Hey, folks! Hope your week's off to a great start! Let's get into it!

Over the past few days I managed to cross two things off my to-do list. The first is that I finished the renders I needed for the end of Season 1, where each love interest gets a small number of renders, which show where they're at, based on the choices you've made. Nothing crazy, it just gives everyone a little visual recap.

The other thing I managed to get done, was the system to migrate saved variables from S1 to S2. Basically, once you complete the last chapter of S1, you'll be asked if you'd like to save your data to a slot. When you open S2, it'll detect the presence of this saved data, and you can choose to load it or to begin a new game, using a set of generic, default values. You can override the slots as many times as you need, to then load your new game in Season 2. I made two little game files to test it, and had my Discord community check it out. So far, it seems to be working well. If you'd like to try it, you can download the files here.

Test The Beginning: PC ||| MAC

Test The Continuation: PC ||| MAC

On the subject of weird little mini-games, I unlocked The Inheritance for all tiers. I don't want to spoil too much, but I built this to play around with stuff like persistent variables, tray icons, etc. which will hopefully benefit Friends in Need. But, it's also a bit of an experiment for me, doing something tonally outside my wheelhouse. Opinions were pretty split on it, but maybe give it a look and see what you think. Next week I may repost a whole big spiel that I posted for the $5 tier, explaining my motivations behind writing and rendering it, some months ago.

With the variable migration from Season 1 to Season 2 figured out, I'll be looking to put out the complete and reconstituted Season 1 as soon as possible. Once that's done, my focus will swing back to getting a new demo for the next chapter available for my high-tier supporters, so they can actually test migrating their saves.

My plan, such as it is, is to have Season 1 released by month's end, alongside the demo for the new chapter, containing Gabby's love path and all the other alternate endings. Gabby's alternate routes will follow shortly thereafter. That feels pretty achievable at the moment.

Until next time: take care of yourselves, and thank you for your support!

Hey, folks! Hope you're all doing well this week! I sprained my dominant forearm and have basically no grip strength in my right hand.. So, that's new and challenging. But, it's slowly getting better, and it hasn't affected my work toooo much.

Speaking of which, the work continues, but I'm not as far along as I'd like to be. I took a little time to work on Season 1 stuff this week, and re-integrated one of two remaining chapters. Need to do the last one yet, and then test to make sure all the variables port over. I also did some art for the season's epilogue, some of which you can see here. I'm still got a little of that left to do, but it's getting there.

I keep ping-ponging back and forth between Season 1 and Season 2, and it's kinda been playing Hell with my workflow. So, I'm going to commit to getting S1 wrapped up over the next few days, release it, and then pivot back to finishing the last scene for the new chapter. I've got 70~ renders done for said scene already, so I've got a good jump on it. But, there's still more to do. Plus, some of my supporters over on ye olde Discord did ask me to add an additional dozen or so renders to one scene, so I had to do that. I'm nothing if not a people-pleaser.

In general miscellany, I released a little proof-of-concept mini-game called The Inheritance, for the $5 tier. This is a little project I cooked up back in June, when I had an afternoon free. It's only 20 images in total, so I wouldn't recommend upgrading your subscription just for that.. But, if you're already subbed at that level, go check it out. Reception's been warmer than expected, given it's a pretty big departure from the more grounded work I'm known for.

I also did a 19 image photoset based around Gabby and Brittani, for the most recent Wanton Weekends. People seemed to dig that one.

All in all, not much to report today. I'm focusing on getting S1 out ASAP, with the goal being Friday. Then my full attention will go to getting the new chapter out this month, and I'll finally feel like I can catch my breath a bit.

Until then, take care of yourselves -- and thank you for your support!

Hey folks, hope you're all doing well this week! Between daylight savings time taking effect and the weather changing, I'm feeling a bit out of sorts. But, we persevere!

Over the weekend I dropped a new teaser for the Close Friend tier, which added ~400 images to the previous total. This update has everything but the last scene, which is still being worked on. I did get it up a day late, so if anyone was subbed to the Close Friend tier over the month of October, but dropped off November 1st, shoot me a message and I'll PM you a link to the build once I've confirmed your sub status.

