Developer's Journal #3 (Patreon)

Work continues on Leaving DNA Part One.  This week I faced a new frontier as I composed my first complex animation.  The published version of the Demo had only one simple animation, which was basically a camera pan of Jamie.  When planning this game I gave serious consideration to whether or not to include animations.  I have no animating experience and nobody likes bad animations.  But finally I decided every animator has to start somewhere.  So this week a lot of time went into making my first complex animation.  The challenge was amplified by the fact that the scene I'm animating is rather dark.  But through a lot of testing--and advice from other developers--I have got what I'm deeming a solid first draft of the animation.

I'm producing a lot of dark renders this week, which means rendering times are longer than normal.  I hope you'll be pleased with the end product.  I've attached a screenshot of one such render showing you how I used the Carrington family portrait I shared last week.

My biggest accomplishment this week was my progress on scripting Part Five.  There's a very important moment in Rockford's character development that's planned for Part Five, and I always knew it would be a challenge to write.  But a draft of that scene is now finished and I'm happy with how it turned out.

I'll share a secret with you: I'm a crier.  I cried the first three times I saw End Game.  I cried for that one scene in Leap of Faith and, yes, Acting Lessons, too.  I cry for happy stuff, sad stuff, nostalgic stuff--I've just got loose knobs on my waterworks.  And as the story I'm writing is meant to tug at the heartstrings from time to time, sometimes when I'm working on it I find myself getting very emotional.  Even if I'm just sitting around thinking up what will happen, I may have to reach for the box of Kleenex.

So, this scene I wrote for Part Five choked me up.  Not "Tony Stark dies" bawling level, but enough to have to blow my nose.  I wrote it two days ago, but I find writing that sort of thing very draining, so I had to put the script aside and focus on renders for the time being.  You're probably wondering if that's because the scene is sad, happy, or nostalgic.  And in, oh, maybe a year, I'll give you the answer to that question.

Thank you for your support!