digiB

Artemis DevLog CH7

Glorious Monday to you all!

Today is Memorial Day for us in the states. Dedicating this post to SuperMom and now for some trivia: Back in Chapter 1, when MC is staying at Kindra's loft for the first time, he was supposed to have his mom's bootcamp photo as one of his few belongings. At the time I didn't know how to create assets within DAZ. As many of us know, finding good assets in the DAZ store if quite limited and there were no dress blues at all. There is a General's outfit, but the quality is actually pretty low and Ava wasn't a General. So, I ended up scrapping it. Most probably remember me sharing behind the scenes stuff for Chapter 6, creating Kindra's black dress. It was pretty easy, so I finally decided to try my hand at the USMC dress blues. The asset I found was designed for males, so I had to take it in Blender and shape it best I can, and it turned out better than I thought. I had to make some other adjustments like raise the lower part of the coat. It looked like a skirt at this point lol.

There are still some minor tweaks I need to do, like straighten out the material on the shoulders and clean up the textures on the coat (it's really dark but if you look closely, the coat looks dirty). But since this is being used in a photo prop for CH7, I felt this was enough.

Last week I got asked about the 0.6.2 update. I don't have a date on its release as I'm focusing on CH7 and do work on the 0.6.2 patch when time allows. But there is progress on that front. Artemis' cooing audio has been adjusted, and I've been testing it in game. I had the actresses record many variations, so it doesn't just have one or two constantly popping up. I have about 30 different sounds I'm using for a range of emotions (sad, happy, general, curious, etc.) This way when the sound triggers, it closely matches the emotion Artemis' is conveying. It's a lot more work this way, but I'm satisfied with the results so far. If you find it distracting, it will have its own audio slider for you to mute if you choose to.

Lastly, I got the code to function for when it comes to split the books up for Chapter 7's release. At the moment, Books one and two are combined totaling to nearly 20gb. This is a lot, especially for those having to download it for the first time. (and especially during emergency patches). It's a small piece of code, so I don't see it breaking saves. But this will be something I'll test further during CH7's beta phase. How it will function, if you start Book One and load a save from Book Two, Three, etc. The game will prompt you that this save was from Ch#, please load with Book # and will gracefully take you back to the main menu. You won't need to do any game save transfers or anything. All your saves will stay in the same spot. The game will just remind you to load specific saves with the corresponding book exe. I'll work on this more on the UI front to make it visibly clearer that this save is from Book# in the saves thumbnail. No promises on that (possible code limitations), but one of my ideas to make identifying saves in the save menu better for you guys.

That'll wrap it up for last week. Have yourselves a great week this week and remember to stay hydrated!

digi

Artemis DevLog CH7

Hey everyone!

Most of the work was in the writing department for last week. Writing is probably my second favorite part of development, switching between the different personalities/mannerisms. Tweaking the dialogue to fit the character. It's especially fun when introducing new characters.

I'm also still working on some sets for this chapter. Introducing new recurring locations as we start moving away from the underground workshop. It's pretty much been the staple location in the story, but we'll be moving away to a new location. Two of the set pieces I'll be working on in Blender and importing into DAZ. Couldn't find a decent one in the DAZ store for what I'm looking for. Since these two locations are key locations, I really want them to be great looking sets.

Short update this week. Have yourselves a great week and stay hydrated!

digi

Artemis DevLog CH7

Hey, everyone!

The render box is finally up and running. Just in time too as the weather is already well into the 90s in my area. I had to do some minor adjustments on the loop order, but the quick-disconnects really shined and made it a breeze to do. Making regular maintenance less of a chore.

I found my external drive that had my sound effects library which added about 3TB to my asset database. I had to increase the number of drives in the pool to fit the extra terabitties in my drive pool, because since I configured them in the JBOD with TrueNAS as RAIDZ2. It means it required more drives to maintain the resilience of my data that I structured. But there's a ton of sound effects this library has, so worth keeping on the NAS. For those who remember my post on World Backup Day... just a friendly reminder that Raid is not a backup. Be sure to add something like Backblaze for off-site backups.

On Chapter 7 front, things are going smoothly. When I'm taking a break from writing or hit the occasional writer's block, I'm working on locations featured in this chapter. Some locations are going to be custom assets imported in. I'm also experimenting with some code. Chapter 1 featured some cool things with the music player and I hope to bring those features back with Chapter 7's release. That includes restoring DJ Kink Studio in the main menu.

That'll wrap it up for last week!

I had hoped to have the artwork featured in this devlog done by CH6's release. But I forgot to follow up with the artist, with how crazy everything was leading up to that. But something fun I wanted to do and share with everyone. You can find the 3600x2700 file in the attachments of this post.

Artwork by Cheung Ngo Chau

-digi.B

Artemis DevLog CH7

Hey everyone!

