Straight!? Revamp v12 Before/After Teasers: Part 2

Hey all,

Today we're back to discuss the second set of Before/After Teasers for the upcoming v12 update. As always, I publish this a couple days earlier in the higher tier in a video slide show format and it's unedited and very much me unfiltered so if you're interested in an expanded version of this post, you can find that video log here. 

That being said, it's jump right into the discussion.

Today we're looking at 3 sets of Teasers that are pretty heavily Zack and Mikhail focused. This is the first half of Chapter 6 and a warning that the last two pictures in this set are NSFW.

Pic 1: This is from the original game and is our first look at Mikhail's dorm room. While this original image isn't terrible, the lighting is super bright and doesn't really feel much like a hallway. The main focus of this image is that I originally wanted to capture Mikhail's stance as he opened the door. Every time we interact with Mikhail, he's always been a very relaxed character and his stance is limber and he frequently just leans on things and sorta just chills. This shot captured that pretty good for my skill level at the time but I really wanted to update this shot. I'm way better than this now and there's so much of Mikhail's presence that can be felt through the way that his character leans on things. We usually see him in the water and I really wanted to carry that relaxation over from the water, to the doctor's office, and finally to his dorm room.

Pic 2: Here's our direct replacement we'll see in the Revamp. This shot has a much more human and relaxed feel to it. Essentially, I built the entire shot off of the shoulder placement for Mikhail's left arm. I really liked how he was holding onto the door in the original game but I wanted him to just be sorta draped all over that doorway. We also see a very misleading sexy look to him. While I go into depth on the video log, I really like how Mikhail's character is originally seen as a threat to the ship between Zack and Braden when Mikhail was never a threat at all. Many misjudge him and I wanted to lead those people on just a bit more. I also spent a little time having Mikhail's shorts sag a bit. I figure he's relaxed and in his own dorm room and many clothing models have all clothes worn perfectly-- sometimes giving the an almost robotic look. I wanted to skip that for this scene and just have things look a little more thrown together for some outfit diversity. I think all of that together helps make Mikhail's first appearance in the dorm much more organic and consistent for how we see him every day in the pool.

Pic 3: This third pic is from the original game and shows Mikhail's dorm room interior. The major problem with this image was lighting. Much like Pic 1, it's way too bright-- almost cartoony. When I went back and opened up the original file for this, I couldn't believe how many spotlights I had in this room. It looked like a fucking rock concert. While bright is ok for seeing things, I wanted to have this scene much darker-- think evening in Zack/Braden's room. Another massive problem with the original dorm is the window. If you didn't realize before, that big white square in the background is a window. The glass never worked, when it did work, it was showing weird shit in the background that I didn't know how to control. I just had a lot of problems with this back in the day because I was so new at this. So the solution was to essentially close that window in and paint over it. The result was supposed to kinda suggest that this was a mini-blind covering over the window-- which is complete bullshit. It was just lack of ability on my part at the time. The last point to make here is that I wanted to continue with the relaxed Mikhail look. In this pic, Mikhail is sorta leaned back in the chair but he's super rigid and he's not touching the back of the chair completely. So the dorm room needed a lot of work.

Pic 4: Here's our updated Dorm look. While this picture isn't a direct replacement, it should give you some idea of where things are going and it gives us a chance to hit on some of the changes. First, you're going to see a couple ambient lights in the room. Combining the ambient lights with the Depth-of-Field really helps fill things out a bit depth-wise as well as show that people actually live here. The fact that a desk light is on in the background on the side that doesn't belong to Mikhail also is a pretty early hint that he has a roommate-- which is just fun once you learn his roommate's personality a bit better. Second, Mikhail's position in the chair is much more relaxed and consistent. He's not clipping in the chair and his demeanor just overall looks better. Third, the room is darker because it's evening. We're used to seeing the other rooms darker and night so even with lights on in the room, it made more sense to make it darker in here. Last, the friggen window y'all. So in the Revamp, the Window has darkened scenery outside but in certain angles (like the one above) we'll see reflections. Just adds more realism to the room. Now, I was worried about this scene being too dark. However, rendering these shots at 4K like you see above helps with the details a bit and I don't think they look bad. The dark sorta adds some mystery and seriousness to this long conversation scene.

Pic 5: So this first pic is from the notorious shower scene with Mikhail and Mom-Fucker. While the position here was ok, it still looked a bit rigid. The other obvious point here is the same argument we've talked about dozens of times: inconsistent shower lighting. Let's just jump to the Revamp image so we can talk about the improvements here because this scene pops now.

Pic 6: Here's an idea of the angle we're going to be going in the Revamp. Obvious lighting changes. That overhead shower spotlight is gonna kinda move and dance with the camera a bit here just to help show off the wet skin as well as body curves and stuff. We also have wet hair now on Mom-Fucker-- which is a massive improvement for this scene. And also... this scene is way more slutty than it was before. My head-canon tells me this is almost like make-up sex with these guys so there's a lot of feelings and passion going on here and I really wanted to show that. I also went into a lot of detail in the video log about writing smut. That shit is fucking hard and I didn't even think it would be. But the writing in this scene got a bit of an upgrade (I was kinda going for a poetic smut kinda feel if that can actually be a thing) and I'm going to cross my fingers that it's not cringey. Also, don't worry-- we'll be seeing the animation that appeared in the original game. Took a few days to render but that fucker clocked in at 430 frames and is now 60fps rather than 30fps (plus the upgraded lighting and it's a bit closer now). Looks good so I hope you enjoy that.

I'm still working on the images for this update. I still have one more full scene to do as well as some missing images from the Mikhail/Mom-Fucker scene aaaaand I have no idea what I'm going to do with the Chapter 6 intro yet (which is pretty normal, lol).

Stay tuned. I'm sure it'll surprise all of us :p

Luv ya guys. Thanks as always.

-Aaryn