My future game: Help, advice and opinion [WIP]

[Erros]

Hello,
I'm here to talk about the game i'm about to create. I will need your opinions, advices, and, most of all, your help.

It will be a Visual Novel made with renpy and Daz 3D (most likely). Since it's my very first game i don't want to start something too difficult for me that i will end up abandoning. The game will be story-base with choices and consequences.

As for my current skills. I'm fairly confident in my writing skills and i'm used to write a lot (not in english sadly). For coding, i studied 5 years ago C# at university but i dropped out after the first year, so let's say that i completely new to coding. Concerning Daz3D i never used it before and this is here where lies most of my concerns.

For the story. I don't want to reveal too much, but it will have a serious tone and i think it will be rather short. I will go back to this point later in my thread.

Before, here is my PC specs to help you answer my interrogations.
i5 6600K 3.5Ghz, GTX 1070 8Gb, 16Gb RAM and a 250Gb SSD combined with a 1Tb HDD.
(it's my only computer, so keep in mind that i don't want to burnt it by asking too much on it, i have nothing else)

So for my first post here, i have a few question about Daz3D.

1. Pretty simple question to begin with : is it a good idea to use Genesis 8 models for my game ? Let's say i decide to use Ganesis 7 models, will the rendering time decrease (by how much ?) ?

2. A little related to before, can i mix Genesis 8 and 7 models in the same scene ? or should i always stick to same genesis models ?

3. I have been looking here :

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to look for model ideas. Is it okay to use DL those assets here considering the fact that obviously i intend to create a Patreon page and earn money. And by this question, i mean, is there any risk ? (i don't earn enough money to afford buying everything from Daz3D shop)

4. Is there some alternative to Daz3D for renders that are beginners friendly ? I already know Honey select, but i don't think the art-style will fit the serious tone that my game will have (and i think there will be less people attracted to a game made with Honey select than with Daz3d, honestly)

5. Do you know a way to make animations with Daz3D who are easy to create. I'm don't plan to make animations, i prefer to focus on creating good renders, but i curious about how to create animations (like those in Milfy city, or DmD, not just a loop of 2 different renders)


Now lets talk about the core of my game : the story.

6. As i first imagine my game, it's much more an erotic game, than a porn game. There will be sex scenes, but they won't happen until late in the story. And to be honest there will be just a few sex scenes. So does it bother you if there is only a few sex scenes ? (Oh ! and by "sex scenes" i mean, REAL sex scene, with foreplay and penetration, not just some handjobs and blowjobs to keep you blueballing until the end of the game)

Spoiler: If your answer is yes

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7. Most of the story will take place in a multinational corporation (don't worry, i won't bore you with financial stuff), and i'm looking for interior assets that can fit in my game. I have looked into the asset release page here, but i didn't found any interior that i can use (or maybe i just didn't saw them), do you have some interior suggestion to show me, please ?

8. (probaly something that i forgot to ask, so just write any advice you want to give me )


And just to say, it will be mostly only vanilla sex scenes, so don't expect for my first game, some hardcore kinks, and sorry, there won't be a harem ending (the story isn't completly written, this point can still change).
Aside for this game, i have two others story in mind that i intend to make when i will complete the first one. But thats an other story, he he.

Thank you.

Spoiler: Major spoiler

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[willembever22]

That last spoiler made it for me ofc, But after what i just read you got my support and who knows a fan

 

[Aeilion]

1. The rendering time will not be specially affected by the model you will choose.

2. Genesis are just a base model you can use it with what you want. Other models and environnement, props you want. But there are some clothes, hair, poses just for gen8 or gen2, gen3 etc... With some job on it you can make a cloth for gen3 to match with gen8 etc... But be carefull with that, lot to do and sometime things can work for one scene but don't work on another (different poses, light etc..)
But whatever model you choose, you should be able to find something to do. Except in the case of a really special cloth. In this case it would be better to find the cloth in the first place and see the associated model.

3. You can make some test with pirate stuff but when you do renders for your game i think is better to do that with legal things. Even if you can possibly have the chance not to have a complaint, in your place I will not try that. If you really have no choice ... At worst you pay later ^^

4. I don't know.

5. Easy to create... Well you can make a render in and a render out and loop the two ^^ No, I do not think there are easy animations to do. Surely to buy, yes but to do ... A good animation requires a lot of work and understanding of how the body is articulated. Then find the right pace etc ... Already sometimes it's difficult to make a simple pose while a whole animation ...

6. Why not.

7. No sorry. There is surely a lot of office environment in the shop of daz3d.

8. If you go for Iray:

You are likely to find yourself dealing with worries related to the management of light in your scenes. This is the hardest part for me. you have to take a lot of things into account. Including rendering time that is very much affected by the light as much as the final quality.

