VN Ren'Py Stills from a game i'm working on.

[RavioliRave]

Hello, i am working on an adult game!
It will be in a school setting and it'll be like an anime episode per event.
Game will have a heavy emphasis on story and the dynamics between other characters.
Story progress will be based upon the amount of character story events viewed.
Story events will progress the world while character events will focus more on building relationships.
A handful of main and side characters to help in building a more believable world.
Tossing in anime and meme type humor.
Posting here to see if people will be interested.
Feel free to point out faults in my renders. I'm just an amatuer afterall.

Edit: ignore the awful naming convention.

 

[7thCloud]

I like the character's eyes.

 

[The Wicked One]

Hey, man, these are GREAT! You're cranking out awesome art already!

 

[RavioliRave]

I like the character's eyes.

I like them too! Thats why i reuse them alot.

Hey, man, these are GREAT! You're cranking out awesome art already!

Wow thanks for the compliments. Glad you like them.

 

[MissFortune]

I'm not sure at what point you are in development or how long you've been at, but it's definitely not bad. There's far worse amateur attempts just on this forum alone. That being said, the classroom feels a bit dull/empty in the renders shown. Perhaps play around with some wood shaders (WoodWorx, perhaps.) for the door and floors. The same goes for the walls, if you look at any classroom, Japanese or American, there's plenty of paper littering the walls with events, grades, etc.

The other thing my eyes keeps being drawn to is the pixelation of the background/HDRI. It's distracting from the focus of the render. If you need to show a window with a fuzzy BG/HDRI, some depth of field might help, or give you an opportunity to play around with interesting camera angles.

The last nitpick is the lighting. The problem is that your entire scene is filled with light, there is little to no shadows anywhere. As you can see in the left image above, classroom aren't quite that bright. Play around with your sources, maybe just try using windows, or a point light or two to softly illuminate the classroom then make use of spotlights (three point lighting, perhaps eight point later on for more artsy, showy renders.). This'll create some shadows and allow you to separate the jaw from the neck.



Just as an example, I'll use one of my own. On top of the render I have a big point light (rectangle, 100 height/width to create soft lighting). Off to the left is keylight (the main lightling spotlight for the figures here.), off to the right is a fill light (a much less intense spotlight that you barely know is there to give her right leg some glow). Both the key and fill light should be as close as possible to an equal distance and angle to each other. Up above and roughly at a 45 degree angle pointed at your figure. Directly behind her leg is another spotlight, (rectangle again, 10 height/width to create a harsher light) which creates that light on the back of her left leg. That keylight at creates a shadow on her left leg via her right covering it, which inherently creates contrast with the backlight on her left leg. I'm no PhillyGames or anything, but I think it's enough to get the idea across in a timely manner.

Stuff like lighting just comes with experience, understanding lights and how they work. How quickly just depends on how seriously you want to get into VNs. That being said, the characters are attractive and the eyes especially look good. They really look like they have life to them (not as easy as some make it look tbh). Like I said, many devs don't start out this good (I didn't) and never actually do reach this point. Keep at it.

Edit: 'A timely manner,' I say as I write a damn book lol.

 

[RavioliRave]

...

I've definitely been in development for sometime now albeit mainly in character creation and making characters look good.
Unfortunately, the assets used in the classroom only has one surface which means it won't work well if i change it.
I do use depth of field but it still comes off as a low quality back drop. But the playing with camera angles part definitely gives me some interesting ideas.

I'm quite bad at lighting to be honest. I've spent a lot of time on it but balancing the luminance values upon multiple lights is really hard for a fucktard like me.
As i am working with a potato computer, iray views will always be pixelated and difficult to grasp the actual luminance unless i render the actual photo.
Thanks for the invaluable advice i'll keep it in mind.

I will probably improve on the backgrounds and backdrops in the near future as i have with the characters.

 

[RavioliRave]

I don't know how to tag people but Reifon thank you too random citizen!

 

[NanoGames]

Unfortunately, the assets used in the classroom only has one surface which means it won't work well if i change it.

Just a quick tip, in DAZ Studio you can go into the Geometry Editor tool, select a bunch of polygon faces and create a new surface from them (right click menu). It's not a silver bullet but that's what we got without going to other apps like Blender.

This might allow you change some materials but obviously you'll still have to work with the same UV map, no way arround that without leaving DAZ.