VN Ren'Py Trouble at Home [Ep.3 v1.0] [CoolKittyRhymes]

[Canto Forte]

Yeah .. let the rumor mill ... grind through some fantasy ideas ...

Spoiler

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[ViperGts151]

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The voting for Favorite Girl in Ep2 is complete, and it's without surprise that Kayla landed on top by a fair margin. Overall the spread of votes falls close to what I would have predicted (perhaps Ashley & Stacy could have been switched)... but it makes sense with how much progression and attention Ashley saw. Thank you everyone for helping me check if my insight matches the fanbase perception so far!
So this week has been a lot of writing and creating new 3D material that I'll need coming up. I also started crafting Scene 1 just so I could test how something looked... Sorry, no spoilers on what that is yet
There has been one thing gnawing at me though, and it has to do with quality improvements. A few items (such as learning better lighting techniques, camera shots, clothing, and posing) are no-brainers to do better. However, there's one thing in particular I'm wary of...
Changes in the models.
After two episodes I've noticed things for several character models that consistently cause headaches for me, or don't look as good as I could have made them. So the question is: Do I do anything about it?
I really want to maintain some consistency because I think it's weird when a look you're familiar with suddenly changes. Some things can make sense, like a new hairdo, makeup, tattoos, etc.
But what about adjusting a character's skin tone? Or tweaking hair color? I wouldn't want to do anything major, but someone paying attention may notice a difference.
What do you think? Should I create a couple samples to view? Have you played any other games that made character changes midway that you didn't mind or hated?

 

[Prokopije]

Hello. Is there way not to fuck that Vicky chick? Dev speaks about situations "heavily influenced by choices", "will you be able to this or that" and what not but it seems that "We" are able to do only what dev intended to happen and nothing else? Is this going to be forced harem-ish bang em all game?

 

[Canto Forte]

MC is the pun of everyone, all intended, all stinging.
The plan for him to turn the tables is made for him by his buddies,
including the hottie. So sit back and enjoy the whole redemption arc.

Dev speaks about situations

The whole party scene is a prologue to MC getting back his mojo,
working through his demons and coming up on top.
Stop whining and get gaming.
GiT!

 

[Prokopije]

MC is the pun of everyone, all intended, all stinging.
The plan for him to turn the tables is made for him by his buddies,
including the hottie. So sit back and enjoy the whole redemption arc.

The whole party scene is a prologue to MC getting back his mojo,
working through his demons and coming up on top.
Stop whining and get gaming.
GiT!

Banging random hoe at party is way to get at least crabs, not mojo.
Not interested in games like that.
Since I refuse to believe that dev would intentionally lied and deceived, it leaves me with two assumptions - either I missed something during gameplay which allows that scene to be optional or dev in the meantime changed his/her mind/approach about game and decided to create kinetic novel, in which case description and dev notes should be corrected and updated.
Just trying to figure which one of those two is, so to decide if I should continue to play or to send game into trash bin and ignore list

 

[ViperGts151]

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For those who didn't see it on Discord this week, I did some experimenting with "fixes" for character textures. The goal was to see if it could be done without anyone saying "Hey, this looks different!"
The first test was successful so I plan to go forward with a few of these small changes as needed. Any fixes will NOT change the look of any characters; instead it's mainly small color & texture settings that weren't done properly.
Also, I spent a little time this week making some specialized content for the Discord server.

There are several "stickers" and "emojis" already available, and if you have ideas for more please list them below or leave a suggestion on Discord. They help add a little fun and improve the experience in the app, and I'll steadily try to add more as I can.
For anyone not familiar with Discord, it's a free communications app (computer or smart device) to share text chat, images, video and more with friends and communities. By signing up for free you can link your Discord name to your Patreon account settings and automatically be added to the server.
Participate as much or little as you want. I will continue to release weekly content and progress reports here on Patreon, but I also post little teasers and other things on Discord periodically. Plus it's easier for more direct discussions/conversations.

 

[CoolKittyRhymes]

Since I refuse to believe that dev would intentionally lied and deceived, it leaves me with two assumptions - either I missed something during gameplay which allows that scene to be optional or dev in the meantime changed his/her mind/approach about game and decided to create kinetic novel, in which case description and dev notes should be corrected and updated.
Just trying to figure which one of those two is, so to decide if I should continue to play or to send game into trash bin and ignore list

This is the only situation that is "forced". MC just had a couple of strong drinks, wants to get even with ex, helped pull off the prank of the year, and had a cute girl hit on him. He's riding that emotional high and not many would pass up the opportunity. This situation becomes relevant as the story continues in Ep2.

After this point (Ep2 forward) you choose whether you engage in any sexual content for hookups, or when starting relations with a LI (which assumes you want future sexual content with them).