Weekly check-in time. Last week I mentioned parts being on backorder. I did find a shop that had them available and the quantity I needed. I immediately ordered and even though I paid for overnight delivery, I got lucky and they shipped it via the slowest method possible by mistake. Anyways fast forward to now and they'll be delivered today, and I'll be putting the server back together. I'm excited to get the ol' girl fired back up again and start doing fun holiday and one-off renders when time allows.

I mentioned the cooing sound Artemis makes during CH5 will be added in the next patch (0.6.2). There'll be a new volume setting in the config menu for voice. So if you wish to turn it off, you can mute it there.

I'm also bringing back the auto-save feature that occurs just before a chapter ends. It will take up slot 1 on page 99. You can still save during the "make a save now" screen, but this is more of a failsafe. This is something I'm building on and refining. But is the plan right now and as I go forward in development, things may change a bit. So the save menu will get a small facelift.

On the subject of saves, I'll also be working on splitting the books up. With the release of the last chapter, it's clear it's needed at this point with how big the chapters are getting. As a whole, next chapter will bring the whole thing a bit over 20GB in size. Splitting the exe's up into proper books (Book One Ch1-4, Book Two, Ch5-8, etc.) will be cleaner and of course easier to download. I'll be looking into coding the saves, so if you're on Book Two and load a Book One save, it won't error out. The way I've coded the game already, you shouldn't have to do anything special like save transfer or anything like that. Something we'll be testing out in the next beta phase though. In theory, you should be able to merge the books if you choose to. Something I'll also be testing to verify this.

Additionally, my NAS upgrades are complete. As my asset library and project as a whole grows, I needed more space. So I purchased a JBOD unit and more storage. I increased my snapshots from once a day to twice. Which means I have another option in case of a whoopsie with a scene file. I'm also cleaning up my DAZ database. I noticed I have a lot of stuff that I don't use. So, I'm off-loading them and doing a bit of re-organizing. When creating background characters. There were a lot of outfits I skipped over because they weren't great quality.

On top of all that, I've been organizing the events for this chapter and writing out scenes. I bought a whiteboard for my storyboards and just general scene organizing. I love tech as you can see above, but I can still be a bit analog. Sticky notes are my best friend.

With a final note for this log, once I get the render box back online. I'll also be fixing some of the lewd scenes. Specifically, Kindra's and June's. Reina's too. Just some tweaks. Kindra's camera movement was too quick, June's hair was a bit too glossy, and Reina's hair was very dark.

That wraps it up for last week! Weather is starting to warm up! Remember to hydrate!

-digi

Chapter 7 now in development

Hey everyone!

Break was nice and got to unwind and recalibrate myself. This week I'll be gathering my notes and start organizing the events that'll be taking place as we get closer to The Expo. I'll also be working on the new locations such as Kapuletti HQ, the Autumn Festival, MC's permanent home, just to name a few. I was hoping to play around with more Blender stuff while on break, fix some of the animations. For example one of Kindra's scenes, the camera moved too quickly. June's hair was a bit sparkly, Reina's hair was a bit too dark. The farmer's market scene was pretty rough. Some growing pains working with a new program. But like all things, it gets better as you learn. Back to what I was getting at, my render box was in dire need of maintenance. As I was rendering the new main menu that Puggy animated, my waterloop tapped out. Very thankful it got me to the very end of CH6. But with everything that went on last year, I hadn't got a chance to clean the waterloop. It's all clean now, I'm just waiting new parts to come in. I ordered some quick disconnects to make maintenance much easier and faster. I'll be working on coding and the script in the meantime.

Before and after

Below is the Q&A

Will we be seeing the mini games in other paths or parts of the story? For example say we are teaching Artemis how to shoot a gun. Would we have the shooting range mini game?

There will certainly be more and with other characters. I'm just careful to not make them a focus of Artemis and more of a short break from reading kind of thing. I also try and add them where they make sense. But time is also a major factor. For example, in CH5 you were supposed to play scrabble/wordle with Artemis when Aiden brought out the scabble tiles. Time is something I consider, and I had to cut her minigame due to time constraints. So, there will certainly be mini games in other paths and parts of the story.

How do you select your beta testers?

Beta testers are people I have to be very critical with when choosing. It requires a lot of trust, which is why all the people in my beta team are people I chat daily with and have been for a long while.

What are the toughest and easiest challenges, specifically program or machine wise, that you had to face during development of chapter 6.

I would have to say Blender was a challenge. It's a whole other beast compared to DAZ and requires a lot of manual adjustment, whereas with DAZ you can mostly get away with just plopping a character and an HDRI to get pretty decent results. Matching the lighting, skin textures, etc. It was a challenge. Easiest part was firing up DAZ :P Just kidding, easiest is probably my workflow of importing custom assets and clothing. While some still give me problems, I can still work with them fairly easily.

Walkthrough?

I do plan on having one integrated into the game. It's just one of those things that's in the backburner because development always takes precedence. And a walkthrough is considered extra work that can be put aside while I focus on the core parts.

...had another question: theres an in-game app that lets you check your standing among the potential love interests, but as some point (chapter 8 i think you said) we will move into pursing a single someone (with the exception of a throuple) exclusively. does this mean that app will change as well, will it evolve, or will it remain a constant reminder of what could have been *for that playthrough?

