Eureka! (Patreon)

What’s been done?

BenX

• Fixed most issues on the list
• Discovered a VERY useful animation trick
  • Which lead to great optimization of the grenades
• Discovered another animation trick that kills the choppiness of animations if they are run too slow
• Fixed the flicker that happens when passing of time causes the background to switch between day and night
• Added special character variables for whispering
  • This means I don’t have to manually make every line italic =D

Creative

• Worked on a new frame/scene with Charmcaster X Gwen
• Made 2 Discord emotes for Gwen
• Working on a Koikatsu character for someone

Misc

• Finished the scene gallery for Muplur

I’m still a chaotic mess, but at least I’m still sorta productive.. So that’s good I guess xD. Focus this time around was on BenX as Ecchi Sensei has eaten a lot of my time recently. Fixed all but 1 of the issues Newman found in his last playthrough and even fixed some things that weren’t on there.

BenX

Good news! I found some lovely Renpy animation tricks online =D. One smoothes out slower animations, simply by adding: subpixel True. The other allows for curves in an animation, which is perfect for grenade throws. So instead of having 10 different positions for each grenade and position/enemy (Shar, 4 bro’s and 2 big bro’s (as their throw arc is slightly different)) I just have 1 set of coordinates for each of them. Start position (which is the same for each enemy type as the animation is attached to their combat doll), high point of the throw and the end position (which is the same for all enemies). Not only is this a LOT less work but it’s also one fluent motion and just looks so much better =D.

It’s at times like these I really wish the documentation would explain things better. The descriptions are often either vague or overly complex and I’ll have no clue what they are even on about. The subpixel description is literally just “If True, causes things to be drawn on the screen using subpixel positioning.”.. Okay, uhm.. What? xD.. Granted I should’ve probably looked up what subpixels are.. But I didn’t, cause I’m a dumdum.. The arc one.. Has some super complex description that, from what little I understand doesn’t even really explain it. I just happened to find a forum post of someone explaining it and man, I’m so happy I did cause it just looks so much better =D. And, of course, less work!

Newman and I also talked about a new tool. Or well, expanding on the expression build (which, currently, is just the wardrobe with some extra buttons xD). The first version of the upgrade will be reading the dialog from a text file and Newman will be able to add and change the dolls and backgrounds himself as well as see the dialog. This will then create a file that works with Renpy, and greatly reduce the back and forth between the two of us. Ideally though, I’ll make it work for the actual game so Newman can make changes to existing content more easily. Have to make it work first though, after that we’ll see if I can make it play nice with the actual game :P

Creative

Nothing too exciting, as most of my time was spent on code stuff or stress… Worked a bit on the new frame and created two Discord emotes for Gwen. Also ended up making a Koikatsu character for MonsterSage, not sure how that happened.. But.. Yea.. Fun little distraction I guess? xD She’s about 90% done I think. The base is there and now it’s just tweaking the small stuff, which for me.. Usually takes a while cause I’m never happy xD

What’s next?

BenX

• Update and populate scene gallery
• Final fixes
• Optimize combat
• Add new dialog

Ecchi Sensei

• New feature

Creative

• Finish new frame of Charmcaster X Gwen
  • Maybe finish a 2nd one even
• Finish Blender donut tutorial
• Finish Koikatsu model
• Make more Gwen emotes
• Tweak Charmcaster?
  • And make emotes for her

Misc

• Website
• Discord Bot
• Tutorials

Still trying to get more organized.. And lose less time on being stressed.. But I doubt that second bit will happen anytime soon xD. Maybe the organization will help? Who knows.. I will be working some more on  ES again though, with a new feature (and some minor stuff around it).

While the issues Newman found are pretty much done, I still have some of my own open which I need to finalize. But mostly, I want to optimize combat, streamline it a bit more. Right now it’s all over the place, some images are inside the screen, others are called in Renpy code and some are called in python code. It’s just a big mess having things in 3 different places (though most of it is just in the renpy code and python code). So I’m looking into organizing everything a bit better. Splitting the moves properly into classes or functions, separating the screens more and maybe even stripping some of the screen activity into the class/function code as well. The main aim is to make it easier to maintain and add to, but who knows, maybe it’ll end up running more efficiently as well (which would be great for older phones).

For the creative stuff I plan on finishing at least this frame, but hoping for 2 honestly. I want to make this into a proper reward and that means I need to speed up the process. Most of it probably cause I’m picking awkward and difficult poses, so the ones after this full scene will probably be simpler. Probably start with some solo stuff ^^

I also want to finish the Blender donut tutorial I was watching cause I kinda like doing 3D stuff and it might be fun making my own 3D girls and not mess so much with HS and KK xD. Speaking of KK, I should finish up the girl I was working on as well, since she’s quite far along. Also want to make more emotes, they are a bit of a pain to make (cause they tiny!) but I really enjoy using them, so you’ll probably see more of them soon =D. Before making Charmcaster emotes I wanna finalize her design though as I’m still not too sure if I’m happy with the way she  looks..

As for the misc stuff.. Buh.. The stuff I don’t like doing.. Or more like, new stuff.. Therefore.. Scary stuff xD.. Not sure about the bot tbh, that’s probably gonna be on the backburner. I do plan on working on the site, maybe even finish it.. Who knows. But I do think it’s important to have a landing page for us, will feel a bit better with that little safety net. And the tutorials, oof.. Yea.. Not sure how far I’ll get with those, but I do plan on making some progress time round.

I’ll be making a schedule for myself, which I’ll probably fuck up horribly.. But I want to try and steer my attention a bit, having a day dedicated to the website or tutorial will force me to actually do something with it. Not sure if I’ll add deadlines for myself on everything, but I do want to plan my activity a bit more.

That’s it for this post, apologies for the wall of text. Every time I think I don’t have much to talk about and it’ll finally be a short post.. I somehow always end up with a giant wall of text.. Welp.. That’s why the lists are there I guess, so you don’t have to read all this fluff xD

See you guys in the next report!
A storm of Akanoes