Developer's Journal 2:1 (Patreon)

Hey everybody, hope you've all had a chance to play the new update by now.  I'm already working hard to get the next update to you as soon as possible, although we're still some months away from that.

The release of Part One, both before and after, brought us a lot of new supporters, both on Patreon and Subscribestar.  A couple of weeks ago we had 16, now we are up to 26.  This is very exciting for me!  Welcome to the new supporters, and whether you are planning to stick around long-term or you just popped in this month for the update, thank you and I appreciate you!

As I've previously mentioned, the script for Part Two is mostly done, but I did spend a little bit of time this week reviewing the dialogue and making small changes/improvements here and there.

I finished up with the gym scene for the final love interest.  But I didn't end up getting as many renders done this week as I would have liked because I kept finding things I didn't like about the renders in that scene so I ended up redoing them multiple times.  The postworked still render count for Part Two is currently at 40.  But if you look at the previews I've included, you can see why I didn't mind spending extra time on that scene. :D 

The gym used in that scene is pretty much out-of-the-box from the asset creator because I thought it was great just the way it was.  Some of my sets I've done substantial amounts of custom work, but for others, like both gym scenes, I've just used mostly everything default.  The sets I've spent the most time on have been Rockford's office and the characters' residences, because its important to ensure the residence will convey something about the character.  I'm a huge nerd and I actually think designing some of these apartments, including Rockford's and Jamie's, has been really fun.  Today I've spent several hours customizing the apartment of the unmet love interest.  I've included a test render to show you, but it is still a work in progress.

When I customize a set I usually don't put up walls from scratch--I start with an environment from an asset creator and then I redo textures from top to bottom, find pictures I can use for window views, and carefully go through my collection and the Daz store to pick out props.  This is a very time-consuming process.  Customizing Rockford's entire office floor initially took probably upwards of 30 combined hours as I created custom book labels, his diploma, etc., set up his coworkers' offices, and constantly reworked textures, lighting, etc. until everything was just how I liked.  And then I started doing actual renders and found additional changes I needed to make.  Rockford's office has been the most time-consuming set so far, but you get an idea.

For Part Two I've got twelve new sets.  Almost all of them will need at least some amount of customization.  Then of course once the sets are made the real work--posing the renders--begins.  So, Part Two is definitely going to be in production for awhile.

Okay, that's it for this week.  I appreciate your support!

--Monk

P.S. If you guys want to see somebody who really knows what's he's doing when it comes to making custom sets, click the attachments on this post from our friend Ezy.  This fighting gym he created makes me salivate.