Progress Report

Oh, hi! I didn't see you there.

Phew, I'm finally starting to see the results of my hard work now. I worked all throughout the weekend on posing just four animation loops, and I've been rendering all of them ever since. When I say "animation loops," I refer to the posing and the movements, not the final images. Each of these loops has two different camera angles. Some of these require multiple renders to deal with things like pubic hair (which may or may not be present, depending on player choice). As a result, those four loops actually end up having to be rendered 11 times. The number is relatively low due to careful camera positioning to minimize the pubic hair problem, but 11 animations are still a lot and take time to render. 

So far, 8 animations are done rendering, with the shaved versions remaining. I actually had some trouble with renders crashing, which I haven't seen happening for years. I usually do these renders overnight or while I'm off doing something else, so I lose one of those valuable opportunities if there is a crash. Still, I'm almost done, at least with the renders.

I'm about to start writing this scene, which is a smaller undertaking than the renders. So I don't expect any significant challenges here, though the opening to the scene is a little tricky. I'm going to use a couple of underhanded tricks to keep things simple, though.

So, where does this put the release date for this thing? I'd say it's close. The releases sometimes sneak up on me faster than expected. I would be surprised if I'm done before the next progress report, but after that? We'll see, won't we? 

A couple of minor details need to be added to wrap up the update once I'm done with this scene. First, by starting a relationship with Callie, some of your interactions with her must be updated to reflect this. Also, I need to expand her epilogue to deal with the new options. I also need to playtest as much as possible of her story to make sure everything still makes sense. Finally, I have to do the usual proofreading. All of this might sound like a lot, but I intentionally saved all the smaller tasks for last. I doubt even the epilogues will take long for me to add, though they will require a few new renders.

So that's the latest news. This update turned out to be a lot more work than I had expected, but that kind of thing happens from time to time. Game development is not an exact science. All I can do is continue chipping away at the game until it is complete at long last.

Until next time!