Developer's Journal #13 (Patreon)

Hey everybody!

Postworked renders now number 748, up from 678 last week.  The best estimate I can give is there are maybe 200 renders left to go.

The last couple of weeks I've been working on a small social event at Sean's house.  It's just about finished and I think you'll find it interesting as it peels back another layer of our MC's character.

One of the things I really hope I've accomplished is the creation of a complex, engaging MC.  The entire story revolves around the uncovering and evolution of his character.  It won't be until Part Five that the player really learns all there is to know about ADA Rockford.  But in the meantime, major plot points starting in Part Three will allow the player to make choices that will shape Rockford's character going forward.  Ultimately, player choices will lead to divergent story paths for Rockford which are independent of whichever love interest the player is going for.

Regarding the above progress and what's left, I'm going to be honest with you guys: I am disappointed that the update isn't ready yet.  By October 3rd it will have been three months since the Demo launched.  And this update is only one half of one part, suggesting at least a six-month development cycle for each part that will be released.  For an eight part game that projects four years for the game to be finished.  That would be totally unacceptable.  My goal is to have this game completed by summer of 2024.

I am optimistic that even continuing to work my full-time job, I can cut the projected development cycle down significantly.  In the twelve weeks since release, my average weekly still render count is 62.  I'm confident I can get a much higher weekly number than that.  Remember that I'm new to digital art (or any kind of art) and every week I grow more experienced with Daz and am able to use my time more efficiently.  I expect that as time goes on I will be able to spend less time having to re-render scenes for bad lighting, clipping, etc.  I've also just yesterday made a new investment in an RTX 3090 GPU, upgrading from the 3080ti.  This won't have a major impact on render speed nor on posing time, but the jump from 12 GB of VRAM to 24 GB is huge.  I've spent a lot of time having to piece together scenes with heavy textures and multiple characters.  With the added VRAM I can just hit the render button.  This should shave WEEKS off the development cycle.  There are also a lot of things I had to do this period that I won't have to do in the future, like learning how to code an image gallery or setting up my Patreon page.

As for when this update will be done, I have a ton of time off saved up at my job.  After this week, I should be able to take off the first few days of October.  If I can do that and just power through the rest of these renders, the update should be ready for Biggest Supporters by Monday, October 10th and all other supporters by October 12th.  The finish line is in sight.

Thank you for your continuing support!  I've attached a few previews from the scene at Sean's house.