Weekly Update [11-04-23] - The Countdown! (Patreon)

Alright agents, this week we've been flanked by an unexpected event so we'll get down and dirty right away. A critical decision has to be made and I need you to help me decide for the best course of action.

But to frame this situation properly I feel we need to take note of where we are at now, and what's coming up in the next couple of months, so let's get right into it.

November just began, giving us 4 more weeks of standard operations before December smacks us in the face. December, as Hex veterans should be familiar with by now, is a very complicated month on my end (and probably on your end as well). My day job fully takes over my attention as the Christmas-Consumer-Madness (or CCM) sweeps across the world and seasonal family events carpet bomb the calendar to oblivion.

For that reason, Hex goes into maintenance mode through the month of December, and just like  the previous two years, I plan to put out a Patreon Exclusive seasonal mini-story, an end of the year review poll and wrap up anything mission critical items that can be wrapped up in the limited timeframe.

Why is this relevant right now? Well let's rewind a bit to the inciting incident.

A few days ago both Daz Studio and NVidia GFX put out updates to their software. This resulted in the fact that for some reason one of the sequences I've been working on could no longer render. Specifically, the Classified: Prisoner of War scene. Daz Studio started crashing every time I hit the render button. After running diagnostics and some detective work I narrowed the issue down to a single 3D asset in the scene.

Sylvie's hair. (Insert joke about models delaying the shoot due to a hairdressing issue.)

The theory: something in that asset is no longer compatible with the updated Daz Studio or the new NVidia drivers. And how does that affect us? Well the production of Classified: Prisoner of War has crash landed, and until the issue can be solved it won't take flight again. Which brings us to now.

We have two paths laid out ahead of us.

A. On one hand we can simply eat the delay as it is, take next week's assigned production slots to sort out the mess. Secretly hope for further updates from either Daz's side, Nvidia's side, or the asset's side to correct the situation. Then if it comes to it, find a similar looking 'hair' asset for Sylvie and move on. How long this can take is unknown.

B. The alternative proposal is this. As we approach the black hole that is December, instead of limping into the finish line, we cannibalize the production slots for the Classified Series and re-assign those slots to feed Operation: Firestorm and Black Book: Lucha Libre! equally. Effectively fast-tracking the production for both projects and shaving off about 2 weeks worth of work from each project individually.

Additionally, in regards to Black Book, as that project was already scheduled to wrap up three weeks from now (just before December), I think we could use the extra slots to literally increase the total number of panels for it, while retaining the original deadline! I mean ... Do you want more of this? I do. What's the next time we are gonna have the chance to do something crazy like that?

So that's the situation on hand. For a quick TLDR I'll lay it out like this once more.

A. One additional week of delay on the Classified project devoted to 'resolving the issue' and hopefully we are 'back to normal' after that.

B. Put the Classified project on ice for now, rush Strikeforce by re-assigning slots and shaving off two week tokens off its track while simultaneously adding content to Black Book (+4 extra panels to the original total count).

I'm very sorry we have to go through all of this, but I guess sometimes there are technical issues out of our control, the best we can do is adapt and turn this problem into an opportunity.

Please, please, please, be sure to vote on this poll to decide. Since T3 and T4 agents are most affected by this - it's going to be their decision.

Standing by for instructions.

Over and out.