Update #58 Behind the scenes

Snuggling Saturday Salutations!

Oh, and SPOILERS FOR EPISODE 5 AHEAD! I'll be showing off and commenting on some of my favorite renders of episode 5.

Strap in, get something to drink, this will be a long one. I don't know why you'd have to strap in. Maybe you're on an airplane? Well, a drink is recommended at any rate.

I don't have too much to comment on this first scene shown up top, I just wanted a render of Ruru snuggling Donkey. I thought it was cute. You didn't break her poor little heart and refuse the snuggles, did you?

There's been more than one mention of Ruru feeling more like the protagonist than Donkey. I can certainly see why that would be. It's often said that a good character should be written as if they're the protagonist of their own story. I think I've certainly succeeded in that with Ruru. The others, eh, not so much. I'm working on it though As I mentioned in the last update, I am currently figuring out where all the character arcs are going.

That said, there was probably a way to have Donkey feel a bit more like a proper protagonist while keeping him... Donkey. I don't really fret too much over things like that, I accept that I'm not going to get everything right. All I want to do is learn and do better next episode. So far, I think every episode has had several strides forward, so I'm very happy with that.

I'm not much of an artist when it comes to the visual aspects, but I do try. Sometimes anyway. This is one of those times. I quite liked the idea of framing Tanathil between Ruru's horns. I like this trick almost as much as getting Ruru's horns casting big shadows behind her. It just gives a nice, demonic feel to a scene.

Speaking of Tanathil, there's been a few people asking for more scenes with her. I'm happy that she seems well-liked. Not too surprising since she was created with the help of the Senate of Pointy Ears. I mean, even the original idea for her character was a suggestion by Demoet here on Patreon.

She's really fun to write. I think it's because she knows exactly what she wants, and never hesitates in going for it. That's something I personally envy, and I'm sure others do too. That said, she had a big scene this episode, so she's unlikely to get one in the next one. But she'll get more eventually, don't you worry.

The knight falling over in the background after Saranhil's outburst was one of those small things I thought of while making the renders. This entire scene was a bit of a hassle. I wanted them moving forward to give the impression of them walking while talking. I think it worked pretty well, but it was just way more work than I thought it was going to be.

Especially since I wanted a bit of motion in the background at the same time. It does add a little bit of life to the world, I think. But again, a lot of effort for something pretty minor. I'll probably keep doing it though, because it's something I greatly appreciate when others do. Just, you know, not every scene.

The dialogue this scene was a lot of fun to write though, with Tanathil trying to be more and more obvious with her backdoor euphemisms. No, I did not spell euphemisms correctly on the first try. Really, a lot of this episode was just about setting up for the big final scene. What with getting Saranhil interested, introducing a magical butt plug, and so on.

Donkey blasting Jhan'draga while still facepalming tickles me. I also really like this transition, with the camera moving upwards until you see Saranhil on the roof above. The rooftop scene was really only meant to be a short little one, and not too spicy. But it turned out waaaay spicier than intended.

Also, the sudden seagull attack was never written in the script. I wanted to say that I ad-libbed it, but I don't think that quite works. Anyway, I came up with it while making the renders. It just made sense, since I had already established that Donkey was right below. I'm considering having Donkey refer to his anger at seagulls again in the future, could be a fun running gag. I don't want to force it though, so we'll see if it fits the script.

I like the idea of doing small scenes like these, where it's not a full sex scene, just showing that Ruru is up to some shenanigans behind the scenes. Showing her just out of sight of the others makes it even more fun.

Usually, I want to keep most of my dialogue moving things forward, which leaves little room for inconsequential fluff (note that I don't consider jokes fluff). This scene had Saranhil and Zavnessos talk about novels, followed by recommending Jhan'draga one as well. A pretty fluffy scene, I felt.

In a way, this does accomplish things, since you get to know the characters a bit, and it sets up some character development for Jhan-jhan. I did also showcase Ruru playing with the plug. So the scene isn't completely devoid of forward motion, but I tend to keep fluffy scenes to a minimum. Unless they're really funny (see bridge scene in episode 4).

This, I thought was a fancy bit of business. Using the shadows to show what Zavnessos's hand is doing was accidental at first, but once I saw that it was happening I moved both characters around a bit to make it more obvious.

The ensuing sex scene was meant to be longer, but I really struggled with the animations when Zavnessos's hands were supposed to be tied. I could've untied them, I suppose, but I was getting really frustrated with the scene. In the end, I just cut it short.

If I was going to put a bunch of time and effort into a scene it would be the final one, such were my thoughts. I do feel like I need to make it up to Zavnessos in some way. So maybe we'll come up with something next episode, even if she didn't win the final scene.

Saranhil enjoying some flowers. I think the one update where I just had renders of her with these flowers got the most likes out of any update during the making of the episode. More so than any spicy images.

Is there an opposite word for degenerate? Progenerate? You're all progenerates who enjoy cute things! Take that!

