VN Ren'Py Rick and Morty: Another Way Home [r3.9] [Night Mirror]

[Night Mirror]

Alright, I put a few more hours in on this today cleaning things up and adding the last major features I wanted:


Here is what version 1 looks like.

In image #1 I'm using it to pose a character (I just picked parts at random). The top text bar automatically updates the pose code for me. When I have the pose I want, I can just click copy and it will give me the code to go directly into the game. This text bar also accepts code, so I can copy and paste from the game into the application and it will set the pose in the tool (great for editing a pose).

In image #2 I'm using it for backgrounds. This solves two issues for me in one because both image types were a headache for me to deal with.

Character posing can get complex with all the different parts (and my cheat sheet only had brows/mouths (also, it was out of date, missing some expressions)), often leading to me stopping to look up part names. It also means I can see a pose while working on it, instead of having to imagine what it will look like in my head, or reload the game (a very time consuming, tedious task) to check different expressions in scene.

Backgrounds also present an issue, in that often I'm just working with sliced parts. So I'll have a mouth, or a brow, and the rest of the image is transparent. Now I have the full image to work with, making the process much cleaner. Additionally, because these load the same way Renpy does (i.e. in the same layer order), using the same files Renpy is using, I'll be able to spot errors much earlier in the process.

It still isn't perfect and there are some image elements it still can't process right. Additionally when I'm working with multiple characters or backgrounds, I have to run the application several times, to keep each one loaded and visible. But for my needs its does pretty much what I want. It also BADLY needs some code cleanup and refactoring (a problem for future me to deal with). But it's good enough for now.

Anyhow... I know it isn't directly game related. It is more about the tools and stuff I use to make it, but I thought it was interesting enough to share. I might even put it up as a free tool on F95zone at some point, but the code is still a bit hacky in some places so it's not ready for public release (sorry to anyone that wanted to play with it).

And now that I've stalled as long as I can... back to drawing fucking blinks...

 

[Perniciousducks]

Alright, I put a few more hours in on this today cleaning things up and adding the last major features I wanted:
View attachment 2115503 View attachment 2115502

Here is what version 1 looks like.

In image #1 I'm using it to pose a character (I just picked parts at random). The top text bar automatically updates the pose code for me. When I have the pose I want, I can just click copy and it will give me the code to go directly into the game. This text bar also accepts code, so I can copy and paste from the game into the application and it will set the pose in the tool (great for editing a pose).

In image #2 I'm using it for backgrounds. This solves two issues for me in one because both image types were a headache for me to deal with.

Character posing can get complex with all the different parts (and my cheat sheet only had brows/mouths (also, it was out of date, missing some expressions)), often leading to me stopping to look up part names. It also means I can see a pose while working on it, instead of having to imagine what it will look like in my head, or reload the game (a very time consuming, tedious task) to check different expressions in scene.

Backgrounds also present an issue, in that often I'm just working with sliced parts. So I'll have a mouth, or a brow, and the rest of the image is transparent. Now I have the full image to work with, making the process much cleaner. Additionally, because these load the same way Renpy does (i.e. in the same layer order), using the same files Renpy is using, I'll be able to spot errors much earlier in the process.

It still isn't perfect and there are some image elements it still can't process right. Additionally when I'm working with multiple characters or backgrounds, I have to run the application several times, to keep each one loaded and visible. But for my needs its does pretty much what I want. It also BADLY needs some code cleanup and refactoring (a problem for future me to deal with). But it's good enough for now.

Anyhow... I know it isn't directly game related. It is more about the tools and stuff I use to make it, but I thought it was interesting enough to share. I might even put it up as a free tool on F95zone at some point, but the code is still a bit hacky in some places so it's not ready for public release (sorry to anyone that wanted to play with it).

And now that I've stalled as long as I can... back to drawing fucking blinks...

fun fact, when the current devs on Witch Trainer Silver took over, they basically made a very similar thing to this for exactly the same reasons

 

[Night Mirror]

fun fact, when the current devs on Witch Trainer Silver took over, they basically made a very similar thing to this for exactly the same reasons

I went looking for one, since I assumed this was a super useful tool someone would have built, but I couldn't find one (with a few minutes of searching (so I spent two days building one instead)).

