VN Ren'Py Rick and Morty: Another Way Home [r4.0] [Night Mirror]

[kimlana]

The reason I'm not using italics for thought is readability (I strongly dislike when games use italic text for internal thought). I personally find italicized text taxing to read (and there is a lot of internal thought in this game, so a lot of text). So this is a stylistic choice. Whisper icons instead of size was a request from players having trouble reading the small font.

I'll add an option to toggle on italic text for internal dialog onto the feature request list as well.

Part of the problem is outline text, which often looks like shit italicized because it thins out the strokes too much. But outline text is useful for avoiding the need for an opaque dialog box. I could see why some people would find it obnoxious. I mostly wanted italics to free up parentheses for the narration, but maybe there's a better option I haven't noticed in other games.

In the next update (r3.6) there is a major overhaul of (well fucking most things) the name system. Two big changes are in progress right now. Frist is character rename, which will let you rename most major characters in the game. Second is the nickname/petname system which will mix up some of the names characters call each other. So, actually it's going the opposite direction, by letting more characters use a petname for Morty, and a nickname for them.

If you want to use "son" I'd say assign it as the petname Beth uses.

When you say mix up, do you mean some kind of array of values that it rotates between or chooses from? That would be very cool but I can't imagine how that could be coded in a text script. I assumed that someone did a search-and-replace for "Sweetie" and put a variable there so whenever it came up, it filled in either (character name) if Incest Low or (character relation) if Incest High. There are plot points where it's essential to use the relationship (e.g. art class), of course.

The problem with "son" as a pet name is that the dialog seems to assume the pet name is a proper name and always capitalized, so if the sentence starts with the pet name you get "son, we talked about this" etc. It's similar to the problem of "a" before the age, when someone picks ages that start with a vowel like eighteen.

I'll give it another going over and check all the capitalization is correct. Short version (deleted a wall of text) this was feature that got asked for to dial back the amount of "bro" and "sis" showing up in the game, and it's a big game so it didn't get as careful an eye as it most likely should have.

In many ways this reminds me of SummerTime Saga where it was originally designed with incest themes and after they took it out, almost none of the dialog made any sense. (Yeah, why wouldn't your landlord be involved in your daily life and want you to do well in school!) So I imagine there's a whole bunch of subjective dialog which has to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Even with Incest High Beth there's still dozens of lines where the main character stops to remind himself that she's not his "real" mother, lol, owing I'm sure to the original Patreon-friendly design.

 

[Night Mirror]

Part of the problem is outline text, which often looks like shit italicized because it thins out the strokes too much. But outline text is useful for avoiding the need for an opaque dialog box. I could see why some people would find it obnoxious. I mostly wanted italics to free up parentheses for the narration, but maybe there's a better option I haven't noticed in other games.

Outline is really the only option if I want to have fully transparent textboxes (which I for surezies do). I'm not super keen on putting parentheses around all the narration text, but I can see how it blends in with regular dialog. I've never seen another style of it that I liked, but I'll think on it some more. Possibly colored text... I'll experiment some.

When you say mix up, do you mean some kind of array of values that it rotates between or chooses from? That would be very cool but I can't imagine how that could be coded in a text script.

Nope, I mean by hand, evaluating each line of dialog and looking for repetition. i.e. if Morty calls Beth "mommy" 2 or 3 times in a row, I'd rather have a pet name break that up.

I assumed that someone did a search-and-replace for "Sweetie" and put a variable there so whenever it came up, it filled in either (character name) if Incest Low or (character relation) if Incest High.

I don't recall Beth using a pet name for Morty that often in the Unity version (but it has been a long time since I played it (and making this version has messed with my perception of what came from where)). But do think I added most of the instances for pet name, wherever it felt natural to me. So, not a search and replace.

There are plot points where it's essential to use the relationship (e.g. art class), of course.

Yeah, that is why it is Low/High and not on/off.

The problem with "son" as a pet name is that the dialog seems to assume the pet name is a proper name and always capitalized, so if the sentence starts with the pet name you get "son, we talked about this" etc. It's similar to the problem of "a" before the age, when someone picks ages that start with a vowel like eighteen.

Pet name does not always capitalize. It displays however you type it in and will (should) only capitalize if it is at the start of the sentence (of course I may have missed some instances of it). The default value of "Sweetie" is capitalized, so if unchanged it will be capitalized.