But yeah, Saranhil being cute is always nice. Especially when it's later contrasted with something lewd. Which does happen in this scene, since Ruru starts playing with the portal. I have more plans for the butt plug portal, so you can look forward to that in future episodes.

It was a real struggle to get the angle I wanted here, and even so I didn't get it exactly the way I wanted. But the idea of Ruru lifting her skirt to showcase some schlong hanging out was just too good.

This is another scene where it's not a full on sex scene really, no animations or anything. I still think they're worth having just to show that things are happening beyond the big scenes. I'll probably start having some pictures sent to the phone that doesn't line up with anything shown to the player as well, I think that could be interesting.

I was also very pleased with the way the glowy eyes looked on Ruru in this scene. Previously I've used a red colored shadow thingy on top of here eyes to give the effect, now I just turn up the inherent glowiness of the eyes on a slider. Much simpler, and a better effect too, IMO.

Here we have Tanathil getting sympathy for trying to teach Donkey and Saranhil about properly evaluating the sources of your information. I just really like the look on her face while it's happening. We also see some of the clothing getting very transparent when sweaty.

The whole "believing everything written down is true" was only ever supposed to be a one off gag, but it's kind of turned into a running one instead. It's an entertaining character flaw to work with, perhaps someone will intentionally use/abuse this in the future to manipulate them. Who knows?

I keep having a scene here or there with the characters training, just so that it's established that they are indeed doing so. I find it's a good way to give a scene an extra purpose beyond whatever the dialogue is about.

I'm mostly adding this in since I learned basic Photoshop just to be able to do this, and I'm slightly proud of doing so. Especially since I managed to get a little bit of the hand in front of the image on the phone without it looking too wonky. The result itself isn't an amazing render or anything though, but I'm sure I'll come up with something more interesting now that I have this in my arsenal.

Oh, the black thing cutting of Donkey's head is the back of the chair. It doesn't look great, I know. I was too preoccupied with the whole Photoshop thing to pay too much attention to the other parts of the render.

I also have to remember that Sveida now has a phone... We'll see what she gets up to with it.

The lighting in this scene was a real struggle, so I didn't really find a render that I particularly love, but I wanted to talk a little about this scene anyway.

The three bandits were tons of fun to write. My inner picture of the scene was very different from how it turned out, but I'm overall pleased with it. I did mean for the scene to be a bit dark, since it's supposed to take place deep in a forest, but a lot of the renders turned out darker than I'd like.

It's always a balance between mood, shadows, and having things be properly visible. A balance I'm still trying to perfect. Still, I comfort myself with the fact that I am much better than I was in early episodes.

I was a little bit worried that Donkey referring to the bandits as the same numbers they're named in the narration would break the fourth wall. They are named by the order they first talk in, so there is some logic to it, but I'm sure some did not care for it. Anyway, I really like bandit number two. She was put into this world to spread chaos.

The shadow and the reflection is a double whammy! I usually have one or a few renders before a scene begins to set up the location, and sometimes to set a bit of a mood. This one in particular just oozes mood at me.

This is followed by another darkly lit scene that I think manages to strike a much better balance than the forest scene. All the girls (well almost all) then showing up in nighties is pretty nice. They'll show up again for sure.

And so we arrive at the last scene. There's a lot of renders in the final scene that I really like. Some parts of it were maybe a bit darker than optimal, but to some extent it adds a little bit to the secrecy. So it's not all bad, or at least that's how I think about it. If I have to pick two, it's probably these:

Saranhil getting used to it, this is also the start of an animation that I was pleased with. Ruru's leg is a bit too shiny, but there's a lot of other things to look at.

For one, there's Saranhil's hair not really having proper gravity, and no good way of pretending it does. But I prefer looking at her tits, they look amazing here.

And this Ruru POV render I absolutely love! Not even sure that I can explain exactly why I like this one more than the others. Maybe it's because Saranhil looks so into it?

It could maybe have been a little bit brighter, this one. But again, I find her shadowed beneath Ruru pretty appealing, so I think it would've been easy to make it too bright as well.

Damn, I know I said two renders, but I need one with a little shadow-play as well:

The context of Saranhil suddenly remembering that Donkey is right there is what makes this one. I only realized late into the scene that the book MC is holding has a red cross on it. Makes it look like he's reading a book about first aid or something.

Well, if he was indeed actually reading the book. Since he's just using the book for cover, it's not something to worry about, I was just surprised when I saw it.

As for the animations this scene. Some I think were really good, and others were better in concept than their execution. The ones where you get to see both sides of the curtain had slightly wonky camera movement, I struggled to get it smooth without having the animation loop be super long. Oh well, I'll get better at it as I learn, this was my first time attempting something like that.

Right then, that's about enough I think. There will be one or two polls in the upcoming week for new outfits. I'll post a sneak peek or two in Discord, probably later today.

I hope you enjoyed this little showcase.

Thank you very much for your support, and I wish you a brightly lit week!