UPDATE: Renders, Within Renders, Within Renders… January 30, 2023
(As posted on our Patreon Page)
Hello everyone, hope that all of you are doing well and wanted to provide an update where things stand thus far with the releases and where things stand.
For many of you who have played my previous game, you know that I am a stickler for continuity and details in the story and renders, this can be both a
BLESSING and a
CURSE. A blessing for the players, because it certainly helps with immersion and there have been quite a few of you who have picked little things out in the scenes… a curse, at least for me, is the fact that I have to sometimes do extra work to try and make the scene more realistic.
For example: In one of the scenes in our first release, Brent (one of the Main Characters you will get to play as) will be unpacking and reflecting on his marriage with Carley (the other Main Character that you will get to play as).
The scene will be an emotional one that will, hopefully, help the player to feel more immersed and better understand the characters that you will be playing and will also help provide a bit more background information for all of you through his (Brent’s) brief visit down memory lane and to his wedding with his wife (Carley) while looking at the photos and a couple of wedding videos (one the main ceremony and a… ahem… honeymoon video *hint, hint*).
Anyway, this required me taking a bit of time to create all of the artwork (locations, poses, outfits, hair, etc.) necessary to make that scene believable for all of you. So, once they were created, they were then added to the main scene and then re-rendered again and used in wedding photos props and the wedding videos on the television set prop that will be within the location that the main story take place in and in the renders of the first release (like you see in the example photo posted above that took 4 hours to render) and those photos props will also be used again for later episodes as location decoration for Brent and Carley’s walls and shelves once they’ve fully moved into their new place…
So… renders, within renders, within renders.
As for progress for the releases…
I created several new renders for a new
CHARACTER SPOTLIGHT (behind our paywall) for one of the important characters that players can end up as a potential Love Interest while playing Brent’s character.
BE WARNED, the write-up and images of her comes with some minor spoilers to the “Wicked Choices” storyline and being a Demonothan, comes with multiple rendered versions of her that you (as the player) can help her progress to and reach during the storyline.
As for “
Wicked Choices: Bed Chambers”, I have one route to finish for Carley that leads to an event in the city park (if players choose it) and the park restroom, also a brief scene that happens with the movers and the remainder of final scene, which involves the render you see above (all of the scenes are set up, just need to load and then render them). Then, I need to do all of the Dialogue Sprites which takes anywhere from 2 minutes to 5 minutes per render/Sprite, depending on the outfit and reflections and then render the static backgrounds that the Dialogue Sprites will layer over during dialogue scenes.
Then the First Release of “
Wicked Choices: Bed Chambers” will be done.
As for “
Wicked Choices Extra: Michelle & Claire – A Day at the Pond” release which is the prologue to “
Wicked Choices: Bed Chambers” all I need left to do is finish writing a few of the scenes, do any miscellaneous renders that may be required to fill in any plot holes by the newly finished text/writing, package it up and get it to the testers.
So, there
HAS BEEN progress and lots of it… it just feels unending to me and that might be because I still sometimes having to stop a render to make adjustments to it (such as: add more lighting sources and render again… or, like in the example render above that already took 4 hours to render out, I need to do better work on the textures of the television’s sound system speakers and also part the blinds a little bit so that it doesn’t look like there is just a blank white wall behind the television set, but actually a large window and blinds) but I am definitely making progress and nearing the end.
I guess another reason, beside the time it takes renders to complete, is also due to my health. I am not going to lie; I am
NOT doing good and Mother Nature certainly hasn’t been helping things by throwing nearly a foot of snow our way that started on Wednesday of last week and dumped more on us on Sunday… removing it with this back and now my shoulder has been challenging and an adventure in pharmaceuticals to help relieve some of the burden of pain.
Regardless of that pain, however, I have still been working diligently on the releases for all of you, sometimes putting in more than 8-hour days in trying to get these things done… I know many of you say my health should come first, but honestly, the longer these releases take, the less chance of getting on a regular schedule to help relieve some of the burden of finances that I've been getting behind on and hopefully, with the new releases done and out, I can start paying my bills again… which is more important to me than my health right now and, being disabled, it isn’t like I can go out and work a normal job or even flip hamburgers… so, need to get this stuff done and get some money rolling back into the house.
That said, Wednesday, February 8th is the day of my ultrasound for my shoulder and rotator cuff, while I am sure that moving snow and other stuff hasn’t been helping my shoulder any (okay, I
KNOW that it isn't), any damage being done right now is at least being done to it before final treatment and I’d rather get as much done as possible
now before there is a chance that they might have to immobilize or perform surgery on it.
I appreciate the concern for my health that all of you have shown and have expressed (including my nagging wife about it), but I
ALSO don’t want to appear to any of you as being a mooch or milking you… and, honestly, as I said before, I need the money right now
WAY MORE than I need my health.
But that is where things stand right now, I am going to keep digging on this work and really hope that you all feel that the effort has been worth it. I’ll talk to you again after my ultrasound and once I’ve talked to the doctor after it (which will occur on February 14th @ 9:10 am) … thank you for all of the support and well wishes!
Please take care and know that I am working as hard as I can for all of us!
~Jack