westane
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5.2 - Let's Talk Art
🕑 Added 2018-01-02 07:00:01 +0000 UTC 5.2's development is moving steadily as I continue to write content. At this rate we should be looking at a release before February taking into account the new patch criteria outlines a couple devblogs ago. As a refresher, 5.2 will contain mom's new content, 5.3 will see the new interactive events expanded to other characters, and 5.4 will see a general content update. 5.2 and 5.3 will likely be Patreon exclusive releases, while 5.4 will be the public version.But really, today I wanted to talk about artwork for The Company!
Stay a While, and Listen
This is gonna be a long one (waves to Yojimbo) so settle in. I also ask that you read the entire post before igniting your pitchforks.
The post I made last week to gather opinions regarding generating 2D artwork for The Company generated a ton of discussion. It was informative and, frankly, a lot of fun! I think open conversations like that are a great thing, and you shouldn't be surprised to see more in the future. There were a lot of opinions, and as a result, a lot of things for me to consider. Well, here's the short of it:
I've already begun reaching out to artists with the intention of commissioning artwork for the entirety of the game. I should have samples within the next week or two.
Okay, okay, hold on, I'm not done!
Why I'm Going This Direction
The most basic reasoning is that this was always my intention, but it was never feasible in the beginning, and I never really thought I'd reach a point during this game's development where it would be. Now that it is, it's something I've been thinking about for a while. Here's the bullet points:
- The big one, doing this gets me out of this legally grey area I'm in right now by using real life models. See, I'm not "selling" my game I'm "receiving donations to aid in its development" That's fine, right? Right?
- Generated art would allow me to "market" my game as something that's truly "mine"
- Generated art would add a huge level of consistency to my scenes. Any character would be capable of any action, and it would depicted in artwork
- There's many story and fetish avenues I can't explore right now due to the limitations of my current media choice, at least not without compromising immersion and consistency
To me, these are massive benefits, especially the first one. However, with those come some significant drawbacks that I'll touch on now.
It'll Be Expensive
Well, yes and no. It's an expense, but it's one that's now budgeted for. Additionally, the rate of expense is limited by the generation of art work. It's not a quick process, so it's unlikely I'd be in a situation where I'm suddenly hemorrhaging money.
It'll Be Time Consuming / It'll Eat into Development Time
This was a big concern among a lot of people, but the reality is that development time really wont be impacted. This is for a few reasons.
Firstly, my involvement when it comes to procuring artwork will be limited to communicating with the artist, approving submissions, paying invoices, and moving the artwork into designated folders.
Secondly, there's been a lot of work going into the back end lately that is expanding how the game handles images. I'll show off some examples once I have it cleaned up and ready for prime-time, but even know there are functions in the game that allow for dynamic, layered, visual-novel style scene generation. With a simple widget call I create a background, call 1-3 actors to it with proper orientation and, with 2D artwork, adjust facial expressions on the fly. It's really cool!
Finally, the way I'll be implementing the new artwork is like this: My artist will generate art for the game in parallel to the game's development. Development will not stop to wait for art, now will update releases be delayed. Then, and only then, once the artwork has caught up 100% to the existing content will the old media be 1:1 swapped out for the new artwork.
Now, some people were concerned that they'd be waiting for new content to release until the art was ready for it. The answer is no, and here's why...
The Company is Defined by its use of Live Models and GIFs!
I don't disagree, and if I didn't see the appeal I wouldn't have gone that route to begin with. That's why they're not going anywhere. Starting in 5.2, you'll begin to notice my relaxing a bit in terms of image continuity. I've split the game up into 4 basic image categories:
- UI - Obviously, images used for the user interface. These include backgrounds, clothing images, buttons, etc.
- Characters - Character busts and portraits
- General Actions - These are general activities that occur repeatedly across scenes. You'll see a lot of these in 5.2
- Scenes - Actual, scripted scenes between characters, as well as story events
With the aforementioned scene handling system, Character images can be reused and reconfigured repeatedly over various situations and locations. This will go a long way in reducing image counts as well.
