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Oh, RWBY.... RWBY is why I started looking into 3d art again, after first poking at Poser back at the beginning of the era.
This is all so interesting! Never knew there were programs we can use. For someone who never done this, which program is nice to dip my toe in?
A couple of sample screenshots. The first is a basic rendered background, with decorated versions of Stella (by vhyktoria) and my own Tenna (both on Star 2.0 base) run through the Topaz Labs Clean. It also demonstrates the brand new Interactive Director in Ren'py, which is a sort of pleasant way to add in images and music as you play through the game.
The second one is the current version of my protagonist in my fairy tale. Need to do more blending of the images styles.
As for easy-to-use engines to start with, TyranoBuilder is very easy to start with, hard to extend, and is not free. Ren'py is fairly simple and free but doing anything other than the most very basic things can involve some confusion.
More possible looks. Gnashing of teeth. Etc.
Thanks.
That pink dress image is a neat look, is that a specific postwork filter or combination, or is that a DS tool as well?
Wow...I get sick for a few days and look how this thread goes! So much good stuff here! We should do a community visual novel, where we create characters in the shoulder up view in all sorts of expressions, and hack together a proper full novel!
This potentially looks very good.
I don't think much blending needs to be done, actually. Looks great!
I want to hear more about the interactive director! Can you add scenes from inside of it?
The first picture up there, of the two anime girls inside a house, is pretty much what you get. Each line of the script displays up there as it happens in the game, and you can click on the + to add something new or the pencil to change something already there. The 'new' you can add is a background change, a character sprite, or some audio of some sort. You cannot add text; that's added in the script itself in the usual way.
Thanks for the art feedback! Very encouraging. I've been spending the past two days rendering lots and lots of emotive poses... for a single character... and I feel like I'm about half done.... and I keep forgetting to save them as presets in case I need to come back to them... but hey work is progressing.
So...can you add a frame for each expression, then save that as an aniblock, then apply it to each character for one button setup and application to new characters?
I... I don't know very much about aniblocks. I ended up creating what I think of as a 'camera cage' that I saved as a preset-- three locked cameras carefully positioned, but I just render three times. It occurs to me now that saving each 'shot' as a frame would probably let me render all three in one go....
as to applying to new characters I don't know that I would. One of the huge advantages of using Daz over manually drawn art is that I can make more art for less cost. I've been following that to try and make expressive poses unique for each character.
although I did realize that because of the ID, I don't have to commit to a particular pose in advance. If I define them all in the script I can add one to a scene, move it around, reject it and try another without ever quitting. So that's what I'm going to try to do, as soon as I get more of the script itself adapted to Ren'py format.
It's great to see your work. I myself will use the preset single frame animation to get my base expressions, then go to each frame and tweak. That way i can setup a range of facial expressions to happily render away while i am not at home.
Yeah that's really a brilliant idea. I was using a batch render script but it requires a saved file for each render and each render only takes a few minutes so I was just reading a book between setting up each pose because the batch render didn't seem worth the effort.
plus using the frames makes it trivial to preserve each pose even if I forget to save it. Amazing idea.
it is pretty much because of this thread that I'm pushing harder on this thing. It's really nice to be able to talk about the work with people who 1.) have some clue or interest and 2.) don't have knee jerk reactions to anything different.
AND I picked up 3d Outlaw's anime doll today! So now I'm trying to brainstorm another novella I can product using my existing sets with a full on anime look. I don't know if I'll use it but Kayleyss' Shinjuku Living in FastGrab a couple days seemed like a good omen and I grabbed that too.
This is a great thread indeed! the whole original reason I gave Daz3D another go after my initial failed attempt was with the idea of doing a visual novel - I lost heart after noticing that most VN's are typically anime in style and I was looking at more... CG style. After talking on here it has rekindled my VN creative inspiration and figured I am just going to go ahead and try out my original vision. I've even found the map of the small town of Alsem (late 1692) - the idea being the reader can pick the location they wish to go to and gradually piece the story together themselves.
