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The new animations are...! (Patreon)

Published:
2022-01-09 14:25:35
Imported:
2022-05

Content

Since I've spend a lot of time this week rendering some new animations for The Shadow over Blackmore, it is time to talk about them in detail.

First of all...making animations in daz3d, my new render engine, is a lot more difficult than making them in Poser Pro, my old render engine. That is not only because they take longer to render, but because the engine has trouble pinning bones in place. For animations that is crucial. And because of the longer render time, if you make a mistake and have to re-render it, that takes a lot of time.

I guess that is why you see so many 3D Visual Novels having no animations at all. Which is a shame, because on the upside...the animations look stunning once you get it to work. It looks just awesome because of the detailed characters!

Because the new animations will be videos instead of repeating pictures I not only can use more pictures for the animations so that they look even smoother than in Femdom City for example, but it also should get rid of the memory leak that causes frequent crashes if you play the game for too long! It should be an awesome experience to play.

I have currently rendered 4 scenes...and I have noticed that I have done them in pretty much the same way as I do the scenes in Femdom City...only with more dialog.

And this is where I currently scratch my head a bit. As a dev you always want to get better and do better things than before, but on the other hand I think my animations are a huge part of my success. So if we just do better looking and smoother animations with some more dialog options but the rest is pretty much like the femdom city animations...is that enough?

I want your input here. Think about it for a while. If you would be the CEO and in charge of the new game The Shadow over Blackmore, what would you tell me? Is there something we can do to improve the animations even further? Am I missing something obvious? What would you tell me if you HAVE TO tell me something?

(Keep in mind that even though the pictures have a 3d look, they are still pictures. If you say something like "I want different clothing styles in animations" that is not possible unless I render every picture scene multiple times in different outfits)

Let me know!

As always, have a nice sunday and

stay kinky! :)


Files

Comments

Mabuse786

I think that the rendered images just look amazing. Also, in short, I think the break from your old style to the new one should be sufficient. As you wrote, it is a completely new style - no repeating still pictures but videos. I think this is sufficient for a first step. Leave some room for development :-) Big projects fail because they are too big, too much in not enough time. Smaller steps are better and succeed. At the end, we don't want to wait forever for the next game ... :-)

Darktoz
>>75321220

oh, just to clarify...it will still look similar even though it is a video and not repeating pictures. a video is pretty much repeating pictures :D

Francois Champagne

If I had to ask for something in the animation scene it would be to have more different angle in a scene. Like take for exemple in the church of kink scene to often the angle of the ''camera'' was static when we were whip or any other action. It would be nice that it more around way more. Hope it's clear what I mean.

Darktoz
>>75322657

i think you have to be a bit more detailed with what you mean. the animation itself can only be with a static camera because like i said they are pictures. do you mean more camera angles during the scene like when the mistress talks to the protagonist or there is a switch of action?

Francois Champagne
>>75322657

Yes more camera angles during scene and I would say that both during talk and switch of action would be good.

Anonymous

Hey. Is it possible to adjust muscle deformation for those character models? For example - when a person sits - butt and thighs squish over the surface. Same goes for calves when squatting. That aspect lacks in pretty much all of the game renders and would be great to have here. Although i'd imagine that's a 'bit' more work for the animator))

Darktoz
>>75335636

excellent question! most of the times this isn't possible, due to lack of collision morphs. however, making things like chairs and furniture "adjust" to the body is actually possible. so that it looks like the person really sits in the sofa. also for breasts there are specific morphs that "squeeze" them so that it really looks like they impact the surface. For solid surfaces like you see above this is a bit of a problem, although I found a morph pack for the butt... but for body parts like thighs for example there is no adequate solution

Supersimpleman

The dialogue during animations is key. If you compare some of the earlier f-city scenes without dialogue and newer ones with dialogue, it is like night and day. Good dialogue/dirty talk can bring a scene to a whole new level. and I think it should be one of the primary focuses of this new game. Verbal humiliation can be one of the most powerful tools in a femdom game imo.

RudyRoberts

Hmm, hat is a good request to your community. I will write you something more in detail tomorrow.

Darktoz
>>75358392

true. it is also super hard to nail the dirty talk when you are not a native speaker ;)

Joe Subramian

Agree with Mabuse786 here. Besides the humour in your stuff , which is great, it's the beautifully rendered characters that stand out for me in your stuff. And the Daz3d rendered images look great! I'm no CG artist, but I've played with Daz3d a lot, and have spent quite a bit of time transferring characters to/from iClone and Character creator. The bones in Daz3d are a nightmare! + the assets are really pricey!