With your PC you should not have too much trouble making good renders as long as you can understand the management of light.
I do not know if you know about photography but it can be a good thing to study the basic principles. Especially at the level of the light again.

Otherwise ... Pay attention to dimensions. Sometimes some artist produce environments that are smaller or larger with respect to the basic size of the character models. Which can lead to characters too big or vice versa. For my part I made the choice to use the doors as measurement reference. It's quite practical as long as the rest of the places are in coherence you can make characters of different size without finding yourself with a giant in a kitchen for baby.

Anyway ... There is a lot of other problem to discover with the use of daz3d ^^

 

[Erros]

Hi, thanks for your answer.

9. I have been looking at the Daz shop and i have seen this :

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Does it means that i can't use those assets in my game, unless i pay for the license ?

 

[The Architect]

Hi, thanks for your answer.

9. I have been looking at the Daz shop and i have seen this :

You must be registered to see the links

Does it means that i can't use those assets in my game, unless i pay for the license ?

They demand the interactive license if you're going to ship versions of textures and meshes with your game (mostly for real-time 3D games). You don't need it if you're only shipping renders (like most VNs).

 

[Erros]

Ok thank you, i'm reassured now. I was starting to freaked out because of the price.

 

[M$hot]

What the Architect said is serious, lighting can be murder. No matter if you got volumetric or raytraced, textured light, diffusion etc. It can easily add up and make a 2 minute render a 9 minute render. I haven't worked with Iray specifically but my work is around 3D design and lighting is always the worst part. And the question for interiors will be if you design the whole room with quality lighting, or one spot in the room where then your characters will be forced to stand.
So if you want them to be stood in different areas of the room, you may have to design the lights for the whole place. Something to consider.
And while there are plenty of games with pirated materials out there, I don't know if you want to test if you can 'get away' with it if your paycheck becomes dependent on it.

 

[Hentami]

No idea what DMD does so can't comment on that. But as for animation, I've approached it in two ways.

(1) Just render like a flip book, and make the image sequence automatic or let player do it.
(2) Take a sprite and just deform it in a rotation.

result

Spoiler

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[Erros]

Hi,
I have completed writing the intro. And what i can say is that i have to re-write it . Why ? Because there is almost 2000 words only for the intro. I guess it's a bit too much, i will probably delete some irrelevant texts, but i think we will stay way over the 1000 words for the intro. (when i first wrote the scene 1 i only had 50 words, after re-writing it i ended with 300 words only for the first scene)

Now for Daz3D. Yeah, thats definitely not a good idea to earn money with pirated assets. If i would have wanted to render just for the fun i wouldn't even have asked the question. I don't want to take any risk here, the "buy them later" excuse never works. So i think i will buy the assets that i need little by little, which will probably delay the date of first release. Or i should probably cheapest assets, but i honestly can't help but feel frustrated to work with low quality assets when there is high-quality assets within reach.
For now, i will use the pirated assets here as a training material.

To end today post, i did some test with the light. Here what i've manage to do so far.
(vanilla)
(one spot light, with yellowish light)
(two spots light, both white light)

I don't know what you think, but i prefer the image in the middle (one spot light, with yellowish light)
(and yes, she's one of the character i wanted in my game.)

Thank you.

 

[Studio Errilhl]

2000 words isn't really that much. It takes about 10-15 minutes to read. If you add clicking, and images and and and, you're looking at about 30-40 minutes of gameplay? Not bad for an intro, I think. As for the images, I actually prefer the third image, because it actually looks more like it's taken outdoors on a very bright day. The second image isn't bad, it just doesn't look "natural" - maybe you can tone done the brightness a little bit on the third, but stick with both spots to achieve the same look, just with a slightly less washed out feel.

 

[Erros]

Hi,
Today i did another test render.
I learned how to make the character look at the camera, how to pose a character in a scene (still needs improvment), and i tried to light an interior (night) scene.

I'm not satisfied with this, but i wanted to finish it and to move on to try new things.
It's not visible on first look, but this image has a little bit grainy. I need to learn how to prevent that in the future.

And i have a small question. The rendering time is calculated by what is on the screen or by what is in the scene ? This scene had a lot of props in it and it took me 1h of rendering time, so i was wondering if there was a way to decrease it.

Thanks.

 

[Studio Errilhl]

It's calculated by what is in the scene. So hiding things outside the camera's view will reduce render-time

 

[Erros]

Hi,
So finally i decided to work with Genesis 3 models. I wanted originally to work with Genesis 8 models, but it's too much trouble (for a beginner), i don't want to start working on Gen8 models to find myself stuck later. (maybe for a hypothetical futur game).