I'm still trying to knock out as many renders as I can, while I feel like I'm in a good groove. I had to halt things for a bit in order to build that teaser, but now I'm back at it. I'm going to try to get back to fixing up the remaining Season 1 chapters that need to be integrated, but I've been finding it difficult to switch gears. I probably just need to force myself to do it.

All in all, I'm happy with how the chapter's shaping up. I just need to bring it home, now. The scene I'm working on is the big ero scene I've mentioned, which features Gabby. That's really the main version of this chapter's ending. Buuuut, I also wanted to give a little something to people who might be keen on a different love interest. So, there are some smaller alternate endings with Nicki, Mason, and other less prominent characters.

Finally, I missed posting last week's Sneak Peek of the Week because.. I was mentally fried. To make it up to my loyal $5 tier, I'll be posting a little mini-game I made a few months ago, which you can see an image of up above. Now, when I say mini, I mean mini. It's like <25 images, and something I made as a kind of a proof of concept for a lighter, sillier game. It's something I'm always kinda turning over in the back of my mind as something I'd like to play around with. It all takes place in the same location, there's a very small regular cast, and I devised it around this idea that each episode would be short, sweet, and self-contained. Think of it as the network sitcom to Friends in Need's cable drama.

Obviously I'm too busy to mess with it now, but hopefully people will enjoy seeing one of my weird little experiments.

That's all for me, today! As always, take care of yourselves -- and thank you for your support!

Hey, folks! Hope your week's off to a good start. Sorry to get this up late again. @_@ I've been a day behind for like three weeks, and unfortunately it won't be stopping anytime soon. I've got some hectic, time-sensitive stuff in my personal life that's eating away at my days, I've been doing some annoying annual re-certification stuff at my day job, and of course I'm cranking away on renders as fast as I possibly can. I've put an extra wick in my candle, so I can burn it at more than both ends.

But, things are moving pretty well. I'm in the process of getting a test build ready for my $15+ supporters, which'll likely hit at the end of the month. It'll likely be missing the last scene, since I'm not finished with it yet. But, there'll be a good bit of content. And I mayyyy have time to squeak in a few of the less lengthy, optional endings.

Attached to this post you'll find some images for a scene I had a lot of fun with, because I got to go a little big and crazy, in an environment that doesn't usually see a lot of action -- our hero's condo. As you can see, there's a bunch of extra figures in one of the images, and poor Risa's looking more than a little flustered. I'll leave you to speculate about what's going on, but I'll take a minute to get into the nitty gritty of how I put the scene together.

For those that don't know, Daz figures can be reeeeally resource-intensive. That typically limits you to a few figures per scene, if you want the renders to process in a timely fashion. Given that I'm trying to do hundreds (and over time, thousands) of renders, I can't let renders cook for hours. If a render takes more than twenty minutes, I start getting pretty annoyed. So, for a scene like this, where I want a lot of people in it, there's a few options. I could use the Scene Optimizer, which reduces the texture map of objects within the scene. Pretty useful, but it has its limits, if I don't want the characters' skin reduced to a blobby mess.

So, I tend to prefer using billboards, two-dimensional images that you can insert into a scene. Now, you can buy some fancy ones that allow you to rotate the image on the X and Y axis, and they're pretty neat. But, those sets are expensive, and you're limited to what that asset creator has made available. So, I like to use Billboard Builder and make my own. This can be useful for all kinds of stuff, from background characters to skylines. So, I set about making my background cast of party girls.

I basically just set up a light similar to what I want in the scene, and render figures against an empty, transparent background. Boom, done. But.. This takes time. And as I've already discussed, I don't like wasting a lot of time. So, I decided to try something. I tossed a couple of these images to Perplexity, told it to match the style, and generate a bunch of dancing bikini girls on a plain background. Here are some of the figures it gave me.

