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Thanks! Very interesting read about the conception.
Been pretty busy the past few weeks doing some NPR R&D. Finally have something I'm happy with, that I'd like to refine for a visual novel. This was based on the art style of the Flower VN. I never finished it but I fell in love with the art style.
I just discovered this thread now. I have started with Daz 10 weeks ago and I am using it for making a realistic looking visual novel.
I am using Tyranobuilder. I first tried Novelty, but that one seems to lack support now. I read about Ren'py but Tyrano seemed to be better for saving time and time is what I really need for making all the graphics. The first version of my story was with screenshots and music from videoclips. Later I switched to environments from free for commercial use pictures and characters made with Fuse/Mixamo. Currently with Daz I am restarting from scratch the fourth time.
My story is visualized from a first person camera perspective. You get to see your environment from different perspectives as if walking and looking around. Characters are realistically integrated into the background. I don't use actors. Every character is part of the same render as the background. When I change posing/expressions I just make partial renders and paste them over the previous render.
I buy stuff on the Daz shop. Mainly cloths, hair styles, environments. Characters are made with genesis 3 and 8 and I apply all kinds of morph sliders to make them look unique. I might buy some additional models too and especially packages with different race types or collections of faces.
I spend several hours on this every day. I only have a GTX970 card. Rendering may take exceptionally up to 2 hours for one full image. Most can be done in 1 hour and partial renders sometimes take only a few minutes. I reuse images for different dialogues in different story branches. I try to render all images at 2000 samples or until finished if less.
I actually composed several music tracks in the past, which never saw much use, and I will use them now for my novel. I also have Realband for quick instrumental music creation.
I hope to finish it by the end of next year. To keep myself motivated, my characters are inspired by some of my favorite K-Pop bands (even though the story has nothing to do with music at all - I might add some musical theme to it for one group of characters) and I play anime music from Kalafina in the background too :)
The story is set in an undefined culture/country with comparable technology as today. Some themes of the story are a school as starting point (I know it's an overused thing but I was actually inspired by a K-Pop song for this), sorcery/psychic abilities, a variety of personal relationships (no sex/nudity), encounter with alien advanced culture, world dominance/destruction, (reincarnated) spirits/undead. Most of the antagonists are female but there will be some interesting male characters too. It's not strongly focused on romance, although romance is somewhat a part of it as well. The protagonist starts as an ordinary 20 year old male student but will eventually become more powerful.
Story development is not with chapters but there are some specific events where multiple branches are brought together. All endings will be accessible from the first playthrough. The story will be short compared to most VNs but replayability will be high because many scenes are restricted to certain choices. Some major events will not happen at all with every playthrough. For example, the first main antagonist group may disappear almost entirely from the story after a few choices in the beginning, leading to some major event never happening. All this means story writing is quite complex but I want choices to have a big effect on the story, so I just really want to do it this way.
I keep track of story choices in a simple text document, highlighting all choices that still need further development and giving them a code for reference also in Tyranobuilder.
Problems I encountered. 1) Lighting. I am not good with that. Lots of trial and error. Could still use some improvement. 2) Cloths/posing. For example: there's a student outfit that I absolutely wanted to have, but at some spots and with some poses, even with all available sliders to tweak them, something goes wrong with it (weird form, missing part). 3) Fonts not working as they should with latest update from Tyranobuilder. 4) Environments that fit the story and are consistent with each other. So far I have a school, classroom, city block, cafeteria, apartment and I will likely add one or two taverns, a disco, park, cloth store and then probably more houses, roads, nature (cave?), some alien technology etc. Problems arise when you try to fit different environments together. For example I have a tavern and a city block. The city block has the outside facade of a tavern but not the inside. So I want to make it seem like realistically you can go from the street into the tavern. Consistency in style and finding all the right pieces for the story may be a problem too. 5) I was using windows movie maker at first for some animations, but the format I use in Tyranobuilder is 15:10 (advised it seems for being compatible with smarthphones) so I am making them now either in Tyranobuilder itself by simply putting lots of pictures one after the other. I have another software for 15:10 video (VSDC) but I find it not so great compared to moviemaker. 6) Correct height position in first person perspective when sitting/standing. This can be tricky and I am obviously not entirely consistent with this. 7)
Aside from those there's also ...
7) Making mistakes and the occasional Daz crash! Nothing so frustrating as having to redo stuff instead of being able to continue with something new. It may happen for example that I forget to save the correct lighting and camera settings and then later reload the scene for making a partial render, only to realize that I will have to redo it all over again, because it's saved with wrong settings. 8) When I know what I want to do with all the dialogues and I still need to spend hours on making all the graphics I can get quite frustrated as well.