I'll double check the age thing, I thought I had worked around most of the awkward wording there, but, again, huge game, I can't always find everything on my own. Which is why I welcome feedback and corrections!

n many ways this reminds me of SummerTime Saga where it was originally designed with incest themes and after they took it out, almost none of the dialog made any sense. (Yeah, why wouldn't your landlord be involved in your daily life and want you to do well in school!) So I imagine there's a whole bunch of subjective dialog which has to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Even with Incest High Beth there's still dozens of lines where the main character stops to remind himself that she's not his "real" mother, lol, owing I'm sure to the original Patreon-friendly design.

So, funny story, the original game is way more Patreon friendly, and I sort of went overboard undoing that, to the point of it becoming a little obnoxious for some players (which I agreed with). The toggle was more of a way to tone it down a bit without removing it completely (a difficult balancing act).

For the most part I think it works okay, but it's by no means perfect. This game is adapted (ripped straight out of) the Unity version and there are more than a few uneven segments (some I'm aware of, others where my eyes just glazed over), where my narration style is in conflict with the original. I know it needs some more TLC at some point.

As to the existence of the toggle, I didn't include the setting to be in compliance with any rules (F95 doesn't care) and I do this game for free so I don't have to deal with crap from Patreon or any other payment processors. I put it in because people asked for the option. (and I sort of tested some of it... I mean, I made sure it worked, not that it totally made sense, since I don't play the game with it set to low... sorry to the people who do... what do you want for free?!)

It took me something like 3 weeks of going line-by-line and re-evaluating the text I had previously put in. The system is not a direct substitution, it has some flexibility built in so that I can use other descriptors for characters. For example, with incest "High" for Beth plays will often see "Mom" or "Mommy", but with it set to low, they might see "Beth" or "her" or "she" or nothing at all. Depending on the preceding lines of dialog, I tried to make it the least repetitive that I could.

In fact, I'm in the process of doing this whole ordeal all over again (hopefully for the last time) evaluating the placement of pet and nick names, to make the incest side of things feel less repetitive as well.

But, no, this is not a slapped on search and replace with "landlady" (which, also, that fucking drives me crazy in games, if they don't want incest write a different story!). I am putting a fair amount of effort into trying to have things continue to make sense, regardless of the player's choices on what character call each other. It is more like a volume setting, rather than an off switch.

 

[kimlana]

It's pretty neat to know so much of your process/plans. Thank you for sharing. I remember back in High School I saw some anime that I really enjoyed but the subtitles were just SO BAD that I sat down and rewrote them all line by line, lol. (This was before there were tools to liveedit or resyncronizing with video, too.)

In some ways, this fan project of yours has inspired me to study more about Renpy so I can learn how to reference art assets and trying to reorder them in ways that fit nicely and match up with the dialog as much as possible. Of course, I'm starting with text because it's infinitely easier to change that.

For example, Day 02 where dialog goes "She turns on the shower and starts..." the background image already has water spray visible so, it's a lot more work to try and swap out the background for a non-spraying one (if it exists) or do a terrible photoshop job on it. It's a lot easier to change the line to "She stands under the shower and starts..." instead.

Or, Day 06 where dialog goes "...back to your room you find Morticia relaxing on the bed." when the only images of Morticia on a bed are daytime. Maybe I can figure out how to overlay a tint on a daytime background to simulate night (the way in movies just film through a blue filter). It's certainly simpler to just change it to "...back to your room, you find Morticia sitting on the floor." tho.

Anyway, look forward to the next update that will likely debut whenever there's new content to justify distribution.

 

[Night Mirror]

It's pretty neat to know so much of your process/plans. Thank you for sharing. I remember back in High School I saw some anime that I really enjoyed but the subtitles were just SO BAD that I sat down and rewrote them all line by line, lol. (This was before there were tools to liveedit or resyncronizing with video, too.)

In some ways, this fan project of yours has inspired me to study more about Renpy so I can learn how to reference art assets and trying to reorder them in ways that fit nicely and match up with the dialog as much as possible. Of course, I'm starting with text because it's infinitely easier to change that.