 

[bob_bit123]

Alright, I put a few more hours in on this today cleaning things up and adding the last major features I wanted:
View attachment 2115503 View attachment 2115502

Morty's underwear covered dick in the image on the left has always bothered me (one of the few things odd things in an incredible game) it just always struck me as super inconsistent size and shape wise, with the rest of the game. There are a few moments where I think it could be replaced with other currently drawn images and it would work better (Jessica in the locker for instance)

 

[ImRyckDer]

Why I set Morticia petname "bro-bro" doesn't show up special dialogue?

 

[aaronminus]

Why I set Morticia petname "bro-bro" doesn't show up special dialogue?

Funny you say that, next update will have some nice special dialogue added to the pet/nickname prompts, including that one

 

[Night Mirror]

Morty's underwear covered dick in the image on the left has always bothered me (one of the few things odd things in an incredible game) it just always struck me as super inconsistent size and shape wise, with the rest of the game. There are a few moments where I think it could be replaced with other currently drawn images and it would work better (Jessica in the locker for instance)

I keep saying I'm not great at art, and this is an example of that. It's one of the earliest extra images I added into the game (and hasn't really had any changes/updates). Part of the issue is scale, the bigger I made his buldge the more... unnatural, it looked on the standing model. That being said, I can revisit it (any excuse not to work on blinks) and see about re-drawing it.

Why I set Morticia petname "bro-bro" doesn't show up special dialogue?

Do you mean when you initially set it, or the amount of times you see it? If you mean when you set it, then aaronminus has substantially expanded character responses during this interaction (and Beth and Summer too) for the next update based on what names players might pick (including bro-bro).

If you mean you don't see it that often, you are correct. The pet/nickname system has a somewhat limited use throughout the game. I would like to increase it some more in terms of how often the nick/pet names come up. However, that does require a full review of all scenes to update/change dialogue and find more spots for it. It is competing with two other systems (rename and family name) for space, so it is mostly used to add more diversity in names character call each other, rather than changing the tone.

In most places, Family name (or substitution) is used first, then character name, and finally pet/nickname.

At the moment, only Beth really makes extensive use of it (she was first, and Sum/Morti were added latter). Here is a quick count of the whole game and number of times the pet names are used:
((What you call them (nickname) + what they call you (petname)))
Beth: 255+112
Summer: 68+53
Morticia: 43+78

 

[notabumblebee]

in which day do Morty and the queen argue about their daughter name? cant find it
side note, at some point we gonna need a genealogical tree in this game to keep track of Mortys kids

 

[Night Mirror]

in which day do Morty and the queen argue about their daughter name? cant find it
side note, at some point we gonna need a genealogical tree in this game to keep track of Mortys kids

Day 20, Scene 2

Edit:
If you're not on android, you can go to day selector and hover over days to see a short summery of events that take place on each day to quickly re-find scenes.

 

[SakaiY]

God damn, the incest/twincest + Impregnation dialogue is absolutely golden! Seriously holy hell, can’t wait to see more!

 

[bob_bit123]

I keep saying I'm not great at art, and this is an example of that. It's one of the earliest extra images I added into the game (and hasn't really had any changes/updates). Part of the issue is scale, the bigger I made his buldge the more... unnatural, it looked on the standing model. That being said, I can revisit it (any excuse not to work on blinks) and see about re-drawing it.
.

I totally understand and am consistently amazed with what you make even considering your self described lack of skill. I also don't know how the art creation/frankenstein system works, can you graft parts of different images into different places? Or does each image need to get drawn individually. Like I noticed that the summer-morty movie theatre sex scene is very similar to the jessica locker scene position wise, are those art assets useful to re-vamp the locker sex scene ( just a thought)

 

[Night Mirror]

bob_bit123
So the game breaks down into 3 kinds of images: backgrounds, character models, and animations. Backgrounds come as one solid, non moving image, your standard picture file. There are no separate "parts" I can easily use from these. A lot of the time if I want a pose, or a part, I have to trace it (set transparency low in my art tool and use the line tool to outline).