The app is an evolving thing. Some trivia, I actually took the scale from Dragon Age: Origins' affinity scale. I plan on cleaning things up with the apps. The wallpapers I'll be adding a number and possibly sort them by chapters for those who like to track that stuff can track it. Once I fix the music app (I hope to get to that this cycle), that'll be back in the phone app. In regard to the "BIOS" for the love interests, that'll also get tweaks. Clean things up, have notes show up regarding that LI, etc. There are other things I plan on adding/changing, but post CH8, it'll remain as a tracker. Listing points, etc.

What made you start working on AVNs? Is Artemis your first and do you have any plans after Artemis?

Yes, Artemis is my first AVN. Those on Discord often see me talking about plans for my next project. Taking what I've learned from Artemis, the biggest change in my next one after Artemis will be at maximum 5 romance options. Working on Artemis, 5 seems like a great number to balance core story and sub-story. The setting is going to be high fantasy. For those concerned; No, I'm not working on it. Artemis already takes a lot of time as it is. I'm just jotting notes, crafting characters, settings, worldbuilding basically.

I'm a big fan of writing stories. When I was younger, I'd staple printer paper together and create comics. When I got to high school, I got into filmmaking and 3D animation. In college I did more of it, writing more scripts. Then I realized my creativity overgrew budget, so I had to put things on ice while I focused on my degree and career. During all that I ran into a site called VDategames and an older AVN called "Getting to know Irene" I think? (it's been years). I thought it was real interesting format and looking at the scripts I wrote, I always felt they'd work better as novels. Working with 3D basically means the only budget you need to concern yourself with was the hardware you render on. And thus Artemis was born. Things were very rusty in the writing department and my eyesight was betraying me, but I pushed through it and glad I did.

I'm wanting to work on an AVN. One of my struggles is keeping motivated and I mean when dealing with negative comments. How do you deal with that and still stay motivated?

Lol, you're not gonna like my answer...

To put it bluntly. Who gives a shit what negative people have to say about your work? That's their goal, to kill your motivation. Humans have been human'ing for a very long time and it's nothing new. Mozart, Leonardo da Vinci, all those guys probably had people heckling them. Even today we live in a world where a lot of people seem to hate everything these days. Can't read about a movie or show or game without the overabundance of "I hate x because it's stupid". Stop caring what you read that kills your motivation and focus on your growth. Remember, it takes a lot of work and effort to create something. It takes little to no effort to destroy it. It's why these people choose to destroy. So, don't let it get to you.

On the flip side. Do pay attention to criticism that's constructive. Something that'll help you grow or make your work better. For example, I got a lot of upset readers because of the firm choices in Chapter 5 when the discernment protocol mechanic was introduced. They felt you were being too mean towards Artemis. So, I took that into consideration and put a lot more focus on planning these choices out for her protocol. Basically, look for things that can help you. Even if you may not agree with it completely. At the same time, make sure you're staying true to your vision. It's confusing, I know lol. But you'll get it in time.

That wraps it up! Next week I'll be going over some pending items (Artemis' cooing sound, etc.). I just didn't want this devlog to be a massive infodump since I did the Q&A.

Have yourselves a great week!

digi

Artemis - DevLog

Happy Monday!

First off, I want to apologize for the bug that seems to have affected some of you. Of the 7 BETA testers, none of them experienced this. I believe this may been caused during the building of the BETA version. You may recall I had issues getting ren'py to compile the game for testing which caused a slight delay getting the build to the testers. Trying to troubleshoot the issue, I updated the ren'py version. The build still didn't compile, so I downgraded back. I can't say for sure this was the cause as I've updated ren'py in the past with zero issues to saves. Another possible cause is how big the game is getting. Chapter 7 will cross the file size over 20gb. So, during CH7's development, I'll be looking into splitting the books. So Book 1 (chapters 1-4) will have its own exe. Book 2 (chapters 5-8), etc. With how I coded the game, you shouldn't need to do any kind of save transferring. Something I'll testing during CH7's beta. Aside from that, I have no idea what could have caused old saves to break. This usually occurs when code is altered at the point of a save and I haven't touched code from previous chapters, aside from any typos fixed.

I plan on fixing the textures for Paige's scene, specifically at the Farmers Market. The growing pains of Blender, but it's a really fun program to work with. Just very advanced. Same goes for animations. June's hair, one of the camera angles for Kindra (her textures as well), Reina's hair rendered very dark. The new main menu as well, June's hair is pretty sparkly.

Puggy worked on the end chapter's new main menu and did an amazing job on it. It had to be delayed because on release weekend, my GPUs suddenly began overheating. As suspect as that sounds, right on the eve of release day. I had to make the call of releasing Chapter 6 without the new main menu that triggers after completing the latest chapter. I suspect the GPU's just need to be repasted, maintenance I planned on doing post-release.