For example, Day 02 where dialog goes "She turns on the shower and starts..." the background image already has water spray visible so, it's a lot more work to try and swap out the background for a non-spraying one (if it exists) or do a terrible photoshop job on it. It's a lot easier to change the line to "She stands under the shower and starts..." instead.

Or, Day 06 where dialog goes "...back to your room you find Morticia relaxing on the bed." when the only images of Morticia on a bed are daytime. Maybe I can figure out how to overlay a tint on a daytime background to simulate night (the way in movies just film through a blue filter). It's certainly simpler to just change it to "...back to your room, you find Morticia sitting on the floor." tho.

Anyway, look forward to the next update that will likely debut whenever there's new content to justify distribution.

I love oversharing (not sure how many other people like it, but, w/e...) my thoughts and plans. While I try not to give story spoilers (because that ruins the fun), I do my best to be transparent about what I'm working on in the game and my plans for things I want to do add in the future. It helps keep me interest in the project and at least a few people seem to enjoy hearing it.

Also, something that really bothers me about most devs is their lack of communication. I might have slightly (massively) over corrected for that by posting a bit too much and too often here (just like I did with the incest talk in the game... maybe I need a "Low Night Mirror" setting on this thread... (how do I add features to a thread... (sorry, tangent...)))

I have tried pretty hard to make the images throughout more consistent with the text (adding additional poses, expressions, art inserts, flipping images, etc...), although it is by no means comprehensive. While my drawing skills aren't super great, I have added a number of additional images into the game to help flesh out at least some of the described actions.

But there are also implied actions, using the example of the shower in Day 2, the text is implying her actions that the image isn't fully showing. If the image did show it, the text wouldn't necessarily need to describe it. Is this the best way to do it? Eh, probably not, but I do have to work around existing art limitations (or, yeah, just change the text in this case (something I've also done a LOT of)). I can't fix everything, or in some cases it doesn't stand out enough for me to notice it needs fixing (different aspects stand out to different people, this is one that never bothered me, but the direction Morty is facing in the shower did, so I flipped the images from the original).

One big thing I tried to improve (and I'm still working towards it) is to reduce text only descriptions over black. Where the scene goes blank and the text just tells you what is happening. While useful sometimes, it happens far too often (or, did, I have tried my best to cut it way back from the original). I don't really like text over black (although sometimes it is the only option with the available art (and when used sparingly is okay)), as this is a visual game, so it should have visuals most of the time.

I'm really glad to hear my work has inspired you to dig more into Renpy! I think it is a really great story telling engine. If you have any questions I'm more than happy to (over)share my knowledge. Additionally, I also accept contributions to this project (typo correction, dialog suggestions, art, animations, etc...), so if you do get around to making art (or anything else), and feel like you would like to share it, you are welcome either to submit to me for inclusion in the game (pending my approval) or post it as a mod (no approving required!)(although, I would suggest holding off on starting a mod as the next game version has some HUGE reworks that would most likely be incompatible).

Anyhow, thanks for all the corrections and feedback! It is both very helpful and greatly appreciated!

 

[kimlana]

One big thing I tried to improve (and I'm still working towards it) is to reduce text only descriptions over black. Where the scene goes blank and the text just tells you what is happening. While useful sometimes, it happens far too often (or, did, I have tried my best to cut it way back from the original). I don't really like text over black (although sometimes it is the only option with the available art (and when used sparingly is okay)), as this is a visual game, so it should have visuals most of the time.

For example, on Day 04 there's a lengthy black interlude before Morty sneaks into Summer's room. But you have a background of outside Summer's room that you use afterward, starting at "You stand just outside her door." In that scene, Morty is facing away from the door, but I assume you could flip him to just face the door so the previous black screens can at least be partially replaced starting at "At last you come to the door to Summer's room." Or put in a different where he's not looking downcast if that's how it works?

If I notice other lenghty black interludes and happen to recall suitable backgrounds in another scene, I will make a note to add them to my list of suggestions.

 

[kimlana]

To follow up on the capitalization issues with terms like Bro, little Bro, Sis, etc:

I noticed there appears to either be a Renpy function or a variable you can pass to force capitalization or lowercase. For example, [beth_sub.your!cl] seems to produce a capitalized "Your" while [beth_sub.mom!l] forces Mom to lowercase "mom".

