badtimetales

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Mugshot barbie style.

It's a very late weekend update

Sorry for the late post, 

I decided to redo a scene and add another scene to the update.
So the last few days have been very busy and I've also come down with a flu/cold :(
Nothing serious, just feeling like I'm drunk all day since Friday and a bit of shiver.

I still have to do a short transition between the new scene, the end scene and the "special" animations.  Adding the music/sfx will take another day :(
I hope to give you a release date next week.

Thanks for your support,
have a good start into the new week.

BTT

Weekend Update

Hello everyone.

I'm a bit late again, but after my shoulder got better I've been really busy.

As mentioned before, I have been going through the new scenes, polishing the renders, adding a few more and last but not least finishing the dinner scene. 

That means I'm now at 623 renders and a few "normal" animations, so the final number should be over 700+. 

There's still a longer scene between Isa and the MC to finish, followed by a scene with Alex, but that should be done in a few days. 

Plus some "special scenes" with animations ;)

As long as I don't decide to add some content, that should be it. 

Have a nice Sunday and a good start into the new week,
Thanks for your support,

BTT

A dev's life - lost count

I'm a bit handicapped this week as I've got a shoulder inflammation out of nowhere.
(Yes, it's getting better thanks to some medication). 

So I did a playthrough/polishing of the newly created scenes.
Apart from the pokethroughs in the above scene, the whole setup is just wrong.
So I ended up redoing it. The whole scene.

It's funny, there are days/weeks when the scene looks exactly the way I want it.
And there are times (the original version was rendered two weeks ago) when you look at the results and think "what have you done?
Selective creative days/weeks? I have no idea ;)

Anyway,

Thanks for your support,

BTT

Late Weekend Update

Sorry for the late update, I've been struggling with this scene for a few days.
Big environment, different cam angles, low light. Not really fun to setup up and render.

After the club scene in chapter one, I said to myself "no more low light scenes".
That didn't age well ;) 

Well, it's done, more or less. There's just one more branching to set up and render, but it'll be a lot shorter than the one I just finished. 

There are still two scenes to finish for this update, but they are much easier than the last one. Well, and the "special scenes". 

All in all, I'm on time ;)

Thanks for your support,
have a nice weekend and if you like Annou, look forward for a MM ;)
(I needed a pinup for the story that turned out into two special renders)

BTT

A dev's life

Hey. 

The poll on the Christmas special is pretty clear.
Thanks for that and your trust in my work.

It was the poll with the highest participation ever, thanks for that too ;) 

The small PV system has generated half a MW since I installed it.
Not as much as I expected, but the investment will pay for itself in 2.5-3 years.
Thanks for your support, 

BTT

Time flies

Hey everybody,

Time for the weekend update.

I finished a bigger scene and started working on the next one.
This one will be a bit tricky to render because it's a night scene (which is always tricky to render) and it's really VRAM heavy. 

That's more or less all for today, if you didn't see it in the poll, the release for C. 4.2 will be next month.

Have a nice weekend, 

BTT

A dev's life

So much to learn, so little time. 

In the picture (it's an animation) the jet ski tracks are painted dynamically as the jets move.
Not a big deal, but if you have never used dynamic painting before, it will take you an hour or two to get it looking good. 

But I had fun doing it and I learned another Blender feature ;)
Daz is killing me with special offers, I spent a few hundred dollars in the last 2 weeks.
At least my wishlist is down to under 500 entries now.

4090 prices are stable.
With the side project my 3090TI is rendering 20 hours a day, a 4090 would be nice, but not at these prices.

On the PV side, I've saved almost half a MW or $190 since March.
Not as much as I predicted, but the last two months have been really bad.
As I've ordered new panels (440Wp glass/glass instead of 375Wp) the ROI will be a few months later, but still in the first two or three years. 

Have a good week, 

Thanks for your support,

Weekend Update ;)

Isa: "Don't mess with me!"

Hello everyone! 

Well, it's Friday and you know what that means.

Had to redo a few renders from this scene, but all done.
A lot of the work over the last few weeks has gone into throwing the text I have so far into deepl write, so the proofreaders have less work to do, and polishing the renders.
Polishing means poke through hunting, adding renders to make the flow feel better or changing the lights.

I usually do this when the update is done, or even when it's out for review, but since it takes longer with each release (because of the length), I decided to do it now.
I needed a distraction from setting up new scenes anyway.