Lastly, a very big thank you to you all. I know this development cycle for Chapter 6 was not the best and it certainly showed with how rocky the release was. Most of you know I lost my mother last June to cancer. The months leading up were especially difficult. Caring for her, the rushes to the hospital, hearing her plead for help when the pain was too much. Taking care of her and then focusing my mindset for Artemis' development. Some days Artemis helped, some days it was difficult to focus because I wanted her to survive. Following her passing wasn't easy. She was a big part of the family and the person who brought the family together during the holidays. It was difficult going through our birthdays and holidays without her phone calls to gather us last year. So I very much thank you guys for supporting me last year. Your messages were very supportive and it's amazing to be part of such an amazing community.

With the release of Chapter 6, I'll be taking my post-release break starting now. I'll return in two weeks, April 28th and announce the start of Chapter 7's development.

I'll also continue gathering questions and answer them on my return. Feel free to DM them or reply to this post with your questions.

Again, big thank you to everyone.

- digi.B

Artemis - Chapter 6 v0.6.2

0.6.2 Changelog:

Adding the "cooing" voice for Artemis.

Updated Configuration menu. New volume sliders, new UI customization for text and dialogue box.

Fix renders for Market Place scene in CH6

Fixed animation textures.

Minor bug fixes from the previous release

Typo corrections from the previous release

Full Version - TARS tier

Patch Only - T-800 tier (Requires full version of game.)

Links uploading

Hey everyone,

the links are currently uploading. I'll be posting the page shortly and update the rest of the links as they complete. Currently Mega and WeTransfer are uploading. GDrive is ready to go.

I wanted to mention a couple things. Last night, Puggy handed off the animation for the new main menu and we set it up to render. Around 5AM this morning I noticed the render speeds dropped significantly. Turns out something is up with my waterloop and the temps were reaching 90c. It was my intention to dismantle the loop for maintenance after the update, but seems like something might be an issue elsewhere. I ordered some thermal pads last week (LTTStore.com), so hopefully all it needs is a repaste because it's giving me the "i'm tired, boss" look right now.

So all that to say, the new main menu will come in the next patch. Patch will also include the "cooing" noises. I hired two actresses and liked how both sounded, but I need to match the audio since it came from two different sources, so I had to take it out for now. Additionally, add a few QoL things that were not significant enough for this update.

Artemis CH6 - "7 days"

Quick (probably not lol) check-in!

Reviewing things for this update. A few more re-renders, some tweaks to timings for the micro-animations, few more typo corrections, etc. But mostly focusing on finishing the animations which have been really fun to work on. Last night I spent most the evening reviewing the soundtrack and really enjoying the music this chapter, particularly in certain scenes.

There was one mini scare I had this week. I was working on an animation and sent it off to render while I review other things for this update. I checked the folder to my server and noticed I couldn't open the first frame. I remoted into my server and noticed there was an error that it couldn't write the render onto the disk. Checked on my NAS OS and did a reboot. Normally it takes a few seconds to reboot but it wasn't coming back up. Turns out things were fine, I just had to do a hard shutdown. Give it the ol' kick and the engine fires back up. After that, I wrapped up an animation and cleaned things up. I accidently deleted the base file I work off of, but so glad I setup shadow copies for the Artemis project.

Seeing as today is World BackUp Day, I wanted to share how important this has been. Especially for Artemis. I setup TrueNas for Artemis, with RAID Z2 which just means out of the 4 drives I have the Artemis project specifically on, I can afford to lose two of those drives before the ship has sunk. On top of that are daily backups to Backblaze and I setup another backup to an external drive at my sister's place. So, we gucci here.

Setting up shadow copy really saved my ass from having to rebuild my base. After realizing what I did, I checked previous versions and was able to copy over what I had previously deleted. Those get done every day, though after this update is out. I'm going to do an overhaul to my setup. Expand storage, create snapshots twice a day instead of once, etc.

Anywho, I wanted to mention this to help out any devs out here reading this. If not done so already, I highly recommend. Tons of YouTube videos out there to guide you setting one up from old parts. More vids covering installing and configuring the OS.

Remember: Always backup the lewd.

Have a great week everyone and be safe.

Seven days...

- digi

Artemis Teaser - Release date

Some bugs trickled in over the weekend that I'm looking into. They've mostly been squashed. Just a few renders that need correcting, but the animations are taking a little longer to complete. Puggy and I are also meeting up next week to finalize the animation I've got him working on.

Change log:

• Renders - 4,686 (I apologize for the gaffe on the number. I had mistakenly stored the stills for the animations in my scenes folder for render outputs when I made the last count. This number is the final number.)

• VFX shots - 96 (These are things like Artemis' POV's, holograms, mostly sci-fi elements.)

• Minigame - 1

• SD Cards - 8

• Phone wallpapers - 5

• Soundtrack - 20 additional songs

• Removed the Discernment Protocol icons from choices. (You can still view Artemis' score in her app on your phone.)