In the end, a process that would've taken me a decent amount of time (posing bodies, props, facial expressions, and hair, rendering, applying costumes and hair, tattoos, etc.) took me under ten minutes. I removed the backgrounds from the images with this handy tool, put them into the Billboard Builder, and I quickly had a full scene of girls partying.

Now, would I want to use this for something important? No. I'd rather be able to fully control a character's expression, pose, etc. But for background characters, which I knew I'd be blurring with a little depth of field trickery to hide any funky AI features? Well, it's a pretty solid return on the time investment.

That's it for me, today! I'm currently pushing myself to get the alpha build for the next chapter done by the 8th. That feels doable. But, as always I'll keep you updated on my progress. Until next time, take care of yourselves, and thank you for your support!

Hey, friends! Hope you’re all having a nice day. Fall’s in the air, and your basic bitch buddy Neon is sipping pumpkin spice lattes and enjoying the changing of the leaves.

Work on the next chapter continues, and I’m finally at the last scene in the new chapter — Gabby’s big, spicy scene. It'll be a pretty big scene, with my usual options for positions and "finishing moves." The chapter’s also gonna be pretty big, in terms of raw image count. I just hope it feels pretty big in terms of playtime. It’s always really hard to judge it accurately, when I’m in the thick of it. This one definitely moves some plot points forward, which were gestating for most of Season 1. So, that may help me beat the, "Nothing ever happens!" accusations.

I’m arriving at the point of this dev cycle where this whole dev log thing gets a little more difficult, though. I've shown off most of the scenes I've wanted to show off, and now most of what's left is spoiler-y stuff I'd rather have surprise people. So uh, enjoy that pic of someone’s dirty sneakers, and Guy’s loafers. But, you do get some Viola side-booty to make up for it. That’s fair, right?

I’m still working on getting the rest of Season 1 integrated. This one's slightly more involved, in terms of fixing stuff in the script, than previous ones. In addition to the normal thing of fixing broken variables, and cleaning up little continuity errors, I'm working on a couple little tweaks that involve maximizing the amount of content all players get to see.

Previously, in (the newly renumbered) Chapter 11, you had the option to take Risa to a hotel, or to The Lawful Waffle. The hotel option could be important for shaping your relationship with Risa, but the Lawful Waffle scene was important for developing stuff with Pepper's plotline. So, a player had to miss out on one or the other. Now, even if you go to the hotel in Chapter 11, you'll circle back to the Lawful Waffle in (the newly renumbered) Chapter 12, which closes out Season 1. You'll just get less content in said scene.

And previously in Chapter 12, you had a few options, which were restricted by how much time/energy you have that day: taking Mason shopping, visiting Brittani at Chest Cheetahs, visiting Nicki at a charity event, or going to the park to meet Dash, which allowed you to get a short ero scene. Now, meeting Dash is mandatory, but you can only get her ero scene if you've retained enough time/energy that day. 

So, everyone gets a little more content, but the decisions you make still shape those events. I think it's a good idea, buuuuut it also requires me to make sure I'm not breaking anything while I do it. So, I've gotta take a little more time with it.

That's all for today! As always, take care of yourselves, and thank you for your support!

Hey, friends! Hope all's well with you and yours this week!

At present, the next chapter stands at over 1100 renders. I've wrapped up Alex's scene that I was working on, and now I'm doing some small scenes with Cassie. After that, it's onto the Gabby material that will comprise the end of the chapter.

Of course, I still need to get the last two chapters of Season One in order, so that remains in my periphery. I've been working on the code with my laptop, while my main PC runs renders. Maximum efficiency or burning the candle at both ends? You decide!

Unfortunately, there's just not a lot of interesting stuff to talk about right now. I've just gotta do what I've been doing, and keep chugging on the rendering front. If I can get these Cassie scenes and the Season 1 stuff done by the end of the week, that'll put me in a good position to burn through the Gabby renders over the rest of the month. If I finish this week's work ahead of time? Even better!

So, that's that! If you're subscribed at any level, be sure to check out yesterday's (well, today's because I had some technical difficulties last night..) Wanton Weekends, for a side of Carolina that you haven't seen before.

As always, take care of yourselves, and thank you for your support!