I would suggest that all values that aren't proper name should always be lowercase. Then you never have to worry about forgetting to force lowercase later. Then you know to add !cl whenever you start a sentence with a variable or have "sub.mom" without an accompanying ".my" before it.

It would also fix issues with the default age, which is capitalized "Eighteen" but almost always used in the middle of a sentence.

 

[Night Mirror]

For example, on Day 04 there's a lengthy black interlude before Morty sneaks into Summer's room. But you have a background of outside Summer's room that you use afterward, starting at "You stand just outside her door." In that scene, Morty is facing away from the door, but I assume you could flip him to just face the door so the previous black screens can at least be partially replaced starting at "At last you come to the door to Summer's room." Or put in a different where he's not looking downcast if that's how it works?

Yeah, that one is in my list of things to circle back to, but other items ahead of it.

To follow up on the capitalization issues with terms like Bro, little Bro, Sis, etc:

I noticed there appears to either be a Renpy function or a variable you can pass to force capitalization or lowercase. For example, [beth_sub.your!cl] seems to produce a capitalized "Your" while [beth_sub.mom!l] forces Mom to lowercase "mom".

I would suggest that all values that aren't proper name should always be lowercase. Then you never have to worry about forgetting to force lowercase later. Then you know to add !cl whenever you start a sentence with a variable or have "sub.mom" without an accompanying ".my" before it.

It would also fix issues with the default age, which is capitalized "Eighteen" but almost always used in the middle of a sentence.

I went through yesterday and found most of the capitulation issues for variables. For the issue with "eighteen" it was just capitalized in the default assignment, so I made it lower case. Mostly, it's just lots and lots and lots of variables to check. For example, just looking at Beth's substitution values, there are 1725 of them.

I am doing a fully test playthrough at the moment, so I'll keep my eyes open for any I missed. But in the next version, Bor, Little Bro, Sis, etc... will (well should, 300,000 lines of dialog, so not impossible I'll miss some) all be capitalized when used as a proper noun.

 

[Night Mirror]

Progress Status of r3.6

It's been a while since I did an actual dedicated post talking about what all I'm working on. Things are feeling more solid, so now feels like a good time to consolidate some of the info scattered over the past twenty or so pages into one post. I obviously can't talk about what content is coming (because I don't know what Ferdafs is working on), but I can talk about all the other stuff, and there is a lot of other stuff (that's what she said).

(also, if you are hoping for a date here, my guess is still late June, but we haven't heard anything from Ferdafs, so that is 100% speculation).

Spoiler: Slicing

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Spoiler: No 'Update Only' for r3.6

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Spoiler: Save Deletion

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Spoiler: Save Slot Increase

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Spoiler: Rename

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Spoiler: Do Over Revamp

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Spoiler: Ages

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Spoiler: Extra Names

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Spoiler: New Mind Blower Indicator

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Spoiler: Content

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Anyhow, I think that's everything. Stay awesome!

 

[kimlana]

Fantastic update, looking forward to seeing it all whenever it is ready!

If you enable them, whenever you encounter a new character for the first time, you'll see a prompt like this:

Defualt --> Default

But if you are looking for more accurate character ages, during Morty's age prompt entering his show accurate age will set other characters as well. (or again, you can put in your own ages here).

Perhaps a dialog choice labeled "Use ages from the show" to avoid having to spell it out, but still make people aware this is an option? I would visualize something like

1) Use Galactic Federation ages (Morty is 35)
2) Use default ages (Morty is 18+)
3) Use ages from the show
4) "A-a-any age...?"

A new indicator for where there are new scenes has been added to Mind Blowers:

How about just a numerical indicator over their head so we know how many new scenes? You could put it on one of the Mind Blower tubes like a light bulb over their head, lol. The glow seems way too subtle unless it's animated somehow.

 

[Night Mirror]

Defualt --> Default

Fixed, damn you dyslexia!

Perhaps a dialog choice labeled "Use ages from the show" to avoid having to spell it out, but still make people aware this is an option? I would visualize something like

1) Use Galactic Federation ages (Morty is 35)
2) Use default ages (Morty is 18+)
3) Use ages from the show
4) "A-a-any age...?"

Maybe...

How about just a numerical indicator over their head so we know how many new scenes? You could put it on one of the Mind Blower tubes like a light bulb over their head, lol. The glow seems way too subtle unless it's animated somehow.