 

[Prokopije]

This is the only situation that is "forced". MC just had a couple of strong drinks, wants to get even with ex, helped pull off the prank of the year, and had a cute girl hit on him. He's riding that emotional high and not many would pass up the opportunity. This situation becomes relevant as the story continues in Ep2.

After this point (Ep2 forward) you choose whether you engage in any sexual content for hookups, or when starting relations with a LI (which assumes you want future sexual content with them).

Oh, well, it is what it is. For not many of us who would pass up the opportunity it completely ruined story and game. Story about some drunken vengeful hoe-banger is not story I'm interested in, but good luck and best wishes for the future development, regardless.
I'll leave game review later, to warn others.

 

[Canto Forte]

Emily - Abandoned
It's never easy being on your own. But perhaps with an extra friend, Emily is finally finding a home for herself...

 

[ViperGts151]

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The biggest news this week is I have started initial Ep3 rendering. I am trying to create some animations early on to soak up some AFK rendering time while I don't have regular images rendering. This is also important to start right away because I want to increase the number of animations again. I have no set number, but am guessing 20-25 is the likely target given the available scenes I expect.
I need to rework some problems areas with texturing on a couple new characters. When I started this project I would say these things looked "good enough", but I'm trying to make an effort to improve the texturing as much as I know how (or can learn how to do in a reasonable timeframe). This will be a balancing act so I don't get too hung up on perfection and wasting time.
Teaser info/images will likely begin in two weeks. There's still the second batch of Emily promos, and there might even be a special render this month as well...
-ckr

 

[Firaxius]

Keep up the good work, love your game and looking forward to more updates.

My favorite girls are
1 Stacy
2 Emily & Ami
3 Ashley

Ofcourse looking forward to when Jess (Mark's gf) make a move, she is a hotty, and his sister Kayla, but for my first playthrough I keep focused on Stacy, I kinda got a thing for shy girls. Monika wasn't bad either, but I didn't want trouble with Bree, Mark on the other hand can sometimes be annoying, so wouldn't mind to give his gf some good loving.

About the NTR part, geuss that was probably MC gf in beginning cheating on him with 3 other dudes, but to me it wasn't really NTR, she was a bitch that wanted only be in the center of attention, so I'm glad she dumped him, I would be more woried if one of the other girls end in bed with other guys, specialy now they kinda hitting on him, that would be NTR to me, not that I would dislike it, but I wouldn't like to see Stacy or so end up with some guy in bed, while I try to get her in my first playthrough.

 

[Canto Forte]

Someone wasn't happy with the assignment ... while someone else is still grasping for it ...
Summer Swimsuit Promo
During this transition period into Ep3 there isn't a lot of new content to reveal yet, but in the meantime here are a few of your favorite girls kicking off the summer.
Expect early teaser content to begin in July

 

[ViperGts151]

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Last week I mentioned I'd be spending some time fixing some texture problems on characters. I know I said I wouldn't get too hung up on perfection, but my ego got the best of me.
I spent a lot of time testing skin surface settings in Daz this week. The problem is you can't find a lot of useful information when doing Google searches... It's a lot of "fiddle with the settings until you find something you like." This isn't good enough for me so I tried to dig a little further to learn how everything works.

I have posted updates on the TaH Discord through the week, but here was a sample render to test the configurations I settled on Friday night. Overall I feel like there's a major improvement of the skin than before.
There's a second configuration I like slightly more, but I may choose to go with this one due to future compatibility.
Okay, so I've made some improvements to the characters models... What's next? There's a couple other things I'm considering, including: rendering at a higher resolution and advanced post-work.
Rendering images at 4k and then downsampling to 1080 is an option. However, that means rendering 4 times as many pixels, which takes 4 times as long. If I had a dedicated render PC then it would be more reasonable. I also am not familiar enough to know if this is overkill.
Historically I did almost no post-work on any of my images. However, some denoising and color/contrast enhancement can be a quick fix and make the image "pop".

Here is the same image as above but with a quick contrast adjustment. I thought the original looked great but suddenly this altered one makes it feel a little washed out. I probably did a couple percent more than I needed to, but you get the idea. There are simple ways I can use to improve image quality that don't require extra rendering power.
I understand that going from good to great quality images is probably not the biggest selling point for an AVN (compared to story and writing), but I still want to excel at it. I hope to be listed among the top tier visual artists before it's done. I don't particularly like settling for mediocre.
Next up: learning better ways to set up lighting in the scenes.

 

[ViperGts151]

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I previously gave some cryptic character reveals a few weeks ago that included renders of Taylor, which I was surprised someone figured out who she was.
The other image hinted towards the MC's parents finally making their appearance which you can see here.
Lastly, a name of one of MC's friends was dropped in Ep2. We'll finally see him along with another unmentioned friend (you can also see Tommy who we've already met in Ep1 and Ep2).