The little side project is coming along nicely, a few hours a week when the PC is busy anyway. And while I'm setting up these scenes I'm learning a few Blender tricks ;) 

Have a good weekend and thanks for your support!

BTT

Shout-out: Le Français - BreaktheBar

Long time supporter, proofreader/translator, idea giver and one of the biggest critics, ThL, asked me to create a character and do a few renders for a story he commissioned to be written by the great BreaktheBar.

You can read the first chapter of ThL's story here, but believe me it gets much more better.

"A Canadian police officer working her case to bring down a mysterious mob boss, AKA Le Français, finds herself seeking help from a former person of interest, also a Frenchman. But nothing comes for free in this world..."

There are three girls in the story, Sinead, her cute asian friend cop and a high class call girl.
I enjoyed the story so far, ThL had some great ideas for the story and BreaktheBar did a really good job on the writing.

BtB is doing a couple of other commissioned stories that sound very interesting, so if you need something to read, check his Patreon https://www.patreon.com/breakthebar

BTT

It's weekend - surprise ;)

Hey there!

I don't have much to report, it's been business as usual.
Rendering, writing, re-rendering a whole scene because I wasn't happy with the lighting. 

I added a scene this week, which took a bit longer because renders in this setup really take some time to render. 

And the above Val scene was too good not to use it for an MM, so look forward to Sunday if you like Val ;)

Ah, well... I might be working on a small *cough* project. ;)

Thanks for your support, have a nice weekend! 

BTT

Nice progress ;)

Hi ;) 

270 renders in total and 2 animations until now.
That's about 33% of what I have planned for the 4.2 update as a rough estimate (without the "special" scenes)

The current scenes are only story progression and character/bonding building, as will be the case for the entire 4.2 update. 

I've also decided that there will be no advent calendar this year.
Let me surprise you ;) 

Have a nice weekend and thank you for your support!

BTT

Weekend Update

Happy Saturday! 

Thanks for the feedback on the favorite feature/gallery.
48% like or use it, that's much more than I expected.

I don't have much to say about the progress, setting up the scenes (which took longer than usual due to many characters and a large environment), rendering them and writing the text, so business as usual. 

I have been playing around with Blender and I think I have solved some of my problems with it.
This means that soft bodies in animations should be much easier now, but we will see when I try a real scene and not just a proof of concept.

I'll be uploading some renders tomorrow or Monday that were suggested on Discord a few weeks ago.

Have a nice weekend and thanks for your support,

BTT

PS: Alex "*arrrgh* Zeus!"

Weekend Update

Hey. ;)

Like every weekend, here is the update.
Not much to report anyway, posing, rendering, writing, planning. Like always.

The girls are getting closer, as you can see. ;)

Render count is up to 178 pictures, with 21 more posed (but no lighting yet).
I don't have a fixed/planned number of renders, as I often add renders to a scene  to make it feel more natural in the last play through.
But I'm happy with the progress. 

I've added a poll for those who have played the update, regarding the favorites function and gallery. 

Have a nice weekend and thanks for your support,

BTT

Weekend Update

Hello everyone,
a late weekend update, sorry, I was busy the last days. 

I don't have anything breathtaking to report anyway, the first scene is rendered and written, the first animation is finished. 

Thanks for the feedback in the rework poll, I'm glad you like the changes! 

Thanks for your support, have a nice Sunday and a good start into the new week!

BTT

Chapter 4.1 public release

Reworked Chapter 1-3

- cleaned up the script
- new and re-rendered animations
- minor text changes
- improved render postwork 

Update 4.1 

-  840+ renders
- 1600+ lines of text
- new favorites gallery/function
- Story progression 

PC
Mega - Mediafire - Pixeldrain

MAC
Mega - Mediafire - Pixeldrain 

Android
Mega - Mediafire - Pixeldrain

Feedback would be great ;)

BTT

A dev's life - What makes a good render?

I've learnt a few things in the three years I've been working with Daz.

There are different aspects that make a render look good, like posing, lighting, cam settings.
All those fancy things you can learn from thousands of YouTube videos.

When you're doing a specific render, you have time to fine-tune all these technical things, but when you're doing a story with a lot of renders, you can't spend hours setting up a scene.
You have to compromise, especially when it comes to details and lighting.
Because once you have the perfect lighting for a scene, you move the character a tiny bit... and you have to adjust the lighting. All over again.