Numbers and text don't look great on this screen. I'm not 100% happy with the glow, but "new" looks bad and doesn't really fit due to how the characters are slightly overlapping. I might try giving it an animation and see how that looks.

 

[kimlana]

Numbers and text don't look great on this screen. I'm not 100% happy with the glow, but "new" looks bad and doesn't really fit due to how the characters are slightly overlapping. I might try giving it an animation and see how that looks.

Keep in mind that some people have varying degrees of colorblindness, so any kind of animation is more visible than color change or overlay.

Another suggestion is to add a second portal to the second page (which you surely plan to do anyway once Ferdafs adds new characters) and then that new page could have some kind of console on the far right which brings up a combined page of only the newest scenes. If it existed now it would show the scene you added to 27 and the scenes you added to 37.

Those same scenes would already be present under the respective character screens, but an additional compilation of just new scenes would be what frequent updaters know to check first.

 

[Night Mirror]

Keep in mind that some people have varying degrees of colorblindness, so any kind of animation is more visible than color change or overlay.

I changed both the color and added a pulsing animation to it:
View attachment mindblow_glow.webm












It is much more noticeable (and I think looks a bit better). Also did some under the hood reworks too, making some character slightly larger so they don't clip the edge of the glow, variable restructure, and making it so gallery names will display the custom name for characters.

It's not perfect, Gazorp and Planetina change poses, so the highlight looks a bit funky for them when hovering their buttons, not sure there is a good way to fix it. But It does look better.

Another suggestion is to add a second portal to the second page (which you surely plan to do anyway once Ferdafs adds new characters) and then that new page could have some kind of console on the far right which brings up a combined page of only the newest scenes. If it existed now it would show the scene you added to 27 and the scenes you added to 37.

Those same scenes would already be present under the respective character screens, but an additional compilation of just new scenes would be what frequent updaters know to check first.

I like the idea of having a "new" item's only gallery. Unfortunately the system isn't designed to work that way and it's either a big code change or lots of duplicated images to make it work. I'll have to think more on it.

 

[kimlana]

Question for you, Mr. NightMirror, sir:

You've described yourself as more technically-oriented (programmer) than artistically-oriented (although you'd done it when you had to) so I'm curious as to your evaulation of the technical demands of voice generation.

One of the holy grails of game creation is synthetic voices, so you can add voice acting to your game without the expense of voice actors (or worrying about their availability, or dying, or getting canceled, etc). There's been a lot of projects in that area, but now it seems like the focus is on training voices rather than simulating the mechanics of speech.

I don't know if I'm allowed to use links? Guess I'll try, but here's one example I found Googling:

You must be registered to see the links

Imagine the workload of trying to go back through the body of Rick and Morty episodes to extract out usable audio bites attempt to narrate the game. Basically an impossible level of work; you'd have an easier time filling an assertiveness tracker. Not to mention, it would balloon the distribution size of the game massively.

But what if you could, as a one-time process, train a fairly-decent Sarah Chalke voice pattern and then distribute it as a separate module that would read in the dialog text, run it through TTS, and output sound files locally to the apropriate location? With that kind of system, it might be possible to have a passably narrated game. Obviously not perfect, but if it works reasonably well, you could over time improve it by inserting hidden pronounciation text that spells difficult words phoenetically.

Would people want this? I would, no idea how others feel. But if you look at most of the animated content creators on YouTube (particular the 3D ones) almost all of them are using TTS to avoid having to make everything silent films. I've watched enough TTS-narrated games or animations that I don't find it off-putting or "uncanny valley" and it does add something extra to the immersion. It also gives you a break from reading so aggressively that you can't appreciate the animations or subtle blink-and-you-miss it details.

Anyway, I have no technical knowledge at all, so I can't evaluate whether such an idea is practical or even suggestable. There's probably forums dedicated to gamemaking that have a lot more knowledge or insight.

Still, googling around I found a clip of Sarah Chalke asking someone if they were ready for a blowjob and my mind instantly thought of your game since I've been playing it so much lately XD

 

[WatsonTouya]

I like the idea of having a "new" item's only gallery. Unfortunately the system isn't designed to work that way and it's either a big code change or lots of duplicated images to make it work. I'll have to think more on it.