• Slowed the timer down for the combat mechanic

Chapter 6 in BETA

Good morning!

Chiming in really quick. First round of beta is as you'd expect, especially around the branching area. I have some last-minute renders wrapping up before packaging up the next beta build. Which by the way, happy to report I was able to fix the issue I had last week.

Issue was ren'py wouldn't let me build a distro, even though the game launched fine. The solution ended up being to just create a whole new game and copy the files over. Distribution built fine after.

There's only one snafu that isn't really a bug, but still a pain point right now. The farmers market scene, this scene was done in blender. Compared to the rest of the chapter, the quality just isn't there. But, I'm going to let it be and will re-visit this after I release the update. I'll have a clearer mind and I'll be able to focus on a solution. After this release, there'll be a patch that will include extra things I wanted to do for this chapter which is mostly UI/UX polishing. The updated renders will be thrown into the patch as well.

That about wraps it up! I'll have a release date next week.

Also, thanks all for the messages. I'll be answering them in the devlog following the release. So, feel free to continue asking.

Stay safe everyone,

digi

Chapter 6 in BETA

Hey everyone!

Apologize for the late posting. The Beta build is now in the hands of the testers.

Instead posting that there was an issue with the build and "I'm working on it". It was better to fix this issue first then send off to the testers, then post the devlog.

One of those issues were me underestimating the amount of work the micro-animations take. They're those little gestures, expressions, etc that I do in scenes that bring the characters to life. I hate doing them, but in the end. Well worth doing.

But the main issue was the build kept failing to compile. It works as an update but compiling the whole thing as one build was the issue. Instead of dragging it on, I compiled as an update and sent it off to the testers to test while I work on the issue.

While they're testing, I'll also be working on the lewd animations and other renders I took note of while I was coding in the images.

Here we go!

(And be safe 'n healthy!)

digi

Artemis DevLog CH6

Good morning!

Popping in really quick for a quick update. I informed the beta team that testing will begin this weekend. This week I'll be processing the remaining renders (color grading/cleanup/etc.) and inserting them into the code for testing this weekend. While they're busy testing, I'll be working on the lewd animations.

In regard to romance options this chapter, there are a number of paths to explore. Book 1 introduced you to them and later chapters you had the option to further explore if you wished. Book 2 and on, unless related to the main story, content with them will be dependent on whether you're on their path or not. Here's a list of LI paths featured in this update:

Kindra (extended scene)

Zelda (path specific)

Naomi (path specific)

Katy

Veronica (extended scene)

June (extended scene)

Reina (path specific)

DK (path specific)

Paige (path specific)

Artemis is a love interest, but that path is entirely optional. Being the title character, she's always going to be featured in every update. But the romance path won't begin until her AI develops more in later chapters.

Lastly, I'll be taking questions and answering after this release is out. I've seen a few of them asked and I apologize for not getting to all of them. Feel free to ask (story, workflow, personal, etc.) and I'll jot them down. You can ask in the comments below or DM me. I'll be compiling them and will answer them after Chapter 6's release.

Thanks again everyone and have a great week!

digi

Artemis DevLog CH6

Hey everyone!

Popping in really quick to say I'm working away on the final scene for this chapter. Once this one is done, I'll be prepping the build for beta testing. Not to say that beta will begin this week, but the next.

Thanks everyone! Back to the grind I go!

digi.B

Artemis DevLog CH6

Hey everyone, quick check in!

Things are going good, will be wrapping up this scene. Then I will be switching gears, inserting the renders into the code. Also adding the VFX to the renders that need them (i.e. Artemis' HUD during POV shots.). Then begin working on the last scene for this update.

There's is another crossover storyline that begins in this chapter and it is exclusive to Naomi's path. I like to blend crossovers into the story, using talent's those characters are known for and pair them with characters or story beats that complement each other in Artemis. For example, DJ Kink + Lexi, both musicians and throughout Book 1, we establish their friendship so when CH4 came, Lexi's inclusion had purpose to the events she participated in. Because originally, it was just going to be DJ Kink at the party. So, for those on Naomi's path. We get our first hint when you visit her and to officially be on her path, you have to had hung out with her in CH5.

Also, I forgot to address a question from the other week. Regarding the music for when the main menu changes. The music will change for this specific main menu, but will shift back to the main theme song when CH7 concludes on the next update. Additionally, once Chapter 6 is released. I'll be working on a getting the music room back online (Hopefully) as well as adding the option to switch out the current main menu to whichever one you prefer. Because as you progress, the main menu changes to reflect things going on in the game (Artemis descending to the workshop, her awakening and the next change after CH6 concludes, etc.). That'll be a separate patch post-release.

Another preview

Kindra is happy because:

A. She's roasting you.

B. Happy about your latest Artemis report.

C. You're under the table.

D. Profits are high.

E. All of the above.

This update has been quite the journey, to say the least. Thank you all for being so patient and understanding. I'm very happy to finally be at this stage of development. Seriously. Thank you all so much.

digi.b

Artemis DevLog CH6

Good morning!

