Ren'Py Placeholder Images: Program or Search? And which program?

[Molvaeth]

Va Bene. I have a perhaps somewhat strange problem.

I'm thinking about to start making a game by myself (who doesn't ^^).

My strength is telling stories and I made some simple things with RenPy for my work, but I'm terribly in drawing or 3D-Modeling.

So atm I'm at the basic story in keywords. After that I'll test the mechanics with Card, Pen and Dice. Next point would be improving my programming skills and at last graphics skill (or maybe I pay someone at this point for it).

To keep my motivation up, I need to see something. (I'm the epitome of a audiovisual functioning person for those who are interested in such things)
A description "image xy later here" or a "paint-stick-figure-image" doesn't work.

So I'm looking for a program to make some easy scenes and animations as placeholder until I can replace them.

They don't have to look good but it does have to offer the possibility to quickly put together portraits, full images or a scene and export it.

Or should I just use Images from Girl Packs like in "Brothel king"? No one will see the whole thing until I replaced the images.

I am not sure if I have expressed myself understandably ^^''

Does anyone have a suggestion where I could start? One of the possibilities I'm thinking about is Honey Select, but before I download a zillion useless GB, I wanted to ask.

 

[79flavors]

It really depends on how you plan to release your game.

Those people aiming to make a little money (not profit, just something to offset the time spent making the game) will historically aim to set up something like a Patreon or similar and release a version of the incomplete game every month or two.

But that doesn't work (directly) when you're using placeholder images. People will judge the game based on the quality of the product in front of them, not any theoretical better version later.

Based on what you've said, I would try HoneySelect.

Write your game as normal and use HoneySelect for images - just don't spend a lot of time fine tuning things. If the character's eyes point in the wrong direction or their hair isn't right or their arm sticks through their body... leave it.

Spend the majority of your time on the things you are the most experienced with.
Just never release it in that state.

When the game is finally finished in that form, go back to the start.
Your story is written. Your mechanics have been tested. The only thing you need to worry about are the pictures.

So NOW spend your time on the images. You should already know a lot about HoneySelect by this point - so use that knowledge to draw "Chapter 1" or "Version 0.1" or whatever you are calling it. It might take you a month or 2 months or longer to get to the state of "polish" you are happy with. But by the time you finish getting "v0.1" into a state ready to be released to the public, you should have enough Honey Select knowledge to make rendering the other chapters easy.

It also has the added advantage that you'll be taking a second look at your code, so you can fix or tweak things that might have not occurred to you when first starting out. You will even have the option to incorporate ideas from your Patreons as you go along, with full knowledge of where things are headed - so you don't get lost trying to please everyone and letting scope creep ruin your original concept.

All of this would work with Daz3D too. Though my initial read of your post makes me think you'd be more comfortable with HS.

Another "placeholder image" solution might be something with Kisekae art (Paper Doll).
Like this one:

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[Deleted member 1121028]

All of this would work with Daz3D tool.

Just render with OpenGL, idk?
I'm not sure I get it.
It's almost fully instant and kinda work well as placeholder?
Must be missing something lol.

 

[79flavors]

Must be missing something lol.

I'm assuming the need for placeholders is just to make some progress without really knowing how to create images or renders.
Then make a decision about how to create better images later.

Daz3D and HS are both quite daunting prospects until you get a little comfortable with them.
Being a programmer with almost zero graphical skills... I can't count the number of times I've started Daz3D thinking "this will be the time I get to grips with it"... and then quit soon after with a "Nope. I still have no clue". Which is just me ignoring my own advice, which would be to just use whichever tool you think will work for you but be okay with 2/10 quality when you first start - knowing all you really need is practice to get to 5/10 or 8/10.

 

[Deleted member 1121028]

In this day and age it's quite something tho lol.

 

[anne O'nymous]

Being a programmer with almost zero graphical skills... I can't count the number of times I've started Daz3D thinking "this will be the time I get to grips with it"... and then quit soon after with a "Nope. I still have no clue".

The two can goes together.

He open Daz Studio, use a location asset with its default camera, load the figure he need, place them here and then, put some clothes on them, and render at low setting (what would take less than 5 minutes with a 20xx GPU). This would make good enough placeholders.
In the same time with each placeholder he create, he can go a bit further. Moving the camera, adjusting the pose, placing more precisely the figure, and so on. One step at a time, slowly learning while he build the placeholders he need to works on the script.