I like that idea too, over the glow animation you showed, which actually kinda hurts to watch for me (small headache). Speaking of animation. . .

ballfondlers progress sneak peek boop
View attachment s12_3_o_mission_pov_prev1 (1080p 39crf).webm
I'd love more frames but I'm gonna die (and Live 2D expensive )
hide ui button works btw (pressing button, H key, clicking screen or hitting space when UI is hidden makes it show up again, quick menu is affected, all that shtuff) I just forgot to use it and when I remembered I thought "should I really record that again? . . . naaaaaaaaaaah."

back to my cave boop. : p

 

[Night Mirror]

Question for you, Mr. NightMirror, sir:

You've described yourself as more technically-oriented (programmer) than artistically-oriented (although you'd done it when you had to) so I'm curious as to your evaulation of the technical demands of voice generation.

One of the holy grails of game creation is synthetic voices, so you can add voice acting to your game without the expense of voice actors (or worrying about their availability, or dying, or getting canceled, etc). There's been a lot of projects in that area, but now it seems like the focus is on training voices rather than simulating the mechanics of speech.

I don't know if I'm allowed to use links? Guess I'll try, but here's one example I found Googling:

You must be registered to see the links

Imagine the workload of trying to go back through the body of Rick and Morty episodes to extract out usable audio bites attempt to narrate the game. Basically an impossible level of work; you'd have an easier time filling an assertiveness tracker. Not to mention, it would balloon the distribution size of the game massively.

But what if you could, as a one-time process, train a fairly-decent Sarah Chalke voice pattern and then distribute it as a separate module that would read in the dialog text, run it through TTS, and output sound files locally to the apropriate location? With that kind of system, it might be possible to have a passably narrated game. Obviously not perfect, but if it works reasonably well, you could over time improve it by inserting hidden pronounciation text that spells difficult words phoenetically.

Would people want this? I would, no idea how others feel. But if you look at most of the animated content creators on YouTube (particular the 3D ones) almost all of them are using TTS to avoid having to make everything silent films. I've watched enough TTS-narrated games or animations that I don't find it off-putting or "uncanny valley" and it does add something extra to the immersion. It also gives you a break from reading so aggressively that you can't appreciate the animations or subtle blink-and-you-miss it details.

Anyway, I have no technical knowledge at all, so I can't evaluate whether such an idea is practical or even suggestable. There's probably forums dedicated to gamemaking that have a lot more knowledge or insight.

Still, googling around I found a clip of Sarah Chalke asking someone if they were ready for a blowjob and my mind instantly thought of your game since I've been playing it so much lately XD

I've talked about adding voices a couple times before (here is the most recent post). While I didn't give it a lot of time, I ultimately decided against doing it for a number of reasons.

First, the results simply weren't very good. Yeah, I didn't spend a lot of time with it, but I wasn't happy with what the process produced.

Second is size (a constant battle). Voice lines (and music (sound in general)) is not small, quickly ballooning the size of the game. And a lot of people (myself included) turn off sound in porn games (usually cuze it's not very good (yes, there are a few exceptions)). So, extra size, for something most people won't use.

And third is string substitution. Once it's in voice, there is only one script. While player could still take different paths, much of the dialog wouldn't match the voice lines for the things player can change (such as the incest low/high setting, the new rename, nicknames, ages, etc...). I could take that all out, but I think the game would be poorer for it.

It has been suggested (and I like the idea, but am very hesitant to test my luck with it (this game is already in a gray area of parody. Music and sound tend to attract a lot more unwanted attention than art)), to use small voice clips from the show as sort of a character callback, such as when Summer says "Morty" having an audio que play.

I have considered the other side of possibly trying to find voice actors, but again, some problems there too. I'd like actresses that are similar to the show, and, then there are thousands of lines of dialog that need to be read, and that would also be fairly expensive. Realistically, I think if I did add "voices" they would just be "moans" for sex scenes.

I have to choose the things I can do, and manage the scope of the project to what I think is reasonable. My time and ability is not infinite. While it would be great to have voice, or animation, music, or any number of other cool features, there is only so much I can make. At the end of the day, this is meant mostly to be a remake of the Unity game with some nice extras.

I've added a lot to the game (way more than I ever thought I would), but I don't want to overpromise and underdeliver, this isn't star citizen. This is a fun project that was meant to just be kept up to date with the Unity release.