Quick check-in this week. I'm on the last two scenes for this chapter. After that, it's off to the BETA team!

Last week, there was a small detail I wanted to add to a scene. Back in chapter 1, I had a driving scene and wanted a backdrop. Having limited resources back then and extremely rusty creative knowledge. This was the best I could come up with.

 I basically scoured the internet for a panoramic shot for this scene. Surprisingly limited at the time. Fast forward to present day, I created a backdrop completely from scratch for another driving scene for Chapter 6. It's real nice because you get good blur on the foreground and a parallax effect with the trees further back. This creates depth in the scene, so it's not so flat looking. Even though it's a background piece.

 Just a behind the scenes tidbit. Some detail I try to incorporate into scenes to elevate them.

Have yourselves a great week and stay cozy!

-digi

Artemis DevLog CH6

Hey everyone!

Great week going through what's left on the to-do list for this chapter. The scene I went back to and fix was pretty fun. It did give me thought on how to plan my workflow posing in Blender. Definitely pros and cons, but the pros certainly outweighed the cons. Probably my favorite thing is being able to do the entire scene in one file, meaning instead of saving 100+ files for a scene. I just work in the one file. So if I need to correct something, instead of opening all those files. I just make the edits I need and everything in the timeline adjusts. Here's Paige doing her best Violet Beauregarde impression.

 It's also nice having proper tools to fix those clippings on her arms.

Me and Puggy also had a sit down to discuss more about the animation I'm having him do. The creative process was refreshing, and we came up with a better sequence than originally planned. I'm more excited to see the final product. Whenever there's a major shift in the story, I like to change up main menu sequence. After finishing CH6's content, there will be another change in the main menu. I'll look into coding something in the preferences menu so you can change between the different main menus, should you want that option.

that wraps things up for now. Back to the grind I go.

Remember to stay safe and cozy.

digi

Artemis DevLog CH6

Hey everyone!

Can't tell you enough how relieving it is to look at my scene list and see there's just two left and one smaller scene I need to go back to for tweaks. Feels like this engine's been redlining for a while now and can finally come up for air.

As usual, I'm going to continue focusing on completing things for this chapter. Happy to say I've also cleaned up some of the master code I use for the minigames. I try to use them sparingly where I think they'd make sense and there's only one this chapter. So hopefully those who replay Naomi's sparring session or Veronica's Street Kombat game, and this next one I won't mention yet as a surprise. I hope the timings will be better mapped out. I'll ask the Beta team to give feedback on that when we get there. Naomi's shooting range was also another problematic one and I think I found a solution for it. But I'm not going to mess with that one until I begin development for CH7.

Again, huge relief to finally see an end of this development cycle and closer to release. It's been a stressful one as you all know, but so very happy to finally at this stage in the dev cycle.

Stay warm everyone and be safe out there for those camping out for that precious 50 series GPU.

digi

Artemis DevLog CH6

Hey everyone, sorry for the late post. I've finally cleaned up things left on the back burner. Big sigh of relief there. Now it's just focusing on the remaining scenes as well as color correcting renders. Also inserting the renders into the code and more VFX work for Artemis' POV shots.

Thanks again for all your patience and support. I realize there are many who are new here and may be wondering why this update is taking as long as it is. You can read this post to catch up.

https://www.patreon.com/posts/artemis-devlog-107228975

Please be safe and take care of yourselves.

digi

Artemis DevLog CH6

Hey everyone,

had my hands in everything this week. Catching up on code, more asset conversions and organizing what I have left.

Someone reached out to me about playing Artemis on their YouTube channel and I have no problem with it. But it made me think about it and I checked out another person doing a let's play (the previous person hadn't uploaded their playthrough). They played Chapter 5 and it was fun seeing their thought process when it comes to choices. Especially regarding Artemis' discernment protocol. Their primary focus were the icons and not necessarily deciding based on the choice itself.

I mentioned before I took your guys feedback on the choices and focused less on things that come off mean and more about situations that Artemis would interpret. Here's an example.

One of your first choices in CH6 is how you respond to this situation while Artemis is observing your actions. This way I feel there's more thought on the choices as opposed to being tempted by the icons. Some choices are pretty obvious like the one below. But there are other situations where there are more than two choices to mix things up. For the minmaxers such as myself, you can still track your points in the Artemis app in your phone.

Just keep in mind, it's more about balance than pumping all points to either score. I'll be revising the words to better outline how it works during her initial meeting in CH5.

 I also touched base with our boy Puggy today. He was big help animating the satellite for me for CH5 and I'm hiring him again for another animation this chapter. This animation will occur on CH6's conclusion (keeping it a little surprise for now. Gave him the shakedown to not spill the beans)

That wraps it up for last week. Please be safe out there, especially my neighbors down south in LA county. The aftermath of the fires is heartbreaking to see...

digi.B

Artemis DevLog CH6

Hey everyone,

caught up a lot last week. save for one item that I've been tinkering with. more of a technical issue, but I'm going to move forward with my plans for this week and continue chipping away at it. I plan on working on the animations when CH6 enters beta.

