Status update

Hello there, it's been a while since I wrote about what and how I'm doing.

Last post was about the complexities of my animation implementation, as a whole. That is, not only animations but how I manage them, their transitions, the models render separators auto-sorting, etc. In a nutshell, how stupidly complex the whole thing is.

Well, that work is done. I've used the other game's tech demo (not gonna call it v0.1) to find dozens of ways of how NOT to implement those systems, and left the one way to make it work to my satisfaction and my OCD.

As Edison (supposedly) said, "I didn't fail 999 times in making a light bulb, I found 999 ways of not making one."

The "problem" with amateur game development is that I don't have a non-time-consuming way to show you people proof of my continuous effort. You only see the final results so, understandably, you'd think I only needed one try for making it happen. But nope... expectations only match reality after many tries, even if you're smart.

Anyways, I think you'll like that demo. All the work invested in its making will benefit Pizza Hot development 100%, and it sets the quality standard for both games.

Truth is, when I've finally got into making the events, it turns out that they can be made pretty quickly with all the background systems in place. So I'm optimistic about future content updates.

That said...

About ten days ago I released v0.4e freely. And it seems the far larger public player base has encountered the infamous 'no customers' issue a lot more times I'd believed possible.

I absolutely need to address that problem. Even if I can't reproduce it on my own machine, and only guess what core engine changes would minimize the likeness of that happening again.

Bugs are a big hit for the reputation of a project because, for some weird reason, a good number of people think that if they're there in the first place, it's because the developer didn't give a damn, so he'll never fix them. And no, I'm the first one interested in clearing them out, so people don't get frustrated and mad, and I can focus on content.

Therefore, I need more of your legendary patience with me. I know it may sound like an old line coming from a crowdfunded amateur dev, and we all know how many of them give long-winded excuses while essentially abandoning their projects and still receiving support from their fans.

Well, I can only tell you I've put all my hopes on this game getting big enough to change my personal situation, which is really messed up to a level you wouldn't even believe.

This is my escape pod. And as such, I won't let it self-destruct. I'll fix it, I'll maintain it and keep it well oiled, and install new life-saving features on it for the moment everything decides to explode around me.

I've traversed a sea of shit in the last five years, mainly due to my incompetence at gauging people's loyalties. But far from asking for your pity, what I'd be grateful for is that you let me show you how I can use my skills and time for you.

And with all that said, I'll return to my thing.

Thanks for reading!

Pizza Hot! v0.4 download

Links:

https://mega.nz/file/YpsU0ILS#r1_veS0PFkYtABPwCyQukW_Nu98o1bCTlsFK5gWRrRI

https://pixeldrain.com/u/r8YWZpRN

v0.4h (2022 Apr 10)

Added

-[Technical] More useful info in bug reports.

Fixed

-Customers losing their mouths while eating/drinking.

-Dr. Yoshida staying in genuflect pose.

v0.4g (2022 Apr 9) [Test Build]

Fixed

-Dialogue DB corruption. Caused a soft-lock entering the Restaurant on Day 1, and would have caused a lot more grief if undetected.

v0.4f (2022 Apr 8) [Test Build]

Added

-The game can now run in a resizable 16:9 (forced) aspect ratio window. You can still switch between full-screen/windowed mode with Alt+Enter.

-Passenger in bus dream jerks off a bit (doesn't change the event).

-Bug Reporter tool will store your name between game sessions.

Changed

-Resizing the game window takes to game to the Pause menu (to avoid rescaling issues).

-Savegame data reset. Pre 0.4f saves aren't compatible.

-Bug reports now require a title and/or minimal description.

-[Technical] Improved error detection and recovery logic in various engine areas.

-[Technical] Lots of debug messages aimed at troubleshooting the 'no customers' issue.

-[Technical] Changed frame-dependent logic to fixed time delays.

-[Technical] Bug Reporter tool internal enhancements.

Fixed

-'No customers' bug. Other issues may have been solved indirectly.

-Bernard not showing for a second time.

-Masturbation canceled with Spacebar key.

-Too many pedestrians walking by the Grocery.

-Stat change toasts weren't showing up after starting a new game.

-Hotspot label staying on screen after a scene change ('Clean Towels', for example).

-Pause menu tooltips staying on screen after pressing Esc while hovering them.

-MC name not restored in dialogue character box, after loading a game.

-Saving available during 'interim' scenes (not intended).

-Null items on tray being detected as consumed food/drink.

-Randomly generated NPCs changing outfit colors if taking their dicks out.

-Some typos.

-Bug Reporter tool not showing notifications in some scenes.

-[Technical] UIMode was being overwritten on load (not good).

v0.4.e (cumulative from v0.3.f) (2022 Mar 5th)

Added

Max. Lewdness is now 4.

Dream event.

Repeatable "activity" in room.

New male character.

New female character.

Young male adult archetype (as pedestrian).

Passing vehicles.

Options menu.

Cut-in system.

New female hairstyle (#23).

Beards and three new male hairstyles.

Black/silver hair combos (black = black color + low brightness; silver = black color + high brightness).

Kitchen counter hotspot on restaurant bottom bar (it can be clicked to go there).

[Gameplay] Aroused state with 20-79 Arousal (pink); Horny state with 80+ Arousal (red).

[Technical] Bug reporting tool. Can be accessed anytime with F1.

Changed

[Gameplay] Sleeping now halves your current arousal (it was a fixed value before).

[Gameplay] Going to sleep aroused or horny, a part of your Arousal is converted to Stress the next morning.

[Gameplay] Morning Stress gain, due to bad quality mattress or staying up late, are clamped to a baseline value (20).

