Need some advice? (Aspiring game dev/writer)

[MisterG's]

Hello !

I could really use some feedback! The thing is, i have been working on a project for a while (renpy visual novel) and i am starting to get to the stage where i want to put together a demo and upload it for people to play and provide their thoughts and impressions.. but there is a problem on my end.

I am confident in my coding skills and somewhat confident with my writing but i cannot draw for the life of me. have tried countless times to learn but it just doesn't seem like i will ever be able to draw worth anything.

So i got disheartened by this fact. because you cant have a good visual novel without the visuals (right?) ...

but i had an idea and i am not sure if it is okay. hence why i am going on here to hopefully find some answers!

1. Would it be okay to use free assets from the internet to pull everything together.. Seeing as i have almost enough content for a good sized "demo/prototype" of the game. only thing missing is the visuals and to finish the coding.
   1. and IF it was okay to use them, my plan is to slowly replace all the free to use assets with my/our own visuals.
      1. the plan is, to hire an artist for the visual work
   2. all due credits will be properly paid to the artist(s)

hope i made at least a little bit of sense.

Really looking foward to hearing what the feed back to this is!

 

[Fliptoynk]

I think you wanna dabble with a software named makehuman.

 

[MisterG's]

I think you wanna dabble with a software named makehuman.

Thank you, i will for sure check it out!

 

[polywog]

1. Would it be okay to use free assets

According to the

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(FSF), a non-profit organization that supports the development of free software, “free software is the software that grants the user the freedom to share, study, and modify it.” The FSF coined the term in the 1980s.

This type of software allows you to do anything you want with it, even improving the version and profiting from it.

The FSF asserts that a free software must adhere to the following four pillars of freedom (which are rights and not obligations):

• The freedom to deploy the software for any use case without any restrictions. For example, saying that the license of a program expires after 30 days makes it non-free.
• The freedom to study how the software works and modify it according to your needs and preferences.
• The freedom to freely re-distribute the software to assist someone in need. The redistribution can be done at a cost or at no cost.
• The freedom to enhance the performance of the software and release your enhancements for the community to benefit—both programmers and non-programmers. You can do this at a cost or at no cost.

 

[MisterG's]

Thank you so much for info! Def going to look into that!

 

[DeadPotato]

So i got disheartened by this fact. because you cant have a good visual novel without the visuals (right?) ...

While a part of it is true that visuals are an important part of visual novels, you don't need good visuals for a visual novel to be good. It can look as good as you want, but if the writing is not good. The good visuals are wasted, visuals are only half of the equation, you gotta pay as much attention to the writing as well.

All that said, let me know when you have a demo out! I'm curious about the game that you're making!

 

[khumak]

Hello !

I could really use some feedback! The thing is, i have been working on a project for a while (renpy visual novel) and i am starting to get to the stage where i want to put together a demo and upload it for people to play and provide their thoughts and impressions.. but there is a problem on my end.

I am confident in my coding skills and somewhat confident with my writing but i cannot draw for the life of me. have tried countless times to learn but it just doesn't seem like i will ever be able to draw worth anything.

So i got disheartened by this fact. because you cant have a good visual novel without the visuals (right?) ...

but i had an idea and i am not sure if it is okay. hence why i am going on here to hopefully find some answers!

1. Would it be okay to use free assets from the internet to pull everything together.. Seeing as i have almost enough content for a good sized "demo/prototype" of the game. only thing missing is the visuals and to finish the coding.
   1. and IF it was okay to use them, my plan is to slowly replace all the free to use assets with my/our own visuals.
      1. the plan is, to hire an artist for the visual work
   2. all due credits will be properly paid to the artist(s)

hope i made at least a little bit of sense.

Really looking foward to hearing what the feed back to this is!

That's actually the beauty of software like Daz 3D. You don't need to be an artist to use it. I can barely draw a stick figure, but with Daz I can still create a scene with high quality visuals using assets made by people who CAN draw or at least know how to convert pictures to assets. Most of those assets do cost money though so your question sort of applies for that as well I guess. I suspect a lot of new devs start off messing around with pirated assets and only start buying them when they start making money off of them.

It takes awhile to get the hang of posing and lighting but other than that, basically anyone can eventually create visuals on par with the most of the games on this site. Animations are another story. I'm not really sure what's required to get good at those other than crazy amounts of practice. There are also render options that will let you render the image in more of a stylized comic book style than a photorealism setting.

Some people are probably still naturally better at it than others. It took me a few months to get familiar enough with posing and lighting to be able to set a scene up that looks the way I want in a reasonable amount of time. It might only take you a few weeks or something. Posing and lighting are still getting easier as well, although it seems like that has slowed down. I hope I'm still getting better but if I am it doesn't feel as noticeable as it used to. I suspect the lighting is easier to learn if you have some background in photography. Unfortunately I don't so it's been more of a struggle for me.

 

[MisterG's]

All that said, let me know when you have a demo out! I'm curious about the game that you're making!

That i can agree with completely! i appreciate you taking the time and responding! Of course, you will be the first to know

 

[MisterG's]

That's actually the beauty of software like Daz 3D. You don't need to be an artist to use it. I can barely draw a stick figure, but with Daz I can still create a scene with high quality visuals using assets made by people who CAN draw or at least know how to convert pictures to assets. Most of those assets do cost money though so your question sort of applies for that as well I guess. I suspect a lot of new devs start off messing around with pirated assets and only start buying them when they start making money off of them.

It takes awhile to get the hang of posing and lighting but other than that, basically anyone can eventually create visuals on par with the most of the games on this site. Animations are another story. I'm not really sure what's required to get good at those other than crazy amounts of practice. There are also render options that will let you render the image in more of a stylized comic book style than a photorealism setting.