Speaking of technical, here's an example where I have to fix a mesh. Some outfits have dForce (DAZ 's jank physics) and even after applying the simulation, the cloth doesn't drape as it should. Particularly for the more endowed women.

 I can usually use mesh grabber to fix some outfits. But in cases like this, I just export it to another program, fix it and import it back.

Results are far better than using mesh grabber for this situation.

 That wraps it up and back to work I go.

Here's a preview featuring Reina

thank you everyone and have a safe week. and stay warm!

digi.B

Artemis DevLog CH6

Hey everyone.

Hope you all had a great week last week. I worked on patching things I left on the backburner. That just means fixing odd renders I caught while inserting into the code, also correcting some code, etc.

Instead of giving another delivery estimate, I wanted to share what's left to do for this update.

I have four scenes left to complete. One of those scenes requires a custom environment. But I believe I found an alternative in the DAZ store that I can make work.

There are 3 scenes I need to go back to-to fix (Not entire scenes, but a handful of shots that need to be fixed).

There are 5 different lewd scenes I need to animate.

There are 4 non-lewd scenes I need to wrap up (These are mostly finished.).

Additionally, BETA goes on for two weeks before release that needs to be kept in mind.

In regard to content. Chapter 5 primarily focused on Artemis and of course will continue to be this way as she is the title character. Regarding the love interests in the story, there are various paths to progress your relationship in this chapter. Every love interest has screentime this chapter, some have more than others. These are dependent on you being on their path.

Please be safe as we go into the New Year and stay warm.

digi.B

Artemis DevLog CH6

Hey everyone,

popping in real quick to share a preview. Apologies for no special renders this year for the holidays. Semi short week this week, but I'll more than likely still be working through Christmas Eve and Christmas.

Kindra would like to have a word with you in her office.

Merry Christmas everyone. Have yourselves a great week and stay warm.

-digi.B

Artemis DevLog CH6

Good morning!

I was updating code and realized I hadn't shared a preview for this scene. It was meant to be shared on Veterans Day.

Artemis features a lot of custom assets to help shape the world around it. Even Artemis herself has heavy modifications. She's an HD mesh and the "android" parts required a lot of work to remove/modify to get the look she has now. The shot above I really enjoyed putting together and is a scene I've been waiting to work on since CH2. I get asked a lot about MC's parents and this scene will finally start exploring that part of his story.

On the Blender side of things, I hit minor bump. And I was curious what issue this scene might cause. The mall scene in CH5 was large in scale from location to population. This scene in CH6 takes place in the bigger part of the city with lots going on. I found a fix but it wasn't what I expected. Blender kept complaining about running out of resources (VRAM), but felt that might have been an error as I was able to preview things without an issue. So, I decided maybe I can just disable one of the GPUs. Sure enough the scene finally rendered. Great thing about Blender is you can fire up multiple windows. My solution was just open another, load the scene needed and toggle the GPU to work on that specific job. Very stupid. Very technical. But its times like this where I look at my degree in computer science and take a big huff of copium that I pursued that :')

Thank you guys for your support and I hope you all have a great week.

Stay warm and cozy

digi.B

Artemis DevLog CH6

Good morning!

Did some Blender work last week. I mentioned before how much prep goes into transferring characters over from DAZ. Here's another example with Paige being our lovely model this week.

Paige will forever remain a blonde. But during the conversion, it decided "Nah, she's a brunette now". Her piercings also dulled out and her outfit also didn't transfer over correctly.

All black is nice, but it's something Kindra or Zelda would wear. Paige prefers a little more color in her attire. So, I had to re-texture from scratch both the hair and the outfit. But I'm definitely getting a lot quicker at it.

It's crazy sometimes how meticulous you have to be (I guess you don't have to. Most probably would have said it fuck it, and moved on). Referring to the texture pattern. Since this outfit has scenes done in both DAZ and Blender, I wanted to match the scaling as close as possible, down to the thousandth.

Here's another preview. MC channeling his inner mother for some tough love

Have yourselves a great week. Stay warm and cozy!

digi.B

Artemis DevLog CH6

Hey, everyone. Apologies for the late post! Was caught up in the momentum and realized what time it is. Nothing eventful to report aside from the usual grind.

There's a picture floating around the discords of when I was trying to pull an all-nighter for...I think it was CH2 or 3's release date (Last minute bug checks, etc.). It was like a six pack of Red Bulls I went through, all on my desk. I've stopped drinking these for the most part. But saw this chonker while grocery shopping the other day. Bought it as a desk ornament, or maybe a "in the event of crunch time" "Break Glass". Just kidding, I know these things are horrible for your health. I don't intend on drinking this, it just got a chuckle out of me that they make these in 20oz cans.

That said, stay healthy! And hope those who are state-side enjoyed their holiday.

-digi.B

Artemis DevLog CH6

Hey, everyone!