I like that idea too, over the glow animation you showed, which actually kinda hurts to watch for me (small headache).

I'm unlikely to change it for r3.6, will maybe circle back to it in r3.7. Too much time spent for such a small feature already.

Speaking of animation. . .

ballfondlers progress sneak peek boop

Looking great! Can't wait to put the final version of it into the game whenever it's ready!

I'd love more frames but I'm gonna die (and Live 2D expensive )

I really wish Live 2D wasn't a service or I would have bought it. But I can't stand software as a service. Let me fucking buy it and use it how I want! It's the whole reason I abandon adobe as an ecosystem. I have products from them that I paid for, that I own, but that I can no longer use, fucking bullshit. Fuck you Adobe!

 

[WatsonTouya]

Second is size (a constant battle). Voice lines (and music (sound in general)) is not small, quickly ballooning the size of the game.

then there are thousands of lines of dialog that need to be read

For both size and paying an arm and a leg (and a whole lot of time fucking recording), I think having general voice lines and expressions for 99% of dialogue would be the way to go if you hired actors. Then only have the most important/impactful scenes be fully voiced, like Tricia talking about bees. . . wait, those lines are already voic- Same if by some miracle you got a program to sound like a human being, for time's sake and file size sake. Those are my thoughts on voices, I think it would be really cool if this game had them, but I'll still love it regardless.

 

[kimlana]

That's unfortunate to hear. If the quality of the machine learning versions wasn't very good, quality is king. The YouTube video I linked seemed pretty damn passable, although it likely is stacked in favor of demostrating the best case examples. If you know who the streamer Forsen is, he has a guy who makes custom TTS voices that are incredible, very very passable. The day that technology becomes easily accessible as deepfakes technology will be a real watershed moment in gaming.

However, I think that you are missing the point with the other issues you mention:

1) Filesize isn't an issue with text-to-speech because you would only be distributing the TTS engine, which would use the existing dialog text. It could be user's choice whether they wanted to generate all audio on the fly or cache the results as locally-saved audio files.

2) String substitution also wouldn't be a problem since the game knows your preferences and would run the appropriate text through the TTS engine. Yes, things would go wonky if you changed preferences mid-scene but that's already the case because of how often it updates those variables.

3) No additional copyright issues with TTS, since you're only distributing pure text and an executable to turn it into audio. Locally cached audio files would probably not ever be distributed as a mod because of how many variations there would be.

I definitely agree you are right that most of the ideas you mention are clearly beyond the scope of an unofficial fan remake. That's why I was really only specifically asking about TTS with trained voice patterns. I had hoped the technology had matured since I last saw it (which originally was trying to simulate vocal cords and windpipes and all kinds of nonsense) but if you have checked it out and deemed it unsuitable I trust that evaluation.

Also I appreciate that you are very open and not "possessive" (particularly since you owe so much to other content makers anyway) which means that if someday someone does figure out a good audio solution they could likely add it as a mod and let people make their own choice.

One thing I really like about the idea of TTS is that it would solve the problem of fighting with text Auto-Forward time. There are dialogs that are one word, and dialogs that span three lines. Trying to find a balance between them is hard, lol. I wish Renpy could at least read silently to itself and advance to the next dialog with actual awareness of how much people need time to read.

Thanks for your insight on this issue.

 

[Night Mirror]

That's unfortunate to hear. If the quality of the machine learning versions wasn't very good, quality is king. The YouTube video I linked seemed pretty damn passable, although it likely is stacked in favor of demostrating the best case examples. If you know who the streamer Forsen is, he has a guy who makes custom TTS voices that are incredible, very very passable. The day that technology becomes easily accessible as deepfakes technology will be a real watershed moment in gaming.

Ah, apologies, I miss understood that you were specifically talking about real-time TTS (vs pre-generated TTS which is what is in the video you linked (actually, that is the exact same software I originally looked into, Real-Time Voice Cloning))).

Self voicing is built into renpy (shift+v. It's results are... passable, I've never looked into trying to make is better). The voice it uses is based on your operating system, and there doesn't seem to be any easy way to modify it. So, adding a custom system to that can use other voices in renpy is beyond my skill level.

