It's the "Still faster than George R.R. Martin" update...

Hello!

The headlines

Not a very exciting update for the reader as, since my last post, it's really been more of the same. So basically, just testing and animation corrections. A nice completed module from Chapter Five is in for it's second round of testing after some feedback and the addition of VA work and SFX, and some earlier animation glitches in some other work has been fixed. So progress for sure, but not an exciting read for you.

That said, and I know I've said this before but it remains true, the actresses have really brought so much to the scenes it's incredible. I absolutely don't regret adding the VA work at all.* 

Other stuff

Speaking of VA, I've also finally got the VA for Annie. This was a difficult one to cast**. I knew the VA who I wanted to play her, and she has been incredibly patient with me as we've kicked the voice tests back and forth until she nailed it. 

Oh! The 4090 PC has arrived! A couple of weeks later than I was expecting (Parts shortages apparently. It was a custom build) but it's here at last and will be thrown into action on some animation buffing later today.

What's left to do?

More of the same really. Testing and animation corrections, adding some more VA and, carefully, putting the final build together. Once that's done there's some compression work to be done (the file size is pretty hefty at the moment). So nothing terribly exciting from your perspective other than it will be finally released. 

Reflections

It's been a long time since Four came out, I know and no doubt we've both had the same thoughts at times of just why has it taken so long. I'll confess I didn't expect it to be as long as this. I suspect I was entranced by having just got the 3090 shortly before the crash and assuming that with that much power anything was possible.

But just where did the time go? Alright, there wasn't a lot I could do about the six months post-crash. That was what it was. And being realistic, say another six months to re-design and re-code five chapters doesn't seem that excessive either. And the rest of the time? Well that went on replacing graphics and re-animating/adding animations. I think this is where I went wrong. Not in replacing or adding animations, I think that did need doing, but what would have been a better way to go about it would have been to have done the re-design and gameplay fixes, get Five out and then, when I did the next chapter in the line, also buff one of the previous chapters on another machine. 

So I'd have got another PC and used that to buff Chapter One while I was working on Chapter Six. Buff Chapter Two while working on Chapter Seven and so on. You'd be getting new content, I'd have been getting cash flow and we'd both have won. A lesson there for anyone who finds themselves in this position.

But a year to re-animate everything still seemed a shockingly slow pace to me. Until I crunched the numbers. A minute of animation takes some 1,800 renders. If you allow for errors and corrections, you could safely say a more realistic figure would be between 2,000 and 2,500 renders per minute. There's around an hour of animations in the rebuild. So excluding any still image corrections, and there's been quite a few of those, the total animations come to somewhere between 120,000 and 150,000 frames. That crunches out at somewhere between 300 and 400 frames per day, each and every day. That of course is just pure render time and doesn't take into account the setting up of the scenes etc

So from the top down it looks slow "A year to redo animations?", but from the bottom up it looks (to me at least) fairly decent "400 frames every day?". 

There's no doubt it looks better, and I stand by it needed doing, but I did, I think, go about it the wrong way. Still, it is what it is and we're all geniuses with 20/20 hindsight.

And I think that's about it for now. Once again, thank you for your patience. 

Notty

* Although I wish I'd planned it more in advance rather than as a last minute addition.

** Not an awful lot of lewd Australian VA's around