Quick status update, lots of things is in-progress (Patreon)

Author: Salireths

Greetings! Apologies for being quiet lately, I've been dealing with a lot of projects and ideas, and I just didn't have time to sit down and write about all of them! But Night is almost over, Dawn is just below the horizon…

I also took a bit of a break, a much needed step back to take a look at my work from the distance. It definitely helps to re-examine what you're doing from time to time, especially after years of non-stop work which did not turn out as productive as hoped, involved burnouts and other not-so-good things. I needed to gain strength for the upcoming future, the future that I still have yet to craft with my own paws - and Dragons permit, with your help as well!

Then, with newly gained Zen, I spent a lot of time consolidating ideas on how to creatively move forward. You see, to be able to afford working on the game further in the current situation, I need to construct some additional (pylons) income. But I think I came up with a strategy how to approach it in a way that it will still benefit the game!

The Strategy

The key is to transmute my work process so it keeps delivering smaller, self-contained, delicious "chunks" which are both usable for the game project and valuable for people (and Patrons) immediately, even if it's outside of the game!

For example: if all characters that I make for the game are also made as Avatars for VR and available as models for making lewd animations/comics/pictures, It should give us all something we can enjoy immediately, as well as improve our ability to produce games now and in the future. After all, having a library of readily available assets never hurt anyone, and neither is additional income from some side-sales!

My strategy does not end on Avatars only (it's just the most obvious example), however I'm not ready to unveil all my plans just yet - they're still under heavy development. What I can say though is that I'm also hard at work at outlining the long-overdue updates to all of my public-relations places.

It's time for me to come out of the shadows and start making and posting juicy art again on the internet, so people don't forget about me. The subjects in that art will be within the game's shared universe, so it stays relevant to the main project. I also need to update my Patreon page and Discord sever, polish them for newcomers!

And if things go well, I might even be picking up YouTube again. While it doesn't allow lewd content, I think I still can make entertaining videos with censure; meanwhile, the full, uncensored videos can be released on Patreon! Some youtubers already do it this way - they just lose ad revenue; however, because I never monetized my channel to begin with, I fear no demonetizations! Plus I use strange words such as "interfacing" and "essence" - the algorithm will not suspect a thing!

The Current Progress

With all the planning going on right now I didn't have much time to finish anything to presentable levels, but I've also been working on a bunch of different things at once. Here is a short list of what I either was busy with recently or what I'm making now: 

I've spent some time learning Neos' LogiX scripting, and then made a lewd tailhole/orifice system. I have to say, it's quite a special feeling when you get to finger your friends!
<link to tweet video showing it off, sound warning>.

Being able to script things like that myself opens up a lot of new possibilities of showing off my work within this furry metaverse, accessible to everyone, not just the VR-blessed (it supports desktop mode). Long ago, I wanted to make a website with my own 3D model viewer (remember Visualisator?), but with Neos I don't have to do that anymore, cause it already exists! Perhaps I should move all my models there and make a museum of sorts...

I'm designing the map/location layout for the game and worldbuilding them. Thanks to my new friends, I got inspired and made an important decision - to situate the levels on the back of a giant Leviathan Dragon. 

The top layer of this world is a giant tree (and everything inside of it), middle being regular forests, soil and grass, lower one is full of rock, caves and crystals (maybe the scales of the Leviathan form a rocky carapace) and the deepest level is made of flesh and organs (a vore-lover's heaven).

Possibly there could be a the bottom level that will allow players to walk on the leviathan's belly, with his scales acting like gravity plating - can't wait to put a lot of my love into the area under his tail.

Now I'm working on writing main plot and planning player gameplay activities (e.g. quests). Overall idea is still to offer a livable world like before, not just a set of locations to blast through like in "proper" metroidvanias. But more about that soon!

I started consolidating (and writing more) all my world's lore into one place that will be accessible to everyone to read and browse my concept art - just like a wiki, but with special secrets available only to Patrons. 

I'll unveil it as soon as there is enough to read and browse through, but it will be an on-going project, as there is always more worldbuilding to do! 

I continued to model the anthro Dragon avatar - now with new design inspirations and customization options. 

However there are some more long-term technical challenges to overcome still because I want to make all avatars to be able to wear the same clothing and accessories in the future; also be usable in all VR platforms, as well as in Unreal Engine 5 for our games and just for the regular 3D art creation. Other than that, the model is near completion, and as you can see above, it's already properly tested in Neos VR.

Aside from some new system-related code, Hopfel rigged and produced some animations for the Kirin NPC creature that I modeled a while ago. Unreal Engine 5 is so much fun because it allows us animate right within the engine (I haven't touched that system still though).

This is going to be our first NPC ever, by the way! We'll be designing and testing combat gameplay with him soon.

Conclusion

Things are getting ready for me to start pushing some big and exciting updates, I just need a bit more time to prepare everything properly. It seems like I'm being spread thin right now with all those ideas, but the reason for that is because kind-of have to finish everything at once for what I have planned...

Lots of non-stop creative work is very draining, but thankfully I'm feeling well rested after the break I took, so I'm ready to resume my usual activity of moving mountains.

Thank you for reading!
With lots of Dragon Love,
       - Salireths.