Straight!? Revamp v0.11 Before/After Teasers 2 (Patreon)

Heya,

So here's another teaser drop that I discussed in my recent video. In contrast to most Before/After pics, this batch of teasers really only focuses on one scene. While I have a few hundred pics completed for v11, a lot of those shots are more transitional shots, outfit changes, or things that we've scene before. Those pics do their job, they move the story forward but there weren't a lot of pics to actually show as a teaser. In the video I went into more detail but one of the things that made the early Before/After shots super fun to show off was that we got to see the old environment in a literal new light and new poses. After 10 updates, we've seen some of these locations multiple times so it's less about the environment and upgrade to the characters and moreso about how to capture more organic and living interactions between these guys.

So today we're focusing on the scene where Zack comes back to the room and Braden has gotten injured at wrestling practice. While these teasers only focus on one scene, I'm super excited to show them off because I think they upgrade a somewhat clunky execution of the original scene to an entirely new level. I'm just really happy with what I got here so far and this scene just feels way more realistic.

Pic 1: This early shot from the original game is how Zack walked in to discover Braden. There's a lot of boring problems with this shot; most of which is that we've already seen this exact shot before but Braden is just wearing a singlet this time. This demanded that the writing actually fill in all the emotional blanks that we can't see. In the writing portion, Zack discusses how something feels off and that Braden looks weird or hurt or messed up or something. But the point of a visual novel is to visually capture these things and this shot does nothing close to that. It's just Braden sitting on a bed pouting.

Pic 2: Revamp replacement. I'm really happy with these shots so far. In the Revamp, we're going to see a much more visually descriptive shot of Braden for Zack to walk in on. In this shot, Braden is visually collapsed on the bed, his shoes are scattered, and one leg is still dangling through his jeans. I really wanted something to look interrupted here because that's how the narrative displayed it. This shot does a much better job at portraying a character that is hurt and gave up trying to get undressed halfway through the process.

Pic 3: This is a sample from the original leg massage. In this scene, Zack is trying to work out whatever nonsense Braden has going on in his leg while Braden huffs and puffs and winces through ever narrative click. This shot suffers from the same thing this entire original scene did, visually things look pretty crappy because of the idea of what's going on is way better than what we're actually seeing. Thus, the writing part really had to carry this scene and I don't like that. This pic also shows how grainy the original characters were based on the poor lighting. The only thing I don't totally dislike about this picture is Braden's puffy little wince face-- that being said, I wanted to keep a facial expression here but this one was a bit too cartoony.

Pic 4: Here is the Revamp direct replacement. This entire scene has a much more realistic feel now. The camera will move to more interesting places rather than just hovering off a characters shoulder like we're watching the whole thing on a hacked security cam. The depth of field makes things feel more alive. In the Revamp, Braden will start out in a similar position to what we saw in Pic 2 and then slowly collapse onto the bed behind him. Braden collapsing and sorta spilling onto beds is a pretty consistent thing that he does throughout the game so it just really fits here. The angle of this shot is just more teasingly fun too. I think it does a good job capturing what Zack could possibly see while still hiding what he couldn't.

Pic 5: This last original shot is from the same scene where Zack is helping Braden peel the singlet off. I sorta went into a lot of detail in the video about the logistics of this but the short story is that singlet is hard to actually work with-- it clips a lot when you try and manipulate it like clothing. Honestly, it feels more like a hard candy shell than a soft piece of malleable fabric. This entire original scene is pretty boring from a camera shot perspective tho. Same shots we've seen a million times and the same angles.

Pic 6: Here's an example from the Revamp. In v11, we'll be seeing the camera focus more on 2 things: Braden's skin and Zack's reaction to it. In this scene, Zack is nervous because of how close he is to Braden and specifically how he's interacting with him by trying to peel this tight piece of clothing off. While the whole thing could be sorta sexy-- it's more a metaphor here and I want the camera to help convey that for people that want to look at this scene on a higher level. We still have all the normal eye candy but the camera depth-of-field does help force us to focus our eyes on what counts: Zack's face looking crazy while he rips this thing off Braden in a panic. Logistically, the Revamp is using closer shots as well, this allows me to hide sections of that stiff uncooperative 3D singlet that are clipping. So what we see on camera looks good but everything off camera is a complete disaster, lol.

That's all for today. Stay tuned. I'm gonna drop a text DevLog shortly to update. I've been slow on reporting because I was struggling to really quantify where I was at with this update. It turned out to be more work than I anticipated but it's going good and it looks good. Honestly, I can't wait to show you what I'm working on next :)

Luv,

Aaryn