STATUS UPDATE Chapter 02 | MrLollipop
First things first:
Welcome to all new patrons! After the last update, the community has doubled!
Thank you! I hope we’ll keep that trend going!
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The last two weeks were mixed, but the final outcome was pretty positive! Most of my work was related to paying the bills rather than game development, but I’ve finished that for now and am back at 100%.
However, I did have time to rethink and work on some neglected areas.
Community:
I liked the Update Poll, and judging by your response, you liked it too! I plan to keep those going in the future and include more specifics in them. After the patron survey, I also learned what
not to ask. In the future, I’ll try to focus on what interests you the most. ;]
Marketing:
I observed online reactions to the last update and site traffic. Some conclusions here, I’ll keep running tests until the end of the month.
Programming:
I finally wrote new scripts for DAZ! I’ve been thinking about them for months! They’ve greatly improved my workflow and automated actions I repeat more than a thousand times a day. It’s a huge help in keeping my mind clear when I don’t have to dig through scene elements every 30 seconds. It took a while, though, because DAZ has
so many bugs, and the documentation is seriously lacking. I’m still missing a few tools and options, but for now, it’s a blessing!
Rendering and Optimization -a lot has happened here :
- My render server’s GPU died... It had thousands of hours on the clock and was quite old. But, even a slow render slave is better than none. I don’t think I’ll replace it since the whole platform needs refurbishing. All my financial reserves are going toward extending my time for game development. For now, it’s just me, my PC, and one backup GPU. Normally I’d be devastated, BUT:
- I OPTIMIZED RENDER TIMES! I’m shocked by the results! Once again, I can comfortably enhance scene details without sacrificing control! Of all the possible solutions, I didn’t expect to find such a good one! Cons: It requires careful preparation, which takes time, and I haven’t tested it on many setups yet… but it rocks!
Before that, I worked on some hair materials that took forever to render (Celia’s hair, even in the elevator, was a nightmare). I managed to get better timing without losing too much quality. It’s far from perfect, but it’s better, and I now have a "how-to" for the future.
Workflow:
I won’t bore you with the details, but I made some nice adjustments… now I just need to propagate them across each figure… <yawn>.
Renders:
50 new renders: I’ve finished the elevator scene and started the new one, which is progressing much faster now. Everything is already in Ren’py with dialogue.
This week:
I’ll finish the necessary plot events before diving into another animation. I took some shortcuts here, but nothing that affects the story. Hopefully, next week I’ll start working on animations again.
Further TODO and plans:
- Make the points gain indicator bigger (this or next update);
- Chapter 1 dialogue corrections (2–3 updates away). I see it, it pains me, it looms over me… but I don’t have time for it right now;
- Skill Tree (2 updates away): It needs to be carefully planned because changing the structure later will be a mess (wisdom gained while working with databases). I want you to have a say in what goes into the tree, but I don’t want to spoil anything either. Still figuring that part out.
Thanks for your support!
MrLollipop
P.S. Sorry I’m late with this status update, I’ll be back on track next Monday! ;]