I try not to do gloomy updates, but sometimes development is hard, and this week was one of those weeks.
I made the decision that the cinematic cutscene needed to be finished rather than dragging on and blocking other parts of the dev cycle, so I went all in. I completed all of the animation work this week. The cutscene itself is around two minutes long and honestly feels like something straight out of a movie. I showed it to a few fellow devs to get initial reactions, including Classy Lemon, and the feedback so far has been positive.
Now for the problem. Denoising low light animations is pure torture. Some sections need to be re-rendered either at much higher iterations or handled with a better post-processing solution. Enter my current spaghetti workflow and a new tool. I ordered DaVinci Resolve, and even though it is just a product key, it is apparently arriving in the post tomorrow. This will give me access to much better professional denoising tools. I will also be re-rendering the worst affected parts of the animation using the new multipass denoise settings. The goal is to push the quality to where it needs to be for release.
Speaking of release, once I finish the scene I am currently working on and the final lewd animation, I will be releasing what I have as Episode 3. This episode will not include date nights, but it will feature meaningful interactions, with a strong focus on Zoe’s storyline. Charlie and Akari will also appear as part of the setup for Episode 4.
This does mean I will be releasing more frequent updates before the Steam release later in the year. With the content I have ready, it feels unnecessary to make supporters wait for a massive update just to bundle date nights into this episode. This is not about cutting corners. I am working my ass off to deliver meaningful story content, and it feels unfair to hold back playable sections of the story when they are nearly ready.
(Dam this section needs some eye candy. Heres a render I did of Kaylee from Projekt Passion)
As for release dates, I am not sure just yet. The scene I am currently working on still has around 400 renders left to complete. On top of that, I still need to finish the music for the episode and handle the remaining polish once everything is in place. As soon as I have a clearer idea of timing, you will be the first to know.
What I can promise is that I will not cut corners. My goal is to deliver strong, meaningful parts of the story as frequently as humanly possible, rather than make people wait longer than necessary for content that is already close to being ready.
That is all for this week. I should probably get back to work before Mr Maya catches me slacking.
PS. I made this track recently, not sure if it will be featured in episode 3, but thematically it fits with the story (listen to the bridge).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOEWRUXXC5Y&feature=youtu.be
Peace out,
Bat