I don't usually drop shots like this in devlogs, but I like this one too much to keep it to myself. Have a little teaser of the Olive route for episode 5 (if you've been making the right choices 👀)
Hey everyone,
Last week went pretty much as planned. The goal was to get started on the cutscene, and I did exactly that yesterday night. Actually went further than expected and finished the whole scene containing it, so now I've looped back and started on the next segment. It's a big one, roughly twice the content of the previous cutscene, but nothing I can't handle.
Aiming to wrap it up within the next ten days.
On the story side of things, we are finally out of that house. Back to Stocklinburg, and I will happily never open that environment again, lol.
Now, I don't know what the weather's been like where you are, but it's been absolutely brutal here. My office hits 37 degrees Celsius when the PCs are rendering, which is just not workable. I kept finding myself stepping out without even thinking about it. By Thursday I had maybe 40 renders done for the week, which was rough. I decided to shut the render rigs down for now, and that brought it down to a more bearable 31 degrees. Still warm, but cool enough to actually focus and get back to a decent pace. Between Friday and Sunday I knocked out around 130 renders, which is solid.
I've ordered a portable AC, though it won't arrive until mid-July. Until then the plan is to run the PCs at night only and work during the day. Not ideal, but it's the best I can do during this heatwave. At least the content is moving.
Anyway, let's talk numbers:
Static renders: 4,005
Animations: 157
Story content: 58 scenes written (60,395 words)
We officially crossed 4,000 static renders, making this my biggest episode yet on that front. There's still one lewd scene and the cutscene animations left, so cracking 200 animations is well within reach. Very happy with where things stand.
It has taken longer than I expected, I won't pretend otherwise. But honestly, the quality has gone up along the way, and in terms of artistic direction this is probably my strongest episode yet, so I'll take it.
Next week is going to be all about the cutscene animations. Once that's done, it's just the last 6 scenes of the episode left.
That's it for this one. Thanks for the support and the kind words, genuinely. I tend to get in my own head about the six-month window I set for myself, and I know this one has gone past it. I appreciate you sticking around and reassuring me, this helps a ton.
Back to work. Have a great week everyone.
MisterMaya