So what makes a good render in mass production?

Set up the scene with general lighting, some spot lighting to highlight the character or whatever you want to show in the scene.
The so-called "three point lighting" is a good start, add more lights if you feel the scene needs more.
It doesn't matter if it's point lights or spot lights, but I prefer spot lights.
You can easily adjust these lights for different character poses in a few minutes.

But it's still not a good render.
Whether it's a special render or a series, the most important thing is to show the situation.
Give the character an expression that fits the situation or discussion!
Unfortunately, a lot of Daz expressions are only made for the base models and look really bad on custom characters.
So you have to tweak them or create your own.
This can be frustrating and time consuming, but the results are worth it.

It does take some time to learn how to do this, but once you've set up a few hundred or thousand scenes, it's standard procedure and only takes a few minutes.

Weekend Update

Hello everyone ;)

It's the weekend update as usual.
Two girls, a dog and a sports car.
Should I be worried, especially with Alex driving.

Since I had to take a few days off from development because I got really stressed and had to do some RL work, I've only been back to work on Isa for 2.5 days.

But these days were really productive, the first 40 renders are done.

I would like to thank my supporters for the feedback (don't hesitate to drop me a DM, or contact me at Discord) and welcome new supporters, thanks a lot!

Have a nice weekend,

BTT

It's the weekend update.

Hello everyone ;) 

I don't have much to tell you because I've been busy with RL all week. 

That was the reason for last weekend's release, I knew I wouldn't have time to work on Isa and I wanted to get it out. 

You really had enough patience, and on the development side, with every playthrough I saw something where I thought "you can do this better".
I had to find an end to the rework/update. 

The bugs (now fixed with C4.1b) came from me rushing it. 

They're not story or game-killing, but I'll make sure they don't happen again. 

Sorry.

After working so long on the rework, I wasn't sure about it, the same with chapter 4.1.
But after the final playthrough I liked them both, otherwise I wouldn't have released them.
The feedback, at least the few messages and chats I had, was very good. Thank you guys! 

I'll get back to work mid to late next week and, as I said, plan to return to the "normal" release cycle. 

Have a nice weekend, thanks for your support and a welcome to new and recurring supporters.

BTT

Release Fan Tier

Downloads are open for Fan Tier,

I hope you enjoy the rework and update!

https://www.patreon.com/posts/release-4-1-tier-86530232

Thanks for your support, 

BTT

Done!

Chapter 4.1, including the rework, is online for the Lover+ tier with 840+ renders, 1600+ lines of text and 10700+ words.
The update is mainly about relationship and story building.

As I changed a lot of the script, a new start is mandatory, but I hope the new animations will make up for it.

For now, I need a few days without Daz, Blender and the ladies.
I plan to return to the "normal" release cycle for chapters 4.2 and 4.3.

A big thanks to Moonlight for coding and beta testing, Impious Monk for proofreading and poke-through hunting and Jufot for proofreading.

Have a nice Sunday, 

BTT

It's THE weekend update.

Chapter 4.1 has been sent to proofreading. 

After editing countless renders in chapters one to three, correcting spelling mistakes, adding animations and so on and finishing the update, it's finally done. 

The update has more than 840 renders, most of which are story based.
I had to tie up some loose ends ;) 

The file size (rework and update) blew up to about 900MB, which makes it the biggest single update ever, even without the rework. 

Thanks for your support, next time you'll hear from me with the download links ;)

BTT

A dev's life - "Betriebsblind"

We have a word for when you can't see the problems because you deal with them every day.

It's called "Betriebsblind", "operational blindness".  The 1:1 translation doesn't make any sense, but basically it means "when you work on a project for too long you don't see the problems anymore".

I've played through chapters 1-3 10+ times in the last few months, and just yesterday I played through for 10+ hours. And there are still things I haven't seen.
Frustrating.
And I guess even with a one week absensce from the game it wouldn't be better.

Luckily I have some help with that ;) Thanks guys, you are awsome!

Anyway, I've been playing through the update the whole day, fixing this, editing that. Doing some fill-in renders and so on.

I still need to do some post-production work on the renders and the animation, add some music and SFX.