Darktoz
>>75375358

couldn't agree more. it is a shame that daz3d can't get ik chains and bones right

Anonymous

GOOD STUFF -- I think you're right that your animations are a huge part of your success. There are a lot of erotic visual novels out there, and from what I've seen they're pretty much all pictures, so having a game like this with animations /videos is awesome and sets you apart. -- I think it's really cool that you do POV shots. It doesn't always work for me, but I love that you do it, and I'll bet others do too. I also love that sometimes you can switch in Femdom City (which I'm currently playing through). Suggestion: maybe upward POV shots from a kneeling position could be included? I think it's a game development angle you might be missing. They could be still pictures, and they could rope in fans (like me, although I'm already roped in) of the POV porn category while still staying on all the same kinks. WORSE / COULD BE IMPROVED -- Perhaps the sound mixing could be improved? For example, with the ass-fucking scenes, there appears to be just one or only a few sound effects of when skin meets skin. It's better than nothing or just music , but I think a bit of work here could lift the scenes from being a somewhat auditorily boring. -- I would advise considering that humans communicate through faces and body language, and that to this end the game could be improved by more facial expressions than can be seen in your other games where there seem to be generally just mad/happy/neutral (though maybe my memory is just bad). For example, I loved Elorae and Khadra in Captured by Dark Elves because their smiles had more nuance than just happiness, but also mischievousness, which in itself covers several emotions. This in turn let me imagine more interesting and varied interactions with them because there were more emotions to play with, and I think that would hold true for a lot of other fans too. With more varied and/or nuanced expressions, a players gets to interpret the face the way they want to imagine in that moment. IDEAS Following from the last point, perhaps communicating through body language could be achieved through more pictures/animations. For example, the curves of crossed legs could be seen from many angles and they could be crossed in different ways, and I'd rather have lots of pictures/animations showing that than one beautifully rendered and smooth video, but presumably a short one comparatively, showing the crossing of the legs. I think varied perspectives / body language is better than a few good videos because it lets you communicate more of an emotion/story as opposed to communicating less better visually, and it would be less, would it not? Because it's a choice of where and how to invest your resources. Focusing more on a good quantity of animations and pictures vs the quality of a few/fewer videos also lets you diversify your shown characters and kinks, which is good. That said, you could also combine these ideas. What if you had pictures for the leadup to a scene, for example leading the character on a leash to a room, and animations for the foreplay, like being thrown a biscuit and eating it off her boot or something, and then the core element, like getting pounded in the ass, be a smooth video. I submit that the core of the scene, whatever it may be, is the money-shot, and where you should focus resources when it comes to videos/animations. I mention "when it comes to videos/animations", because there are lots of other great parts of your games, like the roleplay, story, pacing, diversity of characters, and I think you should continue with this too. Lastly, if there's a choice to be made of which scenes to make videos and where to put them, I think it best at the story's end, where the visual and narrative climaxes meet. Hope that was useful. Really excited about the development.

Anonymous
>>75321220

I agree. Smaller projects are so much more manageable, and taking several smaller incremental steps of improvement is a good idea.

Anonymous
>>75358392

I agree with Rudy, that sounds like a good shout for your community. Perhaps I could help? I am a native speaker, I write short stories for fun, some of which has been erotic, and I'm pretty good at real-life dirty talking and sexting. If you send me a brief I could draft a scene or something.

Darktoz
>>75358392

sure, we can at least try it. others have contributed lines in the past as well. are you on discord? discussing this on the patreon comments is clunky

Darktoz
>>75417790

thanks for the detailed input. i agree with the sounds, this is where improvements will be made in the next game. well, hopefully, since I haven't done it, yet. the multiple more scenes/leadup is something i believe I am doing already, for example the scene with Mary in Femdom City where she leashes you and leads you to her room where you then do the doggy play. If that isn't what you mean I am not sure...and it isn't done in every single scene because it is extremely time consuming and a lot of work :)

ApatiaMax

Why don't you use a renderfarm? ... Io mean a service 😉

Darktoz
>>75439002

don't really feel like I need one. i got a 12gb nvidia card that is fast enough for most cases....and price of course

ApatiaMax
>>75439002

But, it could take a couple of minutes to render an entrie video, I will serach for you.. also 'cause I'm curious.😁 Meanwhile https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/221431/using-daz-with-render-farm?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=&utm_content=&utm_term=&utm_matchtype=&utm_creative=&gclid=Cj0KCQiA8vSOBhCkARIsAGdp6RSm_j5bN99JsLdQE60FhO0ex00V0_VPsx6T9HDReXrCLVXDLA30OBMaAo70EALw_wcB

Darktoz
>>75439002

i know that thread. i have already asked myself if i should do it with a render farm, that was before i got a new laptop...i think there is even a post about it that is like 1-2 years old. the thing is that a render farm does not speed up the process of making an animation. and that's what is taking up the time. it doesn't really matter if i render it myself and it takes an hour or do it on a renderfarm and it takes a minute, because during that hour i can work on game mechanics, dialogue or postwork production. but creating and posing the models, setting up the lighting and make sure the animation is smooth, that is the time consuming part. the only thing it helps is when you fuck up an animation and you realize it after it has rendered for an hour :(. that already happened :D

ApatiaMax
>>75439002

Oh... don't tell it to me, I've made rendering for environmental impact (Architects and Interior Designers) for about 10 years 🤓

Anonymous

Sound and animations are great, just so long as it can still run on my potato PC

Darktoz
>>75573868

yea, performance should be better but we will only know for sure once it is released :)

Anonymous
>>75573868

So you expect the new game to run smoother on older PCs? Thanks, that's reassuring :) Sometimes mine will chug pretty bad on games with complex animations.