Sometimes when you're working on a scene, there's just something that's off. And after spending so much time trying to fix it, you realize its best to just move forward with it. Or else you end up spending more time on it than you want. But I like to keep those bits in the back of my mind while I work on new scenes. See if I can think of something to fix the issue.

One of those examples being the Halloween party in CH4. So many custom 3D assets, so many characters and the damn ground fog I had to have in the scene. At the time, I was doing 4K no denoise and downscaling the renders. Needless to say, the renders came out pretty bad. Even with denoise, I would have to set the iterations at a crazy number and each scene already was hitting 40+ min a shot to render and I felt the pressure of the release date with no solution to fix at the time. I believe I found a solution, but won't test it until after this release (that scene alone is over 1k renders.)

In regard to this chapter though, I was able to fix a scene that was nagging me and it was only 6 renders to fix.

Difficult to see, but there's black splotches at the upper left (more noticeable full screen). But the main issue is DK's skin.

 I was able to give her skin more color. Also, the misty morning of the location came out much better.

 This part of the scene was done in Blender. The great thing about DAZ is you can load in the character's skin and it's ready to go. Blender requires fine tuning and each character needs their own adjustment. Some characters are easier to do than others. DK's was a challenge because of her olive skin tone, I'm guessing.

Here's another preview

Lastly. It's Thanksgiving this week for us in the States. And most of you know I lost my mother to cancer over the summer and the holidays are just difficult this year. But I'm still very thankful. Thankful to you guys. It's been a difficult year, but because of you guys. I was allowed to be with my mom and care for her. Last year she seemed healthy on the outside and this year just went down hill so very fast. But that's the ugly thing about cancer. But as I said. Because of you, I was able to take her to her appointments, grab her meds, get her meals. Take care of her best I could. A lot of you reached out when it happened and I apologize for not getting back to everyone. But I saw your messages and just want to say thank you all for getting me through this year. I really do appreciate you all.

Have yourselves a great week and please be safe.

digi.B

Artemis DevLog CH6

Weekly check-in!

Made some progress with the soundtrack for this chapter. Once this chapter is out the door, I will look into bringing back the music room AKA DJ Kink's Studio. Long story short, there was a fiasco with a company changing their contract terms, and many of us in the adult gaming community had to make changes. So, in my case. I had to revise a lot of the code which broke the player. But I'm aiming to bring it back.

As December looms over, I want to remain transparent in that it's likely I won't meet the Christmas deadline I set. Beta generally runs for two weeks and the build is not at that point just yet. I know this might upset some, but I needed to report that. I'll still be pushing for the Christmas date (hoping for a Christmas miracle and all). With everything that's gone on this year for me, I just want to move forward and go into next year fresh. So, I'm going to continue to push to get this release by Christmas. But I also want to remain transparent and set expectations.

Thanks everyone and have a great week.

Chapter 6 preview

digi.B

Artemis DevLog CH6

Hey everyone!

Was working on a scene and the power went out here. So taking this moment to write the weekly update. Mostly just scene work and some code revisioning. I hope to clean up part of the code, specifically the mini-games. There's only 1 mini-game in this chapter and I don't plan on going as hard as I did with Veronica's from CH5. Because there were different renders needed depending on where you lost, that became a headache. This mini-game is less intense and more on the romantic side of things. For those who play with mini-games on, I hope you enjoy this one.

Power still hasn't come back on. Fortunately I moved the code to github around CH4. So, I can at least have my laptop tethered to my phone and work on more code until power is restored in my neighborhood. Winds picked up pretty bad earlier, so hoping no accidents were involved or no one firing up their fully autonomous android nearby.

Be safe and stay cozy!

also, big thank you to all the Veterans o7 Happy Veterans Day.

digi.B

Artemis DevLog CH6

It's a new week!

Christmas is coming fast and still much to do. Last week I was shifting gears faster than a Fast and Furious movie, going from Blender, DAZ and all my other applications I shuffle between. But things are coming along well. One of my biggest mistakes with Artemis was creating many romance options. Even after knocking two off the list, the number is still pretty high for my personal taste. The current roster will remain as is from here on out. Everyone who has their own DataLeak is romancable.

On days where I'm just taking a break, be it shower thoughts, eating, or sitting on the porcelain throne. I'm jotting ideas for my next AVN. I won't be working on two at once, but I'm just writing notes here and there for when I've completed Artemis, I've got a good foundation for the next project. So far this is what to expect; I'll be giving the Artemis Universe a break and it'll be high fantasy setting. But most importantly, I'm barring myself from making more than 5 romancable characters. I like this number as I feel I can properly balance side/personal stories and weave it well into a main story. Also means I can give all characters proper screentime with each update. As I said before, every girl in Chapter 6 has screentime. Some scenes are a little brief, but certainly not a "hi and bye" type scene. All scenes have purpose.

That wraps it for this devlog.

Spooky season is over and we're now in gobble-gobble season (for the state-side peoples)

Have yourselves a great week. Stay safe and healthy.

• digi.B