Some people are probably still naturally better at it than others. It took me a few months to get familiar enough with posing and lighting to be able to set a scene up that looks the way I want in a reasonable amount of time. It might only take you a few weeks or something. Posing and lighting are still getting easier as well, although it seems like that has slowed down. I hope I'm still getting better but if I am it doesn't feel as noticeable as it used to. I suspect the lighting is easier to learn if you have some background in photography. Unfortunately I don't so it's been more of a struggle for me.

Like all else, practice makes perfect! Keep up the good work and i'm sure you will get better! Thank you for taking your time to respond, i appreciate it!

Are you currently working on a project?

 

[khumak]

Like all else, practice makes perfect! Keep up the good work and i'm sure you will get better! Thank you for taking your time to respond, i appreciate it!

Are you currently working on a project?

I have a mod I've been working on for Babysitter as a way to practice. In my case I had no coding experience either so I needed to see how hard it was to learn enough RenPy to do what I wanted and that turned out to be pretty easy.

I do plan on trying to make my own game at some point but have decided to wait til I upgrade my system first. Rendering on a GTX 1050Ti is fairly slow. It's fine for practice but I think I want some beefier hardware if I'm going to get serious about it. I'm planning on upgrading around the time Nvidia releases their next generation of cards.

I'd like to do something similar to the original Living With Temptation and focus on throwing temptations at both the male and female character and letting the player decide how that plays out.

 

[MisterG's]

I have a mod I've been working on for Babysitter as a way to practice. In my case I had no coding experience either so I needed to see how hard it was to learn enough RenPy to do what I wanted and that turned out to be pretty easy.

I do plan on trying to make my own game at some point but have decided to wait til I upgrade my system first. Rendering on a GTX 1050Ti is fairly slow. It's fine for practice but I think I want some beefier hardware if I'm going to get serious about it. I'm planning on upgrading around the time Nvidia releases their next generation of cards.

I'd like to do something similar to the original Living With Temptation and focus on throwing temptations at both the male and female character and letting the player decide how that plays out.

Wow that sounds interesting! That's a clever way of learning! Haha to bad i am not as clever. I got started after playing a few visual novels i found around here! I knew i wanted to be making these myself It for sure took time to learn and I am by no means a pro but i love learning the language!

I completely understand what you mean, I'm working on some older hardware but it works for now! def going to do some upgrades soon!

That sounds interesting! looking forward to trying that out, let me know when you have a demo out!!

 

[I'm Not Thea Lundgren!]

Have you thought about bringing someone else on to do the artwork for you?

 

[MisterG's]

Have you thought about bringing someone else on to do the artwork for you?

Yes i have give that option a thought, the only issue is i am not sure i can afford to commission an artist atm!

 

[I'm Not Thea Lundgren!]

Yes i have give that option a thought, the only issue is i am not sure i can afford to commission an artist atm!

Have a look here... You might find someone you can work with and share ideas with that you won't have to pay, at least not straight away.

https://f95zone.to/forums/recruitment-services.117/

 

[9thCrux]

I would suggest you to wait until you can make your own art or get someone to do it for you.

I have seen some "games" around that were made with Internet pics (public pics he/they downloaded) they got bad reviews, their Patreon page got reported, and I'm sure some creators even filed DMCAs against him/them.

I have seen some Russian people trying to do that (some of those games were in Russian).
They pulled images from other visual novels, Rule34hentai, and random adult sites.

Some of them even used images from games pirated in this site, they used Milftoon's art between others.

It doesn't go well for them.

Some even said things like "The image is free, yeah I downloaded the game for free here so the image is free and I can use it"...

I don't know what kind of art are you trying to use or from where are you going to get it but be careful with that, most adult game players don't like recycled art. And get the author's permission before using the art.

I had to wait about two years until I was able to come up with a game by myself, but is worth the effort.

 

[MisterG's]

Have a look here... You might find someone you can work with and share ideas with that you won't have to pay, at least not straight away.

https://f95zone.to/forums/recruitment-services.117/

I will for sure take a look, thank you for the tip!

 

[MisterG's]

I would suggest you to wait until you can make your own art or get someone to do it for you.

I have seen some "games" around that were made with Internet pics (public pics he/they downloaded) they got bad reviews, their Patreon page got reported, and I'm sure some creators even filed DMCAs against him/them.

I have seen some Russian people trying to do that (some of those games were in Russian).
They pulled images from other visual novels, Rule34hentai, and random adult sites.

Some of them even used images from games pirated in this site, they used Milftoon's art between others.

It doesn't go well for them.

Some even said things like "The image is free, yeah I downloaded the game for free here so the image is free and I can use it"...

I don't know what kind of art are you trying to use or from where are you going to get it but be careful with that, most adult game players don't like recycled art. And get the author's permission before using the art.

I had to wait about two years until I was able to come up with a game by myself, but is worth the effort.

oh i didn't know that was happening!

The way i approached this project was first i started with the story and writing and once i got done with that i coded what i had to work with (minus obviously the visuals, and some fine tuning) and that is were i am at now. I got some royalty free music and contacted the artist and comfirmed that it was okay for me to use their work in my project.

what i meant with my original post was more like using "free to use" images to plug into my game just so i can get a "demo" out in the wild. For the sole purpose of getting feedback and getting it tested. My intention the whole time was before i release the final game that i would have replaced all the "free to use" assets with my own (either drawn by me or commissioned by an artist)

I appreciate you taking the time to respond! Thank you!