Straight!? Revamp v13 Before/After: Teasers 2 (Patreon)

Yoooo,

And we're back for another Before/After look at the upcoming v13. Today we got 4 teasers that we'll be going through.

As always, if you're interested in a more in-depth discussion about these teasers, the video version is almost an hour long with a lot more expanded content. Also, in contrast to my normal anonymous discussions, the video has a rare personal story about this scene that plays into the most intimate easter egg I've ever dropped in this story that deals specifically with the bar decorations. So if you're interested in all that behind-the-scenes nonsense, you can find it here.

This entire post will focus on the bar, which I spent some pretty significant time over the course of a few weeks redoing the lightning and just really trying to plan this whole scene out. The idea here was to take the original bar scene that was overly bright and darken it down and make it more intimate. Because of the gravity of this scene and the discussions, I wanted something with contrast. We'll get into that later but for now, let's jump in and look at the first old pic from the original game.

Pic 1: This first pic is the original entry shot. Lot of problems here that I really wanted to completely remove. First, it's insanely bright: both inside and outside. This entire scene happens at night so it didn't make a lot of sense to walk into this bar that had lights everywhere in addition to the outside being bright as fuck. Those windows in the background there aren't transparent and all they're doing is pushing in unwanted light. That's a problem and it really cuts down on the depth of the scene. This shot is also pretty grainy and noisy too-- especially Zack and Braden.

Pic 2: Here's our first look at the direct replacement for the entry shot. In the Revamp, those glass windows are transparent... ya know... like a friggen window. We can now see the outside street which should help with continuity. While i talk about depth of field a lot in these shots, showing the inside and the outside together gives the entire world more depth. We'll be seeing more of that later, too. You can also get a sense for how much darker things will be. They won't be dark dark but it'll definitely have more of a nighttime,/dark bar feeling to it. All of this will play into a metaphor that I'll talk about later.

Pic 3: This is an alternate shot of the bar interior. This shot again shows how bright the original was and the shadows are very soft-- almost to a point of nonexistence. The bar is also completely empty-- like completely. There's no patrons here and the walls are completely empty. While i won't go into spoilers here, the back of the bar also has no door-- which comes into play in Chapter 10 for those that have played the full original game.

Pic 4: Here's a direct replacement from the Revamp. In this shot we can again see how much darker things are without being too dark. The bar overhead lights are now a bit more consistent and add much more interesting shadows to the room. We have one sole patron here in the bar. I didn't want a crowd since the narrative has stated this place is usually pretty empty but i think just having one person in there helps check a box. The walls also now have sporadic decorations on them. These are sorta randomly placed around the room, some of which are off-center and just kinda thrown around. I didn't want something insanely organized. In my head canon, i couldn't imagine Mike being a guy that was good at decorating so i just pictured him walking in here and randomly hanging shit on the wall without any real eye or skill for it. There is a major personal easter egg in this shot that's discussion in-depth in the video version of this discussion but i wont be actively mentioning it elsewhere. It's much more of a personal touch on this scene and I don't normally like being the spotlight so i've elected to keep that stuff in the higher tier so it doesn't pull too much attention onto me or take away from the story. 

Pic 5: Here's a perspective shot of Zack at the table from the original . While i still like Zack's presentation here, the lighting is still super bright and the pic is too high. The idea here was to retain Zack's sorta pathetic demeanor during the bar talk and expand on that in the Revamp.

Pic 6: Here's an example of Zack's angle in the Revamp. Much darker and we'll be seeing more realistic facial expressions. Zack will also fidget more in this chair and move around into more poses like sitting up all the way or dropping his face onto the table. The darkness here was important to me and became a metaphor. While traditionally when we talk about sexuality, there's always that "closet" analogy but here I wanted to sorta replace that with shadows. During the conversation Zack is very much draped in shadows, his eyes sorta come in and out of the shadows while he talks and I really wanted him partially "hidden" in the darkness to some degree as a metaphor for his hidden self.

Pic 7: This is the original Braden table perspective. In this shot we get a really good angle to see how empty this bar wall is. It seems to be extra long and go on forever. Unfortunately, it ends at those super bright white windows again. The whole thing is just weird. I was talking with someone the other day about this scene and they stated they never noticed how empty the bar was and stated that the narrative sorta carried this scene. While I appreciate that, hopefully, the visuals will pull the reader into this scene more than the original along with the narrative. Braden's poses were also very boring, rigid, and his face with kinda hollow and unexpressive.

Pic 8: Here's our Braden replacement. We'll actually see a few angles of Braden but this shot gave me some things to talk about. First, the walls are decorated now-- not distractingly so-- but a little bit to add some aesthetics. The background windows are transparent and we can still see across the street like we could when they walked inside. The light on Braden's side is also very different. It's much brighter here. I elected to go with a bit more bloom than normal because I noticed when I was sitting in a darkened bar setting, some of the lights could indeed be blinding at the right angle. In this shot, it sits right over Braden's head. Giving us a very different metaphorical light and dark on either sides of the table. In the video devlog i went into an expanded explanation of this shot because I had to pose for this one to show Braden sarcastically pushing a glass across the table at Zack. Again-- more dynamic poses rather than just having two dudes sit in chairs and open and close their mouths. The last thing as it pertains to this shot is another metaphor. This point of view is lower because it's from Zack's perspective as he lies there with his head on the table. But the important part here is that while Braden has traditionally been shorter than Zack, this shot (in addition to this scene) makes him look much larger and he sorta towers over Zack's uncomfortable posing. I very much wanted Braden to look stronger in these scene using both light and camera angles.

That's it for today. Next teasers will probably be the park shots and they're incredible. Hope you enjoy the changes on the bar. I tried to put a lot of thought into these and give them more depth both visually and metaphorically than we saw in the original. I'm excited so far, folks. I think this update is actually going to hit my expectations <3

stay tuned. I'm gonna drop a devlog shortly. I've been working my tail off so I have good news coming soon :)