Dev Diary, April 22nd, 2022 (Patreon)

This time I thought I'd give you a little insight into developing Leap of Faith as opposed to the usual 'I did this many renders'-update.

I've mentioned many times before that I try to set up huge scenes so the characters (and story) can progress nicely through them. So when you see the render numbers for last week it's not me just having put two people in a pre-bought scene and them having a conversation.

For this scene, I needed something by the sea, with a full house asset that I could move freely in.

And while this doesn't look too good, here's the render version which is an improvement.

The whole point was to move the characters and the story from the entrance of the building in the back, through the house, onto the end of the pier. and finally into the sea. Which meant, I didn't need any big wide shots like this and could get away without adding too much vegetation.

Here's an example.

Say hi Steph.
Steph: Hi Steph.

I made a new entance on the backside of the house, added a new water surface, some props here and there, the pier was added, and there's a whole underwater scene with a volumetric cube to make the underwater portion seem more "dirty" and real - as you will be diving in. It's barely visible from the wide camera angle above.

As this scene ends and you move down the beach, I needed more wide shots and to feel it's still the same beach, I started with the same ground asset as above for continuity and added several elements to it.

Again, the texture version doesn't look too good. Here's the render version.

As this is an outside scene, I needed to move freely around, so I added a lot of more in, outside light - as it's night by now, a new beach asset as we need closeups, a new reflective water surface that works better at night, and again a new location behind the camera.

In the end, this is one of the final shots.

So basically, that's a walkthrough for one major scene from start to end, resulting in about 250 renders and 12 animations, which takes several weeks of work.

And that's a bit of an insight to my workflow, and how I go about things. And I love doing these scenes. They are a lot more work, but as I move through them it gives me the option to add just about anything. I mean, you can put a $5 bill on the ground, and you never know how much it'll impact the story in the end.

Take care, have a nice weekend, and stay safe out there.

// Drifty