DA group that has good articles, and resources: http://visual-novelty.deviantart.com/
The more I look at Ren'py and Fungus, the more i like them. I'm sure Fungus is probably the smartest thing to learn, as it gives an inroads to all other unity content, but its going to come down to what is easier to complete a novel with.
Ugh. I don't feel like working today. I need to go into my script and enter dozens of lines like this.
image bg forest-misc2 = "Forest Background2.png"
and
image gentleman laughing = "Strange Gentleman laughing.png"
But I have to in order to make this work. Well, this... first... tenth of the story. and I also need to pick out music, which means listening to music. I'm just going to use Incompetech for this first outing (and maybe some game-licensed music I picked up long ago via a Humble Bundle) because I have not yet found the Daz Studio of music creation (and would I have time to learn it, anyhow?)
How goes everybody else's projects?
Oh! I've been working on a Really Pretentious Structure Approach for designing multiple-route stories, if what you want is a bunch of linked routes that contribute to a bigger story. I always find myself working best when I start with a template and a guideline-- I didn't finish my first novel until I discovered the Snowflake Method of planning one, even though I'd been starting and NOT finishing novels for almost twenty years previous (since I was ten or so). I no longer really use that method because I no longer need it but it gave me the boost I needed to finally finish something. (And hey I have 9 novels published now, so go go templates). I'd be happy to talk more about it if there's any interest.
I am sure it will be much better than my own "work ot all in your head and start writing when the story is finished" approach. I mean, at least it will be cheaper than the antipsychotics... In all seriousness, how are you managing? Does it involve lots of colored string?
Well, my first project has no routes (or choices) at all! But for my second project (in the planning stages) I've been drawing lots and lots of circles and staring at them while tapping my mouth with my pen. And eventually (judging from the IF game I wrote a decade ago with about 15 endings) I'll move to storing flags in spreadsheets...
I got distracted...Unity/Fungus and a custom character create for fun. I did manage to make an updated uniform yesterday though :) I'll post back a render after a few.
Dreamfarmer, have you looked at Fungus? I have been watching the youtube tutorials (there are lots of them) and the 10$ udemy course. It really is very well constructed.
That's very interesting. I've just wonder, how did you manage to create 15 endings?
How many steps it was taken to reach each of the endings, from the point where was a choice to pick any of them?
Have not had a chance to look into Fungus yet, but it's on my list! I do like Twine, I made a kind of weird Twine experience (as so many are) over at https://chrysoula.itch.io/bower-of-blood-and-thorns
Well, the game was a 'one room story', taking place in a car wherein you try to get to know the driver, who has abducted you, and in the process also discover your (well, the protagonist's) own secret background. There's lots of topics to talk about, and two important actions to be taken to switch from a sort of 'bad end' to one of the many 'good ends'. I kept track of all the conversational topics with flags and depending on the conversations and actions, different endings were obtained. And if you didn't hit on any of the special endings, the game automatically ended when the journey came to an end, which provided a variety of endings based on the final emotional state you'd talked the driver into. You could reach one ending by doing absolutely nothing (except pressing 'z' to pass the time) and other endings with only a couple of choices (but you'd have to be lucky or in the know to get there). But mostly you had to have a conversation, which could result in a romantic ending or a violent ending or some weirder things. One thing I tried to do was not dictate the emotional response of the character to the driver-- I wanted to let the players decide Enra hated him, or found him fascinating, or whatever. But it did tend towards the sweet, generally speaking.
Although it was moderately well-recieved at the time (came in 6th in a field of around 30 in a competition, and got nominated for some Best NPC awards) I made tons of mistakes in cueing the conversational topics and other bits which made it really opaque to some people who picked it up.
Thanks for the explanation and the insights, dreamfarmer. Good to know about, how such things can be done.
Dreamfarmer's description makes me think a virtual "Escape Room" could be a possibility!
Start with quite a few options of things to investigate and go from there, narrowing solutions and looping back depending on what they find when, just like a real room solution.
That is what Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors did. It's a mix of escape room & visual novel. If you haven't played it, I highly recommend it for fun and research.
It also has two sequels, one of which you can get on steam (the third game).
Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward & Zero Time Dilemma