Ocean doesn't give expected dates for releases Since that can vary due to size of the renders and the complexity of it
1 scene can render in 1 hour while an other can take 24
And he is working on 2 games at time.
His render time went down as he bought rtx 3090's
* Chapter 3 to chapter 3.5 took a little more then 9 months
* chapter 3.5 to chapter 4 took 5 months
* Chapter 4 to chapter 4.5 took in 3 months
I really appreciate your argument here, but the time thingy is wrong for
Chapter 4.
Chapter 4 took a lot longer.
To give some context and what really improved the development schedule.
When
Chapter 3 came, which took pretty much exactly one year, I was about to burn out because I underestimated the impact development has on your life. I worked 12-14h a day on the game but produced much less than I do nowadays.
My mindset was lacking.
That's when I made the decision to change something, but it takes a lot of time for many small improvements to accumulate and take effect.
Chapter 3 to
Chapter 3.5 took as you said, a little more than 9 months. (1400 still renders)
Now with
Chapter 4, WiAB took an active development role again, and it took 9 months (With the Ch1 rework 3000 still renders.)
Here the improvements start to show in the quantity of content. (I'd argue that my quality has also improved from update to update.) But it still took a long time.
Chapter 4 was also the time I started to outperform my two 3090 in terms of speed. I set up more renders a day than the cards could render in two days. The queue would start growing bigger and bigger.
Chapter 4 to
Chapter 4.5 took the now infamous 3 months (1500 renders) and the improvements in development become apparent.
We did go from
Chapter 3.5,
9 months, 1400 stills to
Chapter 4.5,
3 months, 1520 stills + higher quality.
Many people argue that hardware doesn't make a dev faster.
They do have a point.
I could've bought 20 A6000s in 2021 and the game wouldn't have been developed any faster.
The dev himself needs to reach the speed of the cards first. Otherwise, he's wasting money (Not talking about VRAM.)
It's all a matter of personal improvements, focus, and in some way sacrifices.
And the big difference between 2020/2021 is that I feel absolutely amazing. There's no sign of even the slightest hint of burnout.
Meanwhile, in
2021's Chapter 3, I was about to fail.
Every single aspect from personal health to development speed and quality has improved significantly.
Now it actually makes sense for me to invest in expensive hardware to speed up the render process, as I have reached the maximum speed these cards can provide. (Leaving the VRAM aspect out)
As soon as the Ch2 rework is finished, the game's on Steam, things will progress even faster.
Personal growth never stops.
(As long as you're willing to put in the work.)