General actions pertain mostly to the new interactive events system. These are a concession I'm making in the name of efficiency and flexibility. A good example of this is kissing. Normally, if you were to kiss your mother in the game, it means I'm finding a scene where Ava Addams is kissing a man or woman and clipping the GIF. Honestly, these usually feel out of place anyway because I'm forced to just take what I can get, never mind if you're kissing someone else. Every character needs at least 2 kissing GIFs... Now, there'll be a single MF, MM, and FF kissing image that'll be used as needed. A closeup to maintain ambiguity.
Scene images are more involved and specialized. When you, mom and sis have your livingroom threesome, there'll be a scene made for it. When you transform into a shemale, there'll be a scene for it. When you slice your hand open on the TFM-1 vial, there'll be a scene.
Now, why am I going through all this trouble with semantics?
The Loophole
Once the 2D artwork catches up the current state of the game, it will become the "official" face of The Company. However, with all the streamlining I mentioned above, the game will be in a prime state to support honest to dog image packs. With that said, the current media pack the game is using will come to be known as the "Porn Style" image pack, or something, and it will be considered an "unofficial" image pack for the game. It will also be maintained (just as it is right now) for the entirety of the game's development.
So when 6.0 releases, the "Official Image Pack" may be stuck in version 5.8 for a few more weeks, the the "Porn Style Image Pack" will be updated and ready at release time.
Yes, it's a sneaky and perhaps overly-complicated way of doing things, but it's one that I think will be worth it.
Seriously, TL;DR Man...
Right, sorry.
- 2D art is coming, sure as Winter
- This new art will be the official "face" of the game once implemented
- Key reasons are flexibility, ownership, and legalities
- Updates will not be delayed while waiting for artwork to complete
- Aside from a patch cycle to shore up the image handling of the game, there will be no impact to development time
- I understand and agree with the attachment to current media in the game. Penny Pax is bae (Did I use that right?)
- The existing media style will be maintained and supported throughout the entire development cycle, it will just be labeled as "unofficial"
- The porn image pack will be updated just as it is now, and ready for release as updates are ready for release
- Documentation will be released for creating your own image packs once the system is ready
- Some art-related concessions are being made because, frankly, I'm tired of not being able to give people dicks! Dicks! Dicks for everyone!
Right, well, I told you it'd be a long one, but hey, patch notes will be shorter now, so...
Please drop any questions and concerns (I know there will be concerns) in the comments. Next week I'll be back to actually talk about the patch!
Comments
the whole reason i started playing this game was because of the live characters. im really sad to see them go but sort of understand. i still like the game however i feel like to me it wont be the full game i fell in love with.
Paul
Risky.
Westane
That's why I added the option to play with images off :) That will be the same location for any kind of image pack management as well.
KazzKazz
I sit firmly in the 2D group and am happy to hear 2D is going to be coming to the game however as I said before I would still love to see a Imageless version of the game to focus just on the text. I don't know anything about 2D scene/animation generation but I have found that any time any sort of generation is used the picture quality suffers immediately and while I am not versed well enough to name what is missing this usually makes anything the text does play second fiddle to the art and if the art is not as good as the writing the writing will suffer. So I am in this ride for the plot (insert witty comment here). The characters are super engaging and interesting and I don't want the art choices to take away from that.
DramaCoach69
Checked it out and the artwork is excellent. Animation is good as well, and could easily replace some of the current animation we have, but quality doesn't come cheap. I am sure that is a concern to Westane, however, maybe a deal can be worked out is enough of us joining JoiXXX's Patreon. lol
Westane
I really should have talked about this more in the post itself. Nothing is "picked", Silverjile is just the first artist I'm reaching out to due to affordability and consistency. We're working together on a trial basis to see how the art meshes with the engine. I'm not going to implement art into the game that I don't feel belongs there. I'm just as anxious to get those sketches as anyone else!
Hey ! I voted for GIF and i must admit i'm a bit disapointed by your decision. The main reason for that is the fact that i really didn't like the artist that you talked about in your post . Isn't it possible to look for a more "real" 2D artist (By that i mean someone whose art is a bit closer to reality and not so "fantastic"). Anyway keep up the good work man.
