Resident Post: GET DAZ3D ON THE PHONE!
Added 2025-03-05 18:06:07 +0000 UTC
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I'm gonna go on a wee bit of a rant here so skip ahead to "Pathing in game" if you don't wanna hear me moan about technical woes xD
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A Plea to Daz3d:
I noticed some weeks ago that my rig was really struggling on overnight render batches. It was frequently crashing and just slinging out blank images. This can happen if your GPU runs out of VRAM but the scenes it was attempting to render were small enough that this wouldn't have been a concern even a few months ago.
I read that graphics cards can become worn down through exposure to heat and given the fact that my graphics card has really been limit-tested for several years, rarely getting a break, I figured the poor thing was probably ready for retirement.
Timing was good since Nvidia have just recently launched their new 50xx series so I went ahead and purchased one. It arrived and I hurriedly slotted the beast in, installed the latest drivers and opened Daz3d to awe at the new speeds. However I quickly realized that there was a problem. Iray wasn't functioning. At all.
A quick scout online and I found some knowledgeable folks both on the Daz forums and on Reddit who were chatting about how Daz3d does not support a newer language (C##?) and therefore does not support this new Nvidia technology. Apparently we're awaiting Daz version 5.x.x.x for this update which was first advertised in 2012 (yes, 2012..) and then mentioned again by Daz staff in 2021 but now we're in 2025 and it still has no eta.
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I did download a program called Iray Server which lets you basically take a sort of snap shot of the image you're trying to render from Daz and then render it independently of Daz itself but sadly, it wasn't functional either. It was rendering with CPU alone (which is unbelievably slow and unreliable), completely bypassing or perhaps not recognizing the GPU and with such little information on this particular software online; after a day of failed attempts, I reinstalled my old card again.
The old one still works, at least in a weakened state but this whole debacle has slowed my progress this week and I have a long backlog of CGs to render. Every day I wake to my output folder just full of blank images which is very disheartening.
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I will eventually get to the end of the backlog but I, of course am still adding to this list everyday so it's getting bigger, not shorter lol ^_^
This is a miserly post thus far, I'm just feeling a little frustrated and both wanted to vent a bit and also just let you guys know what's going on behind the scenes.
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Pathing in Game:
Alright, let's talk about the game now.. ^_^!
A new player sent me a message a couple of days ago and mentioned a very real frustration in the game and it's pathing.
RPGM has different ways of initiating events and for the purposes of this discussion I'm just gonna outline two:
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Action events - These events will only trigger when the player is standing on or facing an event then presses the action key
Examples in Lisa: Lisa's Bed / Signposts / Recollection Room Replays
Touch events - These events trigger when the player touches the event itself without the requirement of pressing any keys
Examples in Lisa: Doors / Harassment events
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The reason I'm outlining this is because RPGM games can be a chore to navigate and I don't mean they can be confusing (which they certainly can) but instead; if the pathing for the player character is disrupted by poorly placed events or impassable terrain, it causes frustration. This kind of problem might seem mundane but over the course of a game as long as Lisa, it can really sour the experience.
When the user mentioned this to me, my brain immediately locked into one event in which I have bumped into dozens of times in testing (shown below)
If you're pathing Lisa up toward Rubbins, Brava or the RLD entrance from the train station in Renshire Center then this thing catches you.
In 3.2 this will be fixed. The first time you bump into that event it will autoplay (it's a touch event on first trigger) but subsequent interactions will require the player to action it themselves (second time and on; the event is now an action event).It's rude to stare.. :D
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Now, I'm requesting that if there's other events in the game that irk you based on your natural pathing around the maps, let me know what they are. Also if there's an area you think could be more "streamlined" or made easier to get from A>B also let me know.
I know a lot of players would probably like a fast travel from Lisa's room to Renshire or something but because of how I structure and build events, it's often necessary for Lisa to go downstairs at home and such. It's part of this more immersive nature that I've tried to build in having events play off on another giving player control in between, I could certainly do a better job of it but I do try at least lol! Anything outside fast travel that skips entire maps, it's fair game so let me know! ^_^
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Train CGs:
The train CGs have been in the game since day 1 so they're extremely played out at this point. This patch will bring a little more variety into the mix. The new train + bus Exhib events are activated without player input, they instead have hidden requirements that you'll see just by playing through 3.2's content. When the train events are viewed, this will actually unlock new travel CGs and mini events. This is fun but not 100s of times so I'll also be adding the ability to skip all CGs for train travel as well so you can turn it on and off as you please, this should also add a little more to this "streamlined" feeling of the game I talked about a second ago.
New Set:
I've built a new set that's placed just in front of Lisa's house. This is for the new Construction Exhibitionist events. I teased this idea several years ago in a wallpaper but finally I'm actually using the assets in game!
Three strappin' fellas are working on the plot and Lisa can venture over to see what's going on.
The first event in which Lisa's catcalled by one of the guys has no requirements, you can view it as soon as you return from Jayce's Apartment.
The next event has an Exhibitionism requirement so you'll have to go expose Lisa a little before you can see it and so on and so forth. The game will assume you're doing this as you play more and that takes time so with each subsequent event there will be a bit more progress on the building itself as well as the limits of Lisa's desire.
I thought this would be a cool idea sort of hinting at the passage of time as Lisa develops her love of exposure.
The first of these events is finished but I don't have any images to share because renderer issues, I just rendered the one above as a showcase whilst I was writing this lol
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I did say that I was gonna make some sunbathing Exhib scenes but I'm gonna cancel that for now. The reason being that I'm gonna revamp the entirety of the beach in the either patch 3.4 or 3.5. In doing so, this will give players the option to have Lisa change into a bikini freely so you can walk around the beach and interact with people wearing said bikini and see some new events! This will also include revamping the sunbathing options there, I'll also be adding new additions to those and of course adding Exhibitionist content for the beach during that time as well.
I just think that this is all too big a time investment for now so I'll just do the beach and Theo's in one fell swoop in a later patch :)
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There are also some other developments in how Exhibitionism is actually structured but I think I'm gonna leave that until I have some screenshots of the events in RPGM to better illustrate everything (the short version is that there are two different types of Exhibitionist events now, "mini" and "scene"). I'm still a bit worried about making the actual event menus because I dunno if they'll work but I'll see when I get closer to CG completion ^_^
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But I'm done yapping for today! Phew!
Yes, this week was slow but generally I think the patch is looking really insane. It doesn't have that "big event" that every other patch has had, not yet anyway but Renshire's gonna look a whole lot more appealing to the RPGM fans in 3.2 :))
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Thanks so much for all of your support guys, I can't believe how many amazing messages I still get every week even in the sort of down time between patches. I love to hear from you all, always.
So thank you ^_^!!
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Sending my love to all of you <3 xx
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//pG