 

[ViperGts151]

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As I continue to work on any updates to characters, one in particular I wanted some help with. There are some minor issues I have with the hair model for Sierra and have considered a change for it. On the left you can see her original hair, and on the right is the potential new one. Let me know which you prefer and that'll decide if she visits the hair salon.

As far as progress, there's little of substance to say beyond the usual. But what I'm really hoping to do is get ahead on posing and prepping scenes so I can work on coding while everything renders. There's a lot I haven't been able to touch that I need to get done, and I prefer to have it ready sooner rather than later.
Current stats :
Original Hair (Left)
77%

New Potential Hair (Right)
23%

 

[ViperGts151]

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Looks like Sierra will be keeping the same hairstyle for her appearances in Ep3 as it was pretty heavily favored in last week's poll.
I've been able to focus more on the core of my work this week and getting some scenes and renders done. The pace has been slow for my taste as I continue to apply fixes to characters as I go along. This week I'll be releasing the first batch of promo renders that will showcase the updated character texturing. I'll likely throw out a teaser on Discord before Thursday so lookout for that.
It's been awhile since I've fiddled with any coding, but I started working on expanding the game menu. For a long time I've talked about including a gallery that can be filled with images and scenes that can be unlocked through gameplay and bonus content. I haven't brainstormed exactly how I want it all to look and behave yet, but I'm at least not ignoring it anymore. (I came up with a concept many months ago, but I'm not happy with it now so it's back to the drawing board.)
Lastly, I'll be doing some updates to the game menu screens. If anyone has any suggestions of what should be added or changed I'd like to hear your thoughts. However, the bottom menu icons are staying how they are; I REALLY like them and they match the game logo
Some ideas that have flittered through my head were: adding names to save files, some basic 'help' information, and credits.
-ckr

 

[Joshy92]

Sorry for asking the same question But I'm really curious.
Can we get back together with Sierra?
Or is she never going to be a love interest?
Because I think I could change her
Who knows she could even turn out to be a sweet girl inside

 

[ViperGts151]

Sorry for asking the same question But I'm really curious.
Can we get back together with Sierra?
Or is she never going to be a love interest?
Because I think I could change her
Who knows she could even turn out to be a sweet girl inside

This is the response I got from the dev regarding her.

I can tell you that the plot outline for Sierra was not to be seen or pursued as any sort of real love interest. Despite her being such a hostile part of MC's early story, there's very little that's been revealed about her so far. She was part of MC's "perfect" life that he lost, and in that sense she was a plot device to stir up trouble. She doesn't get much attention in Ep2 outside of some off-hand comments, but will reappear in the future and be relevant to events. Will we get the opportunity to make her regret her choices? I don't like spoiling stuff, but I want satisfactory resolutions to the major problems MC faces whenever possible, and the Sierra one is still unresolved. When she becomes relevant again, I prefer to make player choices help determine what happens with/to her.

 

[Joshy92]

This is the response I got from the dev regarding her.

I can tell you that the plot outline for Sierra was not to be seen or pursued as any sort of real love interest. Despite her being such a hostile part of MC's early story, there's very little that's been revealed about her so far. She was part of MC's "perfect" life that he lost, and in that sense she was a plot device to stir up trouble. She doesn't get much attention in Ep2 outside of some off-hand comments, but will reappear in the future and be relevant to events. Will we get the opportunity to make her regret her choices? I don't like spoiling stuff, but I want satisfactory resolutions to the major problems MC faces whenever possible, and the Sierra one is still unresolved. When she becomes relevant again, I prefer to make player choices help determine what happens with/to her.

Thank you for letting me know.

 

[ViperGts151]

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I've had different people asking about when Ep3 will be released, but I'm not ready to throw out a time other than it'll be this autumn. I figured in a few weeks after I get more work done I will have a better idea of what it's going to take to complete the episode. The plan is to make a more detailed announcement in early September of what I've been working on, some story details, and the anticipated release.
There were a couple things I considered making polls for this week, but one of them was so minor it didn't seem worth it. And the other was about Eli's hair, which I'm sure not many people will care about.
The story behind Eli's hair: I am happy with the look of it, but the asset itself is a headache because it creates a lot of lag that bogs down the program, making it difficult to pose scenes. While writing this I thought of one thing to try which helped with Miss Martinez's hair, so if it works I may decide to leave Eli alone... If that doesn't work there's a high chance I'll be replacing it with something similar.
Besides that, more teaser images should be released this week followed by the X-treme batch of Jess promos next week.
-ckr