Added a cut in to Kayla dress up event.

Hotspot labels aesthetics.

Stat change toasts auto-scale to zoom level.

F7 auto-FPS limiter toggle key removed (it's a setting now).

Clicking on items, to be able to force trashing them, is removed temporarily (could cause locks).

Female hair gravity readjusted for all styles.

[Technical] Restaurant game-mode logic moved to a self-contained prefab (should fix most coherence issues).

Fixed

Morning exterior during Day 1 dinner.

Name caption didn't persist between saves.

Drinks could remain in NPCs hands after work.

Hotspot labels were disappearing after a save operation.

Table notes tooltips were usable at all times (not intended).

Non-consumed food/drinks on the tray stopped you from ending your shift.

Some restaurant hotspots shown their labels briefly (intended to be highlighted only).

Pressing F when introducing text (savegame description, name input, etc) won't toggle the FPS counter on/off.

Displaced camera zoom, in rare occasions, if Map is immediately accessed after customizing MC in the bathroom.

Closed laptop wasn't been left on the table in Mr. Humper scene.

Landlord jerking off animation, while kneeling, was broken.

Displaced player character if loading from laying on bed.

Tooltips staying after pressing Esc while hovering them.

Chat bubbles still visible if loading when one is being showed.

Twin ponytail hairstyle imperfect layer sorting in bus events.

Customers never finish eating/drinking if they're out of sight.

Stat tooltips popping out of nowhere.

Kitchen window showing daylight in the evening.

Pizza Hot! v0.4 for Nice Tippers

It'll be two days in advance of the planned date, but today's Sunday... ;-)

https://subscribestar.adult/posts/541124

Remember you can report issues with F1.

Cheers!

Animation-related wall of text... ^_^

I'm gonna stop working and write a bit about progress. Because in a couple of hours I'll only want to hit the sack.

Okay, if you're on Discord nowadays, maybe you've read me ranting about animation. Technical animation work, to be more specific. If you're curious about it, this is going to be interesting.

In Spine, which is the skeletal animation software I use, you can do a lot of things... but translate what you see in the editor to Unity...? That's not necessarily trivial.

Transitions in particular are a tough cookie. If you decide not to go the easy path and don't care about them, all animations you do will snap into frame 0 of the next one. Ugly and cheap.

But if you do, and that's my case, then you have a lot more to worry about when implementing them in the game. Sure it looks fantastic, but the added price is there.

Now, this wouldn't be a big problem if I was using just one track to play the animations... but I'm a crazy motherfucker and that's not what I'm doing. I'm using more than twelve tracks in just one model. They go something like this...:

• Boobs (this includes breathing)
• Hair (with its gravity)
• Idling (subtle torso+head+arms motion)
• Main (posing)
• Secondary (specific actions with an arm, head, whatever)
• Tertiary (extra actions, usually with the other arm)
• Carry (for things like holding a suitcase, a bag...)
• Six expression tracks (eye, mouth, eyebrow... they're all separated)
• LookAt (makes them look at each other, very complex implementation)

And the cut-in have their own tracks. In other words, a lot more than you see happens in the background.

I have my reasons for dividing animations like this. Mainly that most of them would repeat in single-track animations, and copy+pasting keys is awful work and I'd need to do that for every single animation that includes them, if I even want to modify, let's say the breathing motion. Playing it on another track is way more manageable.

Also, let's say you want two animations to loop at a different pace. The breathing, for example. If I have a main action consisting of Jenny getting drilled at top speed, like three times the normal pace, should her breathing motion be seen also at 3x speed?

Well, the answer is no. Then the problem you'd have with just one track is how you fit the normal, maybe a bit faster breathing, with three thrusts and also their secondary motion (boobs, hair reactions) in the number of frames you've decided the whole thing should run for.

On the other hand, if you just play the breathing on another track, you leave it playing there and forget about it. You focus on the main action and decide later at what speed you want to play each of them.

If you don't do that, you'd end up with hundreds, if not thousands of animations for not so many scenes.

That said... there's one problem with this approach of segmenting body parts and their motion. The internal maths Spine Unity runtimes do to magically know which animation keys should be played and when, and which should be overwritten, replaced, or added.

Let's say you want your breathing animation, but you also want to adjust the angle of her torso in a specific scene. How to have both things, instead of one overwriting the other? Well, there's one way, but it's not automatic.

It's really complex if you don't know exactly how everything is applied and in what order, what are the exceptions, and how you can make your own depending on what you want to achieve.

So, the last three days have been spent experimenting with all that. I'd wish I could tell you I already knew the last secret of Spine, but hell no. I needed to bang my head against problems I didn't encounter until now.

When I made LOK Rebirth I "only" had five tracks, most of them irrelevant to the main action. The swinging tail, that silly idle animation, three expression tracks, and then the main track where everything happened. And yes, everything was copy+pasted.

Pizza Hot is nothing like that, at many, many levels. There are sections of the engine that are scary in their own right.

Anyway, all that said, I can declare these three days of experiments ended. The result is that I have now a better animation logic, and content creation can continue.

And regarding that, all these experiments were necessary just because I started to make full-fledged sex scenes... but not for Pizza Hot, but the other game, which you may know it'll be way crazier regarding sex progression.

I... think you might like it, even if you prefer slow corruption because I went with the parody style all-in, and the premise looks like it's taken from Japanese porn. xD

You'll see. As for Pizza Hot, don't worry that I'm spending time with the other game. It'll be just a scene, but all this technical work was necessary to make it in the first place, and it'll benefit Pizza Hot's development as well.

Thanks!