Westane
... /hug
Westane
Don't be disappointed, the game you're playing now isn't going to go anywhere. I'm certainly not going to drop the current media style given how much it resonates with others, myself, and the game in general. I can't make you believe, but, hopefully I can keep you entertained!
Westane
I don't doubt you, and I'm not at all above admitting I've made a terrible mistake. The one thing I am standing by is that this will not have an impact on the development of the game itself, at least not in the near future. If things go sideways, yeah, you can fully expect a post from me saying "I dun fucked up, I'm sorry, back to the drawing board". In the meantime, I haven't been given reason to worry.
DramaCoach69
In the recent poll, I believe I came down more on the side of trying to maintain the live gifs as opposed 2-D artwork, but the caveat was that I could see the advantages of 2-D and was concerned about quality of the artwork. I did read all the comments and you bring up one important, mentioned by others: "The Company is Defined by its use of Live Models and GIFs!" On this issue I can't disagree more, and because of that I am swinging fully behind your decision to move to 2-D art. "The Company" is defined by it gameplay, interesting character and the multiple interactions and outcomes available for those characters in addition to the PC. We can even see with the addition of the cat collar (I wonder what would happen if the PC mistakenly tried it on first) and special strap-on that "The Company" is growing and improving all the time. 2-D artwork will helps support this growing story line in a way that the current porn images can't. I, and many others also, have grown rather fond of the current characters. Ava, Sophie, Diana, Tasha, Dakota, and Penny, especially, have become a regular part of my day. So much so that I have searched online for their videos to watch them in "real" action. I haven't found Dakota yet, but regardless, they are not what defines "The Company" and what makes it such a vibrant, and fun game. I think you have covered all the bases and by including the possibility of members insert image packs of their own choosing, I say, "Tally Ho, Charge, Geronimo, and Move Forward!"
Twisted Kidney
Reading is for losers!
As long as the art doesn’t come before the game and improvements I don’t care
I know that Bedlam Games uses a great artist named Joix (or JoiXXX) over at hentai foundry. Check him out. <a href="http://www.hentai-foundry.com/user/JoiXXX/profile" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://www.hentai-foundry.com/user/JoiXXX/profile</a>
Agreed. None-too-enthusiastic about the style of the artist you picked out Westane, but your post has won me over to your ideas. Eagerly awaiting the coming patches.
Lech
So... more then 50%of people that support this project voted against this and yet you do it. Artists! :P Well its your vision. And don't be sly with the porn images and call it "unofficial". I'm quite sure after a while you'll find it just a waste of time and your work and you'll dump that part completely. Same happened in Trap quest. Shame. i like this game and i'll wait to see what 2d does for it. Myabe it won't be THAT bad. But i am disappointed.
It's a great peace of work this game yes some the images of mom and Dekota are not them but hay lets just enjoy the game. Without are help and support this Guy/Woman's work wouldn't be where it is today.
MrBeeMonster
guess I'll wait for the demo to make my mind up, hope the artist you picked doesn't flake
I like this a lot. The very idea of image packs is very interesting to me. It gives you the chance that everyone will get what they want without changing your original intention. Especially if we get a few great image packs that change the styles to suit anyone's fancy. I do think that it will take much longer to catch up with the 2d pack than you think, but I'm no expert on commissions (never had one done). You did say you were reaching out to several artists. So maybe you're trying to have multiple artists colaborate in the project. Well any way, love this direction and will continue to support.
Troqu
Call me a pessimist but I believe you're seriously underestimating the amount of work properly dealing with artists is going to be. In the end this won't stop my support for you, but I won't be surprised in a month or two when you're making posts about all the problems x commission or y artist is giving you.
PantherParabola
Like what I hear, and can't wait to see how the game looks with your 2D artwork. Love the direction, keep up the excellent work.
IchaIchaSennin
You have my approval. I voted for GIFs over drawn scenes because I didn't like the artist you picked.
Cody Renton
I'm still on the fence about moving away from actual scenes, but you make a very convincing argument.
