Technical Post: Image Layering Upgrade (Patreon)

Long post ahead.

It's been discussed before how images appear in Succulence 2: The image set is cut into parts to save space and reduce the amount of images overall.
But there are some additional details:
- Only underwear and more complex outfits are cut into pieces. Most full outfits are added to the folder as a "complete" image
- The image pieces are very crudely cut, for the sake of producing the image sets faster

Here's an example of an outfit that features outfit pieces, with the "excessive" image parts visible:

For quite some time, those excessive image parts didn't bother me, but after I started adding more underwear to the game it became a big problem.
Because for every underwear set I have to create a separate set of image pieces that fit a specific outfit.
For example, what if Serena's wearing only a shirt?

That requires a unique "Bra with shirt" as well as "panties with shirt" images. And as more various "half-dressed" outfit parts get added to the game, more and more image pieces are needed. And if I ever tried to add the ability to get tanned into the game - I'd have to duplicate all of them.

So, while I was on a break I tried a different approach.

A "fully cut" image pieces of all outfit combinations(excluding underwear). Meaning there are no more excessive image parts.

In this example Serena's body is translucent, and as you can see the top, the jacket and the shorts are all overlapping beautifully together(stockings and panties are considered as parts of the "body" for this particular image set).

This method is very time consuming, and in the past, with less complicated wardrobe and less outfit variety it wasn't worth it.

But I did a little experiment recently, and now images made in this way not only save image size and reduce image count - they make adding new underwear sets, new stockings, body effects and accessories much easier AND faster.

All clothes from this image example come from one image folder(the "main bodies" are in separate folders now), and can be swapped around between Tanned Serena, Pale Serena and Bikini-Tanned Serena.
Previously this would require me to make 3 separate outfit folders.

It will take me a long time to convert all existing image sets to this format. It took me 4 days to convert 2 main "standing" folders and there's 10+ more.
So at least 20 more days - probably faster though because I keep getting better at the conversion.

But once the conversion is complete - adding a pantyhose, new underwear set and 2 or 3 more outfits to the wardrobe will become only a matter of a few days(when previously it would be so time consuming I wouldn't dare to even attempt it).

This conversion is basically all I'll be working on for the next 2-3 weeks. More news will be posted on Monday or Wednesday.
Thanks for reading, and until next post.
Cheers.