I do draw some things from "scratch", but very, very few. Most of the time I am using something that already exists, and just modifying it. Here is an example of from the "Spying Summers" scene, with Morticia sitting on the bed. To get most of her pose, I used this other pose from another scene, and then drew her arms and legs to match.


I do this sparingly (so to make it less noticeable when scenes repeat), but here is another example of repurposed image from this long winded post about art:

Animations and character files are very similar to each other behind the scenes. For example, here are Morty's standing model parts and a random animation parts file (as pulled out of the Unity game (not the way I use them in Renpy)):

These are individual parts (that I have to cut out and reassemble for characters). Animations are just screen capture video files, but every now and then, I'll use parts to make a "new" image.

Case in point, for Summer at the movies, for her actual sex scene (which isn't in the Unity game), I used the grinding animation parts from the Unity game. I reassembled the scene (one part at a time) then rotated and re-drew, to "pose" her for sex. I grabbed other parts from other animations (like a dick for Morty, or a vag for Summer), since some things obviously weren't in the original animation.

Here is what some of the things look like with layers turned off in that scene:


Again, when it comes to making edits, I can usually do it (as long as a base line exists). My real trouble comes when I need to make something from the ground up. If I'm adding or changing, that's easy (most of the time). But, when I'm making... well, again... that aspect has never been great for me. That is the primary reason I'm doing this project at all, I can't make my own art. If I could, I'd have just done my own game.

 

[bob_bit123]

bob_bit123
So the game breaks down into 3 kinds of images: backgrounds, character models, and animations. Backgrounds come as one solid, non moving image, your standard picture file. There are no separate "parts" I can easily use from these. A lot of the time if I want a pose, or a part, I have to trace it (set transparency low in my art tool and use the line tool to outline).

I do draw some things from "scratch", but very, very few. Most of the time I am using something that already exists, and just modifying it. Here is an example of from the "Spying Summers" scene, with Morticia sitting on the bed. To get most of her pose, I used this other pose from another scene, and then drew her arms and legs to match.
View attachment 2121760

I do this sparingly (so to make it less noticeable when scenes repeat), but here is another example of repurposed image from this long winded post about art:

Animations and character files are very similar to each other behind the scenes. For example, here are Morty's standing model parts and a random animation parts file (as pulled out of the Unity game (not the way I use them in Renpy)):
View attachment 2121746 View attachment 2121748
These are individual parts (that I have to cut out and reassemble for characters). Animations are just screen capture video files, but every now and then, I'll use parts to make a "new" image.

Case in point, for Summer at the movies, for her actual sex scene (which isn't in the Unity game), I used the grinding animation parts from the Unity game. I reassembled the scene (one part at a time) then rotated and re-drew, to "pose" her for sex. I grabbed other parts from other animations (like a dick for Morty, or a vag for Summer), since some things obviously weren't in the original animation.

Here is what some of the things look like with layers turned off in that scene:
View attachment 2121789

Again, when it comes to making edits, I can usually do it (as long as a base line exists). My real trouble comes when I need to make something from the ground up. If I'm adding or changing, that's easy (most of the time). But, when I'm making... well, again... that aspect has never been great for me. That is the primary reason I'm doing this project at all, I can't make my own art. If I could, I'd have just done my own game.

wow great reply, totally makes sense.

 

[vcvxxdvxvc]

Why does wild Summer not have leg hair. Come on bro...

 

[Lucius616]

After I downloaded this game in idle mode, my video card gives 55C.
I reinstalled Windows and tried again and again after running this game 55C in idle.
I think there is a miner there.

 

[aaronminus]

After I downloaded this game in idle mode, my video card gives 55C.
I reinstalled Windows and tried again and again after running this game 55C in idle.
I think there is a miner there.

Somehow I seriously doubt the dev who refuses donations when offered directly and goes through the effort of finding new ways to compress the game for performance reasons would put a crypto miner in the program.