Also it's not possible to use SV2TTS for that. The software requires a HUGE amount of extra installs (and bios modification) to even work (it took me a full day to setup), plus it's training library was pretty big if I remember correctly.

(as a fun aside, I actually do turn the game dialog into audio (using Natural Reader) for review, to listen for mistakes. It doesn't help me find everything (obviously) but I do catch a lot of nonsense that I type late at night (like this post (it didn't help me here (obviously), as this post mostly nonsense...)))

EDIT:
I double checked and I actually still have SV2TTS still on my system, last used back in Feb of 2021. I uninstalled a lot of what it needed to run, so it doesn't work, but I still have the base files.

1) Filesize isn't an issue with text-to-speech because you would only be distributing the TTS engine, which would use the existing dialog text. It could be user's choice whether they wanted to generate all audio on the fly or cache the results as locally-saved audio files.

2) String substitution also wouldn't be a problem since the game knows your preferences and would run the appropriate text through the TTS engine. Yes, things would go wonky if you changed preferences mid-scene but that's already the case because of how often it updates those variables.

3) No additional copyright issues with TTS, since you're only distributing pure text and an executable to turn it into audio. Locally cached audio files would probably not ever be distributed as a mod because of how many variations there would be.

You are correct, with real-time TTS these aren't an issue. I meant more for pre-generated TTS, rather than real-time. Although, 3 is still an iffy prospect if I'm training it on peoples voices that didn't give me permission to use them. Again, not technically a no-no, but certainly another gray area I'm weary of.

I definitely agree you are right that most of the ideas you mention are clearly beyond the scope of an unofficial fan remake. That's why I was really only specifically asking about TTS with trained voice patterns. I had hoped the technology had matured since I last saw it (which originally was trying to simulate vocal cords and windpipes and all kinds of nonsense) but if you have checked it out and deemed it unsuitable I trust that evaluation.

I watched a number of videos about this software when I was first considering it (a year or so ago?), and it had mixed results then. Some clips sounded spot on, while others were... not the best.

I spent a few days on it (again, other aspects of the game were higher priority while I was building it. My thoughts for it were more, is this quick and easy to add? No? On to other stuff). The results for around 5-8 training clips were some truly nightmare fuel sounds (that I wish I had kept to share... dialog mixed with echoy screaming)

Also I appreciate that you are very open and not "possessive" (particularly since you owe so much to other content makers anyway) which means that if someday someone does figure out a good audio solution they could likely add it as a mod and let people make their own choice.

For sure, it would be silly to tell people they can't make stuff for this project based on what it is. And the community has been a big part of improving this game. Feedback and contributions have been amazing! While I am fairly picky about what I put into the game (see the lingering list of requests (some of which are just beyond my ability to make)), I have added a LOT of stuff that has been asked for in this thread (that I wouldn't have otherwise done).

And of course, I welcome mods if anyone ever wants to make them.

One thing I really like about the idea of TTS is that it would solve the problem of fighting with text Auto-Forward time. There are dialogs that are one word, and dialogs that span three lines. Trying to find a balance between them is hard, lol. I wish Renpy could at least read silently to itself and advance to the next dialog with actual awareness of how much people need time to read.

I haven't looked deep into how the auto-forward works under the hood (it isn't a feature I really use). I think it does take the length of text into consideration, and that it's speed can be adjusted in preferences. I also know it has some conflict with self voicing at the moment, so I think if a new TTS system could go in, it would have the same issues as the existing one.

And looking at the documentation for voice files, it doesn't seem to do it much better either. Renpy is strong in many aspects, but voiced dialog seems to be one of it's weaker areas.

Thanks for your insight on this issue.

Of course! Thanks for your suggestion (and all the other ideas as well) you've shared! It really does help to have a perspective beyond my own (and of course the other voices in my head).

 

[WildLeprechaun]

Seriously, what's with you and pre-cum?

In EVERY sex scene on this game, the female character is talking about Morty's precum. Is that some kind of fetish of yours or something? That's not a thing among girls, I think... Looks like Harem Hotel with it's dev's ratio about the food the MC eats.

Anyways, cool game/remake.

 

[sassy_mendigo]

Man, what's with you and pre-cum?
In EVERY sex scene on this game, the female character is talking about Morty's precum. Is that some kind of fetish of yours or something? That's not a thing among girls, I think...

The shit people get bothered with...