Book 1 update

I know I said I wasn't going to update Book 1 any more. I was wrong.

The work I did on single-'frame' looping animations for Book 2 made me realize how many of the sequences in Book 1 could 'relatively easily' be upgraded to be cooler. Experienced project managers will feel the icy cold hand of dread at such a statement, and they'd be right. But it's done, and with the testers.

The original idea was to just take some of the key moments that involved magic, and give it a bit of a boost. Emily's rescue, MC cutting loose, Bella and Katie, etc. But once I got started, I couldn't really stop. All in all there's 50+ new animations. Most of that's these little looping animations replace still images, and are done entirely in post effects. Sometimes I needed to re-render/re-pose the character, because the effects wouldn't work as it was (for example MC losing his cool during the homework with Emily).

While going through I also noticed things that just felt wrong; I've obviously (at least in my own mind) evolved as an artist and creator from Act I to Act IX, and some of the artistic decisions made by my 2 years ago predecessor appear dubious to my current incarnation (as will no doubt the decisions I make today appear to my future self). It's a mix of things.

I only really started doing animations end of Act III/beginning of Act IV, and the early content could do with some animations. I added those, and also re-rendered, color-tuned and re-framed a bunch of the early content (stuff like Chloe's day 1 bathroom scene, the Strip-MMA with Katie, and the poker night with Katie and Bella.

I also didn't really enforce an aspect ratio, and often relied on the faded background to provide a color wash. Nowhere does this look worse than in the poker night with Bella and Katie, which got re-rendered more or less  from scratch, but I also ended up re-framing a bunch of other scenes. Once I started with that I more or less continued, and so the final Steam update for this will likely be around 80% of the original 4.8GB currently on your HD.

I'm sure the testers will fine more stuff I've missed out on, but the bulk of the work is done, and I can return to Book 2 soon. If you're on steam, it's currently live on the Beta branch. If you're a patreon, and don't have a Steam key, just ping me here or PM me, and I'll get you one.

Hope you all enjoy the update.

Droid.