I am not finishing one complete story line first. Instead I work through all story choices according to a timeline in which certain events are going to happen. I realized that I am more inspired also while making the graphics and going slowly phrase by phrase through each dialogue. Also I am waiting for new environments and other stuff to appear in Daz shop. So when I am working with scenes in a certain environment, I just complete all story branches in that environment before moving on with something else.
I will post some pictures and maybe a video in a next post.
@dirkbaeten, I also started a while back using DAZ to help out with our visual novel. We're testing the demo and getting ready to launch a kickstarter campaign soon. You can check out some of the things we've shared on our official tumblr page: https://alebrijesgame.tumblr.com/
So here's some advice I can share based on my experience:
Tyrano vs Ren.Py
There was a lot of trial and error for us, both here and with the programming. I know my programmer tried tyrano first. It was easier to understand and provided better documentation. But, in our case, we have four main characters, which means that we needed to add 4 different prologues within the same game and each story has a separate plot. Tyrano just didn't cut it for that, so we switched to Ren.py. It was a slower process trying to understand how it worked, but support in the Lemma forums helped and support was relatively fast. Ren.py, unlike Tyrano, also allowed us to build the character through layers and we could also use layers on the background. So if we wanted rain, for example, we simply added a layer that had rain and laid it atop rather than do another complete image of that. So that's something to keep in mind.
DAZ lightening solutions
Now, the products that have helped me the most on this area (and which have made the process of iluminating scenes much easier) are as follow:
If you have an old set, chances are that they won't have lamps set up. These props are an excellent solution to that, especially since they're already set up to lit realistically, so all you need to do is position them.
DAZ interior building
DAZ exterior building
To create quick exteriors to go with your interiors, you can use any of these. Modular Home building has the advantage of creating an interior as well.
DAZ Dformers
This tutorial about dformers may help you fix some of the clothing issue you have with the clothes not fitting properly when you pose the character. Also, if you haven't already bought it, I highly recommend getting Wear Them All. This product will allow your Gen3 characters to wear older (cheaper) clothing. Just be sure to read the PDF guide to get the best results! There's a thread here where you can see some examples and get help.
Music
Not sure what your plans are for your novel. If you want to offer if for free or make money off of it. Regardless, I would encourage you not to use copyrighted music. If you cannot aford a musician, then there's plenty of stock music sites. If that's also difficult, you can try finding (via google) free music. Some artist will allow you to use their music on your visual novel so long as you give them credit. Just check the licensing for each site and you'll be fine.
I checked out your Tumblr shots and that's a really nice visual style you have going on there.
Thank you! I poured a lot of time into developing just the right look. There's also tons of postwork on each sprite and background, but using Daz still saved me a lot of time. I shared a tutorial a while ago of how I made the sprites which you can find here. The trick is to make/draw the expressions & hair completely from scratch. Because the face and the hair are what often gives away the fact that you're using a render.
Very cool! :)
Great to hear from folks! I am on my phone but I wanted to note that retexturing with shader packs can do a lot to unify a look across multiple sets.
Thank your for the replies and many tips. Tyranobuilder did an update recently to v1.7 and I think they also have some kind of layer system now, but I didn't use it myself yet. (From their website: Blend Images Component: Use this component to blend images on the game screen. This can be used, for example, to use sunset effects or other effects without preparing individual images. Blend Movie Component: Combine moving images with game screen to apply particles, film-like effects, and much more to the whole game.)
I like the background pictures a lot on https://alebrijesgame.tumblr.com/. I was wondering in what way do you use DAZ for your novel?
As promised, I will put a few pictures here from the current state of my novel and also a video from the game up until the first choice. https://youtu.be/apybBJF21Vg (only viewable with link)
I will most probably make my game available for free and maybe sell the music separately. The music is either composed by myself or (edited) demo songs from Realband, which are free for use.
Screenshot 4 in the cafeteria needs some reworking on the skirts where they sit on the chair. Screenshot 8, there's some blue from the skirt sticking out from under the blouse on the girl in the middle. Things like that I typically edit them away in paint-net (I don't use Photoshop) or I make a spot render if possible. Screenshot 9 in the school entrance hallway shows how faces become not so nicely detailed from a distance. I don't know if it's due to lighting or if I just need much higher sampling. Finetuning all those things can take a lot of time sometimes, especially when you are new to the software. For some images, I might just leave them like they are and after the game is finished, I could still make corrections.
I'd been contemplating either making a JPRG styled game of VN based on my old comic to tell the backstory to one of the characters. I was playing around with Fungus and it's a pretty simple VN visual scripting language for unity. Of course if I was to make it all the artwork would be 2D illustrations but I'd use Daz to make references for backgrounds.
