Since the last update:
297 renders, bringing the current total to 884, which should be over halfway through the total. There's one more complex scene left, and I'm not sure how long that'll take to pose and render, but the rest of the scenes should be pretty quick. There's still music left to do for the scenes rendered since the previous update, but I've decided to go back to doing the sound/music all at once after the renders for the update are finished. Felt like I was listening to the same songs/playlists more often with the scene-by-scene approach than I was when I did everything in one go.
Rendered out the 8 videos for the secondary QT scene. Mentioned this in the extra details for subscribers back in the first December progress update, but the second QT scene will be a part of another start point for Cerys's romance. Folks who missed out on her confession in Chapter One will have another avenue in this update. For those who have already played through Cer's romance to this point, there isn't much "new" to the start of the arc here. It's largely the same dialogue as the other start point updated to fit the circumstances of this second one. The animations in the QT scene itself are in the same boat: they're updated versions of an earlier one. I'm very happy with how it turned out, though, and might try to work in a way for folks on Cerys's romance to be able to view this start to her path without having to replay everything prior and tweak choices to get to it. I expect to handle this path and others in a similar way moving forward, as a way to trim down on the extra workload and balance the branches and "forward progress", at least as far as the characters and circumstances will allow. For cases like this, with the same characters in similar circumstances, that should work fine, but there'll be other branches that will be more distinct and have more work involved with maintaining. Which will obviously slow things down for folks who aren't interested in making different choices and following different paths. I'll work with a balance I'm comfortable with.
I'll be working on the preview for the update next, so Practitioners and up should see it later today or tomorrow. I'll be going with the idea I mentioned in a previous post: showing just the eyes of the new Family characters introduced in the update.
Thanks for the support and stay safe!