And today i have a little request. Genesis 3 female models look good, but for one of the character that i have in mind is over 40 years old, and Gen3 models look too young to match what i'm looking for. So do you know a Gen3 model that can look like a 40 years old women ?


And since i won't be working on Gen 8 character, here is the character that i wanted to use originally.
-Victoria 8 (+ HD add-on) :

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-Evelyn for G8W :

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or Paisley for teen Josie :

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-Miriam HD:

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Thank you

 

[Aeilion]

The only model I know that gives a 40-year-old woman's impression is Joanie but it's a Gen2 ...
It's up to you to see if you think you can work with Gen2 at least on this character.

For the granny side of your image there may be a lot of different reasons ... the light, the renders settings and if you were at the end of the rendering or not.

To reduce the rendering time ... the light always and again, the size of the textures maybe and check the renders settings.
But unless I rewrite a very long message about everything I learned at this level, I will not be able to detail. You must be able to find topics with similar questions on this forum or on google.

 

[Erros]

I have my first female character :


The only thing that "bother" me with this character is that i would have liked her to be a lil' bit older. (around 40 years old).
(If in japan people can create 8 years old child and saying she's 20 years old. Then it should be ok for her to say she's more than 40 years old. :tf
Spent 2 hour trying to get something good, too lazy to make a background or a scene for her.

What do you think of her ?

 

[danger_mouse]

I prefer gen8, yes it has the fewest assets because it's new, but each month more and more content get released for it. it has good backwards compatibility with older clothes; except for skirts and long hairs won't pose correctly. Also the poses for older genesis won't work, but their are scripts to convert gen3 to gen8 etc. Overall gen8 is the most versatile, and has the best looking textures. And again more and more stuff is being released for it.

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Recently released, she is a bit older and might be what you had in mind? Their are also the aging morphs, both to age up or down depending on what you're going for, those are in the release section here if you just wanna play around with it.

Go back to your beach render and remove the spot lights and do a render and see which way the shadow on the ground is going. You might have to enable "Render Ground" if no shadow shows up. Rotate either the character or the dome(in the environment tab of the render tab) until the light is aiming the way you want it. You might have to do a few quick render tests to make sure you're rotating the right way. Afterwards if it isn't bright enough, you can adjust environment intensity, increasing makes the lights brighter. You can also adjust the exposure settings in tone mapping(physical camera settings) to make the scene brighter or darker too. I prefer the dome settings though. Also there are full light HDRI settings you can download/buy.
An example

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I like the first one on that and then increasing the intensity, makes the light look like it's from a nice clear sky.

Inside lighting can be much more challenging, some environments come with built in lighting but can be rather dark, but I usually supplement it with spotlights, it takes some time messing around with all that. once you get a scene that looks good, you can reuse it so you won't have to set it up again. You can adjust the exposure settings to make the scene brighter without messing with the lights, or adjust the environment intensity.

About your money concern, the Daz store is always having sales, plus the Annual premium membership is definitely worth it! lots of extra stuff on sale, plus bonus % off sales too. It makes up for the cost in just a few purchases.

Cheers, and goodluck!

 

[Erros]

hi,
I redid the character,

I created a scene with her, but the rendering is taking too much time.

 

[Erros]

Hi again,
Here is what i did yesterday night
(1h30min of rendering. "Dome and scene" environment mode with two spotlights)

(1h20min of rendering. "Sun sky only" environment mode, nothing else)

- For the first, i like it because we can see all the body details, but because of spotlights the armchair looks weird. And furthermore in the scene there is only this place who is enlightened, so it's not that good finally.

- For the second one, the biggest point that i like, is that the scene is entirely enlightened, so i can move freely my characters without having to change too much the light settings. And other good point, we can finally see her green eyes. But i think there is still something missing here that can make the lighting looks better, i just still haven't found what.

Which one do you prefer ? If i have to choose, i would go for the second image.

(And if you haven't recognized her, she is the same character model of the mother in Dreams of desire, at least for the face, i modified her body a little bit)

 

[redknight00]

Ok, I'll my artsy talk. When it comes to shapes and colors, in the second one my eyes are attracted to the shirt and windows, because those are the details that have more contrast, the rest sort of blends in together. The first one has the windows in more neutral color, which is good to lose their focus and a slightly darker background and lighter foregrounds, I thinks that's good because in the end the thing you want people to pay more attention is the woman in the center of the picture.

The lights in the first armchair do look odd though.

 

[Aeilion]

I don't like the first because the spot lights tend to create a lot of shadows that we do not necessarily understand (like the furniture on the left or the shadow of the character on the chair)
I do not like the second because it is not lit enough and so the rendering is worse.
Have you considered the use of emisives to improve your poorly lit areas?