 

[Night Mirror]

After I downloaded this game in idle mode, my video card gives 55C.
I reinstalled Windows and tried again and again after running this game 55C in idle.
I think there is a miner there.

I don't control the final upload step (well, I do, but F95zone likes to reupload my files), so while not impossible something is being added there, it seems very unlikely. Still, I grabbed a couple of the uploaded versions and compared them against my distribution copy, just to be sure, and they are file identical. So, nothing being added there that I can see (and no virus warnings either).

I'm using renpy to build the game. While I haven't gone line by line through their code to ensure they don't include a crypo miner somewhere in their software... with the level of detail people get into this, I'm pretty sure someone would have spotted such a thing by now.

As for me adding one, the very short version is no. First, fuck crypto. Fuck that it exists, fuck everything about it. It fails as a currency, it is a huge waste of energy and time, and we get to put up with people trying to sneak mining it into everything. So, again, no. I have zero interest in such a thing. In fact, I have a strong hated for all of crypto, especially fucking NFTs which I'm glad are finally fucking dead (or getting there (seriously though, fuck the people who came up with that shit)).

Also, I'm (obviously) not a crypo person, but wouldn't it also need to be doing network stuff too? Doesn't crypo need to do that to check its results or something (pretty sure it must)? This game should use exactly 0% of your network as it has no external calls except for the f95zone button on the main menu, which is a link to this thread. Also, also, python would be a pretty shit language to do something like that in, its... not the best at large athematic operations.

As to why your video card is running so hot, that I can't say. I have had other users in the past complaining of large system usages (one of which was on linux running their own renpy install that had some conflict).

While not zero, in idle the game's most uses resource is memory:


And doing a quick skip through the whole game, while those numbers jump around, they still stay mostly reasonable.

 

[paxogre]

As to why your video card is running so hot, that I can't say. I have had other users in the past complaining of large system usages (one of which was on linux running their own renpy install that had some conflict).

If their card is old the default renderer could be to blame. Windows users should try DirectX

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Astral Lust has various memory management optimization options like limiting

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,

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,

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, and I think I seen some discuss

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to improve performance.

 

[Mouseinfo]

Somehow I seriously doubt the dev who refuses donations when offered directly and goes through the effort of finding new ways to compress the game for performance reasons would put a crypto miner in the program.

You may have unrelated malware...I'm running idle 220mhz, 39C, and have dual monitors. I think Nightmirror is just a good dude trying to make something we all like. But I'm also just a stranger on the internet so you don't need to believe me.

 

[Night Mirror]

Alright... not exactly a game update (and most likely the last time I'll post it here), but here is where the poser app is at:

It is mostly done, I'm just doing some final testing and polish and such to make sure it works before I release it into the wild (and then become tech support for that too...). I don't have a date, but soon(tm), most likely some time this week.

I've added some fairly major additions since the last time I posted on it (only a few days ago), but the biggest one is that new bar next to the button that says "SAVE". A very (not really) brief explanation of how images (can) display in renpy is needed. When showing a layeredimage (what most characters in game are) you only need to say what part(s) is different, and the game will change just that (those) part(s).

Example, if I want Morty to look forward, I can say "show morty e_f" ("e_f" being my own short hand for eye front (I could have named it whatever I wanted)). And if I want him to look up, I can just say "show morty e_u". But let's say he is also smiling, so "show morty e_u m_1" (again "m_1" being the short hand for smile). Now if I do a "show morty e_f" he keeps smiling, the "m_1" doesn't change.

So, when changing poses, I usually just want only the changes pose to pose. I don't want to re-define the whole pose every line. This is difficult to read, and complex to change if I need to tweak things. i.e. if Morty is looking forward the whole scene, I don't need to keep including "e_f" in every line. The "save" action lets me remember the last pose, and only get the pose that is changing each time.

Anyhow... this is all probably too rambely, but tried... The point is, if you want to play with it, you soon will be able too soon-ish... and hopefully it will help some other devs.