UPDATE: Still Grinding, Progress and Processes… July 27, 2020
(as posted on our Patreon Page)
Hey everyone, I want to try to keep this as short as possible so that I can get back to work and finish this chapter up… I am so close to being done that I can taste it and really don’t want to lose the downhill momentum that I have going for me right now.
Currently, after a meeting and discussion with the guys, this is how the release schedule looks…
First week or two of
August, the release of the
Remastered Chapter One.
Last part of
August (maybe the
first week of September) the release of
Chapter Two for everyone.
First part of
October the release of
Chapter Three…
By then, without the extensive work of doing animations and keeping the releases down in size (like I did originally with “
Wicked Choices: Book One”), I should be back to my regular release schedule of
ONCE A MONTH which should be achievable till the end of the Prologue to “
Wicked Choices: Agents of Karma” that will last for 6 to 7 chapters.
After that, things should need a few tweaks to the schedule and some adjustments, as that will take us to the semi-open sandbox of the game, which means a new process for us to learn and adapt to…
…speaking of processes… part of the reason why I am so off kilter with this release was because I thought I came up with a
WONDERFUL idea while on the painkillers and waiting for the shot that I got for my back three weeks ago…
Normally, the process of creation for me has been this…
- Create a bullet point rough of every event to happen in that chapter release.
- Write out the scenes and dialogue, while arranging the sets, characters, clothing and poses to be used.
- Begin to assemble them and render the images out according to the written scenes.
- Do the post work on the images rendered in Photoshop.
- Assemble the writing and image numbers in Twine and present them to the editor (Sierra3) and the programmer (Epadder).
BUT… while on pain killers, I had the crazy idea that I could save time by doing it this way…
- Create a bullet point rough of every event to happen in that chapter release.
- Arrange the sets, characters, clothing and poses to be used.
- Assemble everything and start rendering.
- Do the post work on the images rendered in Photoshop and do the writing and dialogue to the rendered scenes.
- Assemble the writing that I just completed and the images rendered into Twine and present them to the editor and programmer.
Never mind the fact that also while coming up with this crazy scheme, that I also decided to do 540 frames of animation… all while on pain killers… one thing that I hadn’t taken into account while trying this process that I thought would be faster… is that sometimes a thought that a writer has isn’t as quickly expressed as they think it will be till it is written…
…so, thinking that just rendering all of the scenes and
THEN writing to those scenes would be quicker, wasn’t… as suddenly, I found that I had to go back and expand the number of renders for that scene… which not only screwed up the idea that this would be
FASTER, but now it also screwed up the numbering of the scenes... which could lead to confusion on the part of the programmer…
For example, normally the numbering of the images in the folder and in Twine works like this…
Ayame001.png
Ayame002.png
Ayame003.png
And if there is a side by side image (like a comic book panel) …
Ayame004a.png
Ayame004b.png
Ayame005.png
Nice crisp and easy to follow… normally.
But this time around, because of my stupid idea of rendering everything first and just writing to the images rendered, I found myself unable to fully express the situation of a particular scene or character experience and had to quickly add a few more renders… so now we have image numbering and file structure all messed up…
I really made a mess of things this month because I thought I was being clever and could be faster doing it this way and it
WASN’T faster, in fact, if anything, it is
MORE CONFUSING and required me to go back and change some of the already done renders, render new ones and inject them into the right place among the ones already rendered and try to do so without renaming over 1000 images!
So, Jack coming up with
REALLY GREAT ideas while on painkillers…
NOT-SO-GREAT and the reason why things are behind as much as they are is because of
ME!
For which, I apologize, but the good news is that I almost have everything fixed and should be out of my hands soon and Epadder thinks he can make sense of the mess that I created without much trouble but to
NOT DO THAT AGAIN!
So, I won’t do that again… just going to stick to my regular format of doing things and just do my job right.
Sorry to all of you and to Sierra3 and Epadder who are getting a mess to sort out and work with this time… it
WON’T happen again.
So much for keeping this short too… *sigh* …I can’t wait till I’ve fully pulled my head out of my ass and get back on track with things the right way… this release has been FUBAR from the start, kind of like me.
But, at least now you all know where things stand, the reason for the meeting (my fault, my fault) and how we intend to get back on track and get back to doing regular releases for everyone.
Sorry again for my screw up and if anyone hears me say: “Hey, I have a really
GREAT idea…” while I am on painkillers, do us all a favor and smack the sh*t out of me… please… you’ll save us all a headache by doing so!!
Now, I need to get back to work and finish this stuff off… talk soon.
~Jack