Progress 10/10/2022

I was debating on whether I should do a progress post or not, but I decided to do it anyway.

So, update 16 is rolling into your guy's hands, which is good, and more or less on schedule I originally envisioned.

Then rendering on the update 17, I'm somewhere about halfway. It's a bit interesting overall; it goes well enough, but some posing is more complex. But it's good practice going forward.

Writing is about 1/3rd of what I require for the split day. I plan on writing longer today once I finish up the scene I'm doing.

So, today you get all extras as I decided I won't spoil too much on what happens in update 17. Thus, the first one.

One of the lessons I learned from doing Sorcerer is to never underestimate the value of a pet (or familiar). I don't do narration because it's a visual medium, show, don't tell. This has been the core of what I have done since TRS1. Inner thoughts are a certain kind of narration; personally, it doesn't fit 3rd person renders much. Having a pet (or familiar) you can talk to opens up a different way to expose the inner thoughts when needed. And this? It's just to test various creatures I have to see what would work.

And then this... Clothing design. DForce is awesome when it works, but when you do a lot of renders in a sequence, let's say, a fight scene. Every time you move your characters with dForce clothing, such as cloaks, you need to run it. For one character in a scene? No problem; if it isn't exploding, it's relatively quick. Two characters? Ehh... doable. But eventually, it just piles up, and dForcing takes longer than the actual rendering. So, you have to look for clothes that don't necessarily require it. And then there are the other things to consider, the character itself, is he/she a noble? Peasant? Warrior? Commoner? Then there is personality, which affects how we choose our clothes. So, all things considered, lot's of trial and error.

And yeah, sorry for the multiple messages this week.