I miss your old comic, it is still one of my favorites I've ever read
Surprised anyone even remembers my comic anymore.
The VN or JRPG, if I do get around to it will explore Funky's back story. It'll explain how he came to be a man from the 1970s who finds himself trapped in the 21st century and the significance of him being the last human on the planet with hair down there. I originally had plans to do his story as a graphic novel but recently I thought a video game might be a fun way to do it too.
I think the free Sketch and Outline shaders made by @timmins.william create some really interesting visuals. I think they'd make for a cool look for a graphic novel.
Where are these sketch and outline shaders of which you speak? :)
I still see it occasionally mentioned in random places all over the net. And a game from you in that world would be awesome!
@dirkbaeten, I use Daz in various ways to help make the art for the visual novel. Probably the more obvious one is to make the backgrounds. I render that out then do some postwork in photoshop to get the look and feel just right --less realistic and more like a painting. I also design the characters and what they are wearing in DAZ. Then I render them (each piece of clothing I rende separate) and lay them all together in Photoshop. I may then change the textures for the clothes (shirts mostly), add shadows and, again, make everything look like a painting. I paint over the entire face and draw that atop, placing the expressions as separate layers in order to lay that over in Ren.py. The hair I also paint in photoshop, though I sometimes use the hairstyles I've bought here as reference.
Screenshot 4: Daz dformers might help you with that.
Screenshot 8: Setting the skirt as a collision item with the shirt might help you avoid that.
Screenshot 9: You need more light, that's why you're getting all that grain. Iray Ghost Light Kit would be the perfect solution for that. Also, you can always go to the "render settings" tab and move up the sliders for max samples and max time. That will increase the render time, but you won't get it so grainy. Though you still need to add more light to that render for the best result.
@Divamakeup, that's cool! I have those shaders but haven't gotten around to tinkering with them! I'd say those do a pretty similar job to LineRender9000, which is awesome!
You can find them here. And Will has his freebie thread here.
I should have a demo of my kinetic novel available soon. It’s been linked to the release of a certain game engine so it’s beyond my direct control. But the art is all filtered Daz stuff and I’m pretty happy with it.
That looks amazing, @dreamfarmer! I really like how the girl came out after the filter(s)!
Oh wow! I'm usually not at all a fan of that shading style, but she looks fantastic!
That shading style is amazing! How did you pull it off?
Mostly a slightly modified Topaz Clean subfilter (which works in Photoshop or free Topaz Studio). It works VERY well in the right lighting and I set up a sort of virtual studio with fixed cameras and lighting for every character render.
(Topaz Clean itself is $10 with the following referral link: http://www.topazlabs.com?hr=Wdwdm )
Cool, thanks I am using the referral...let me know if you need me to send you one as well ;-) I have Simplify, but wanted Clean, as well.
(Oh, and you can use these in free Paint.Net as well, with the 8bf plugin)
Brilliant! I wouldn't have thought of that.
Thanks for the explanation. I didn't know anything about DForm. I will start experimenting with that. I guess I will also buy the Ghost Light Kit. I tried making seperate renders of the characters without environment and then paste them on top of the full render and this worked well but having some better lighting equipment will probably be better.
Good luck with your game! It's nice to know what you are doing by combining Daz and Photoshop, even though I can't see myself putting all that work in it for each picture in my story.
One of the unexpected drawbacks of focusing on the speed of image production is that you can end up with way, way more image resources than the average VN, which sounds nice at first until you realize that 1.) you have to manage moving between those images in your engine and 2.) your game size jumps way up.
(I speak from experience. My protagonist (who is overlaid on the backgrounds) has a wonderfully expressive avatar. So much body language! So many faces! Because after all, it only takes two minutes per render and I’ve adapted postprocess into a Photoshop action WHY NOT oh god my demo is almost a gigabyte....)
On the other hand, if your demo includes most of your sprites, the final product ahouldn't be much heavier. Also, I've never understood why traditional line-art visual novels occupied so much in relation to other kinds of games of the same period. It was completely counter-intuitive.
This is true. And damn skippy it contains most of the sprites because I'm forcibly stopping myself from what i was doing earlier on, which is... "None of these poses/expressions are QUITE RIGHT let's just make a new one." No. Cope. Go play some other VNs if you're feeling bereft.
Yeah, feature creep is one of the worse things to deal with for a perfectionist. But perfection is the enemy of good and all that jazz--if only I was able to follow my own advice...
Hey guys, here's a link video of one of the prologue's scenes. The game's demo will have 4 prologues, because you can chose from 4 main characters. So, this scene is from Alexandra Valente's prologue: