DOAHDM Blog, 2/26/24 (Patreon)

Hello! It's been a while since I've posted. I'd like to talk about what I've been planning, what you should expect, what kind of obstacles I hope to overcome with Gravure Studio.

New Motions

Naturally, new motions are a given with every new update, however I'm running up against an inevitable problem that's very close to rearing it's ugly head. You may have noticed it too: we're running out of keys. Gravure Studio uses Autolink, a mod framework developed by FallingCat for DOA5 which allows the private paradise motion data to be hotswapped in the movies menu. Without an accompanying UI, Autolink utilizes hotkeys to select the motion, the obvious weakness is that you as a user have to memorize the hotkeys or just pick motions at random. Thanks to Grusigast generous efforts, he's created an overlay for Gravure Studio which allows users an actual interface to select motions, along with a far more convenient delivery method of enabling the soft engine specs I've tuned. However the problem still stands with regard to hotkeys. With FallingCat out of the picture, and the overlay as it stands still using Autolink as a backend for selecting motions, we've yet to divorce ourselves from hotkeys, and as a result we're still in danger of running out.

Moving to a fully unlimited motion count with a UI selection overlay would grant us a lot of latitude. Lots of people are annoyed that pose card motions are jammed together in a reel format, however this is a necessary evil so that the hundreds of poses in Gravure Studio don't eat up all the hotkeys. Without the hotkeys, You could easily select whatever pose you want, even choosing the stage! Fun right? I hope to find a solution to this problem even if it means digging through memory in cheat engine myself. 

New Costumes

Just like motions, costumes are a given! You can never have too many! Just like motions however, I'm always looking to add more general features. I've wanted to modularize the costumes so that you can customize them more. Unfortunately, DOA5 uses a pretty stupid system for models and textures. A more organized system would Valve's Source engine, which organizes all textures and meshes separately in their own directories and calls them as needed. An example of how a system like that would benefit DOA5 is that I wouldn't need dozens of duplicate copies of the same skin texture bloating the mod archive. Every single costume is self-contained, so every time I make a new costume, a duplicate of that skin texture must be stored. That's part of why Gravure Studio as a mod compresses so well into a 7z archive. The amount of data redundancy makes it incredibly easy to compress down by a factor of almost 10.

Similarly, a more modularized system would let me add accessories and stuff without incurring a massive amount of extra data onto every single TMC file. Something like wristbands, shoes etc would be nice to be able to just tack on right? Unfortunately do to the sloppy data management in DOA5, a workaround solution would have to be engineered, which guides us into our next topic.

Multiple Character Scenes 

This has been something I've wanted for such a long time, and something I've haven't been able to make a reality in a convenient way. I have multiple scenes already made for multiple characters waiting to be implemented, but the only way to view them in-game is to load up a tag match, choose the characters you want to view together, win the match, and then watch the replaced victory scene in 30 fps. Needless to say this is not a practical method of delivery!

Multiple character scenes would not just be beneficial for, well, having multiple characters. They could also function in single character scenes by enabling the aforementioned costume modularization! You could simply overlap mesh groups of different model files to customize the character a bit more without bloating every single costume data file! Pretty cool idea for a workaround huh? I just need to find a workaround idea... for my workaround idea! These are the kinds of things I worry about!

Possible Graphical Rework

I've alluded to this previously, but I've wanted to try Nvidia's software suite utilizing RTX tensor cores for remastering a lot of the assets in DOA5. Unfortunately, at the current moment, I don't own an RTX graphics card! My computer has been in need of an upgrade for some time, but I've put it off continuously. I don't want to pressure anyone, but let's just say that anything you're willing to donate will help!

The RTX remix software suite uses a variety of AI assisted creation tools to build higher quality textures, generate specular and displacement maps, add detail to meshes and render the game in it's own render pipeline to support more high quality lighting effects like ambient occlusion, global illumination, contact shadows, etc., without using costly post processing injection techniques that bloat the performance cost unnecessarily. 

With all that said, this might not pan out. RTX Remix may or may not have compatibility with DOA5's strange proprietary in-house engine. RTX Remix may unnecessarily restrict people from using Gravure Studio if, for whatever reason, it requires an RTX card: something that would gatekeep even ME from playing it at the current moment! However, it's something I've been thinking about for a while.

Zack Island Gold Requests

Just for the record... I know that I've been slacking on these. I have been keeping track regardless, but in the event that I forgot, you want to change your request, or if you just haven't made one yet, you can make it by Patreon DM, Discord DM, the Discord VIP channel, anywhere I can hear you. 

No Images in this post

The trust and safety gestapo will force me to private this post if I put images that're too sexy in it, so this is text only. Sorry!