and we didn't have to busy about it. But with a noob in control and extra Otters helping, this playtest was 100% what we needed to grow our art the right way.
Thank you for you continued patience and keeping your whiskers excited! We promise this is going to equal a faster Chapter 3, and that's better for the game!

-The Otter Team

 

[Old Man Al]

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Ello ello, Otters!
A new, exciting month we have! We thought we could wiggle the 0.2.2 release into May, but we couldn't get all the corrections rendered in time. We basically had to re-do the lighting on an entire sphere, so that's all we are waiting on right now are those renders to be completed.
Once those are pretty, early access is released! Not long to wait now, and we've reiterated this again and again... but thank you, THANK YOU for your patience.
Now onto juicier stuff... Chapter 3!
The good thing about all these mini-delays from the current update is that it's going to speed up the development for Chapter 3. Our Main Otter has almost learned everything that is necessary for rendering images in full, which means we can transition directly from 0.2.2 rendering to Chapter 3 rendering!
Writing and Editing is 100%!
Programming is 100%!
Scene creation is 50%!
We pretty much are good to go on everything but the renders.
Once we release the most recent update, we are going to give you a more in-depth look into what's coming up for Chapter 3!
Splish-splash!

-The Otter Team

 

[NukaCola]

Hi, May I ask what is the music used during the boat scene with Gemma? Its so good.

 

[SomeGuyWithNoImagination]

Hello, everyone. I'm the new artist otter as referenced in some of the Patreon posts above and I'm going to get ahead of everything in an attempt to clear any confusion which may exist regarding Chapter 2.2, who I am, what I do, and the Otters that be.

I would like to preface this by saying that I take personal responsibility for Chapter 2.2 taking so long to release. You as a community have my personal pledge that I will do everything in my power to have this update completed before the month is over (preferably before the end of this week, though testing or other tasks may potentially cause the update to stretch beyond then).

Below, I will go into details regarding why I assume responsibility for this delay and some other information regarding my role in the team and our development workflow.

Please understand that at this time, I can not make promises or comments regarding Chapter 3.

Here is a preview image of our new Daz renders. Please keep in mind, our writing Otter is now in charge of renders as well...

This post from mid-May is true, but it is not entirely accurate to how the team is currently structured. The writing otter (who is also in charge of the Blue Otter Games F95 account, Patreon, and other official pages) is currently also in charge of posing. Unfortunately, however, they are unable to render on their system because they have an AMD GPU (while CPU rendering is an option, it is at best not known for speed).

My role in the team is to fill that gap. Where the writing otter does posing, I cover everything else associated with rendering (lighting, clipping, other fixes, optimization, and actually rendering them). Overall, my job is to improve the render quality to the best of my ability and to be a render farm.

The team's workflow is as follows: Blue Otter Games decides the scene, places and poses the characters, and provides me with the dufs at that point. My job is then to go through each duf individually and apply lighting, fix clipping issues (hair cap bugs, for example, are almost impossible to notice in anything except the rendered view), apply camera and render settings, etc. (Everything mentioned above.) All of these tasks vary from difficult to almost impossible to do in the standard "Texture Shaded" mode of Daz, and as mentioned, iray isn't known for speed on CPU rendering.

This is the primary reason why take personal responsibility for this update being slow. Although the scenes have been posed for a while, my process of fixing each frame has been excruciatingly slow.

In the future, once funding permits, the current plan is for our writer to purchase an Nvidia GPU themselves so they can take over my role.

Regarding Render Quality and Style
Although I consider myself adequately capable in most portions of Daz, the rendering side of it is something which, up until early-mid May, I had very little experience with. My process prior to then was to port from Daz to Blender where I was more comfortable. This works well for myself, but within the workflow us Otters have developed, it simply does not scale.

In some of the earliest renders for Chapter 2.2 (such as the image below), this lack of experience in the tools shows. I simply ask for your understanding in regards to this. I assure you that as we continue forward I am applying the concepts I learned in Blender to Daz as I figure out how.

Between that scene and the very next, I applied many more tricks (depth of field, way better environment lighting, improved contrast, bloom when appropriate, ...) to improve quality as best as possible (again, see the image below).

 

[Blue Otter Games]

Hi, May I ask what is the music used during the boat scene with Gemma? Its so good.

I think the one you're thinking of is Ocean by Emorie!

 

[NukaCola]

I think the one you're thinking of is Ocean by Emorie!

No, that is not it. I'm talking about hans zimmer like vocalless background music in this scene.

 

[Blue Otter Games]

No, that is not it. I'm talking about hans zimmer like vocalless background music in this scene.
View attachment 1857546

That is Ocean of Worlds by Third Age!

 

[Blue Otter Games]

Happy Otter-versary!

Matrix Hearts is officially a year old!

We have come a long way and have much, much further to swim yet. It's incredible that its already been a year, and although we wanted to have at least released 3 chapters already, we have made incredible progress regardless of setbacks, and we are now looking otterly better than before!

Even though we are only a year(ish) into development, we have gained incredible support from you, our fans and Patrons, and it is with that continued trust that we can accomplish more! And yes, more butts and boobs included.

Here is a special render from us celebrating our Otter-versary. Also, early access for v.0.2.2 is officially coming this week, with development in the renders for Chapter 3 now in full production.

Thank you, Otters, and keep those whiskers playing!

-The Otter Team

 

[stefanino]

Oh my God!!! That ginger girl is the absolute doppleganger of my lady!! How come you know her ????? Gorgeous and sweet, hope your ginger is the same ; ) Thx for the game, i'll give it a try.