I'm not calling this a release announcement, because the proofreaders need some time too.
But... I'm more than happy where I am at the moment.

It took a lot longer than originally planned, but I'm happy with the result. And I'm curious to hear what you will say.

Thanks for your support, next post will be a release announcement.

BTT

Weekend Update

Yep, sometime I can deliver it at the weekend actually :P 

I've been working on the last animation and the end scene the last days.
I might have overdone it with the animation though *caugh*
Did I mention that I hate branching? ;)

I need to do another playthrough of the update to check everything, then it will go out to the proofreaders. 

I hope to get the Patreon version out by the end of next week, it depends on the proofreaders and the Android porter. And me ... if I find something I don't like in the update. But as I've played it a few times it should be good. 

Rough estimates for the update are 780+ pictures and 45-90 minutes playtime. 

Thanks for your support and have a great weekend! 

BTT

Weekend Update

Hi there! ;) 

I've played through Chapter 4.1 two times (and one time more from the beginning, hopefully that's the last time I have to do that), added a few dozen renders to make it feel more natural, added one scene that was planned for 4.2 (because it does fit better in 4.1).

What's left is one time going over the code, adding more SFX/Music, one more playthrough.
And two animatioons, one rendering tonight  ;)
Which is a day for each, so there's a good chance that the update goes out for testing/proofreading in the next week.

Thanks for your support and have a good week!

BTT

I have missed the weekend update

Sorry about that, 

but I'm in a tunnel vision.
I really want to release the new version including the update, but on the other hand I want it to be perfect. 

The additional coding came back quiet quickly from Moonlight and he did a beta test for parts of chapters 1-3 too. Thanks Moon!

For the update I've re-rendered a few dozen images, added a few dozen more and finished another scene. 

I'll have to replay the update a few times, add music and SFX.
So still no timeline, as proofreaders and Android modders need some time too. 

But we are finally close to the release of chapter 4.1.

Thanks for your support,

BTT

Weekend Update

Hello everyone! 

It has been a busy week. 

The rework is out for a bit of extra coding and beta testing, there's still one animation missing for chapter 3.3, but that'll be done quickly. 

I haven't counted how many stills I've re-rendered or how many poke-throughs I've fixed in post, but the animations have grown by 560MB or 43 extra files.

I rewrote some of the text, polished up the gallery a bit and so on. 

While working on the update I did postwork on more than 500 images so far and rendered/wrote another scene. 

Two scenes are still missing, but they are small (except for some animations) and will be done in the next days. 

Thanks for your support, have a nice Sunday and a good start into the new week!

BTT

Weekend Update

Last play-through of the redo is done. Still re-rendering one animation.
Fixed some things, spit and polish.

Redo Version will go to beta testing the next days, moon will thankfully help me with some coding. Don't worry, I don't want such a crazy gui like he has ;) 

So next week it's finishing three small scenes for the update, postwork on (until now) 600+ renders, adding music and sfx. 

If you haven't seen it, monk  will do a Steam release.
You can whishlist LDNA here. Doesn't cost you anything and would help him a lot.

Have a great start into the new week, sorry no MM, too busy.

Thanks for your support.
BTT

Tired.

I'm incredibly tired.
Both, in real and with development.

I wake up after 8 hours, no matter what the previous day was like. I miss the days when I could just roll over. 

For game development, reworking to be exact.
I'm a week behind. 

Because when I play it there is this "hey, you could do this better".  Oops, a day's work. Again.

I'll finish the rework this week (yes, I've said that before) and while it's in beta testing finish the update.

No, I'm not close to a burnout, don't worry.
I turn on the PC every day and do what I have to do. What I want, sounds better.
But I can't say I have much fun the last weeks. 

The good thing is that after playing the whole game over and over again I saw some things/mistakes (story) nobody mentioned and my non-existent editor didn't pick up on.

I hope to give you more information with the weekend update! 

Thanks for your support 

BTT

Weekend Update

If you missed Alex's and Val's wallpapers on Discord, here they are.

Things are looking good for the rework/update.

I'm a few days behind, as I had planned to send out the rework last month, but I've made a few more changes. As soon as the rework is out for testing, I will finish the 3 missing scenes for the update. I'll keep you posted ;)

The final stats for the rework and the update will be announced when it's out for proofreading.

Have a nice weekend and thanks for your support!

BTT