nottravisgames
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We have animations :D
🕑 Added 2019-10-10 08:34:00 +0000 UTCWe shouldn't have of course. But we have. *is currently happier than Annie being locked into a pub overnight*
Short version
By a whole series of cheats, cuts and plain good luck in faffing with things I'm able to add high quality animations at a minimal file size. Not hugely important for One or Three but there was -that- scene in Two plus there are a whole bunch of adult scenes in Four that will now hugely benefit as instead of the still images I had done, I can now add to them a series of animations as well.
There is an initial test render for One in the link here (SFW, just click and it will play)
...and a totally NSFW teaser clip here. I've kept this deliberately short to just a few seconds as I don't want to spoil your fun in game - I've got nearly eight seconds of this so far :)
(also note the size of the file. It's tiny!)
Long version!
Well, all the above naturally. But begods, I've done it! Animations have been the albatross around my neck since I started, given that so many games have them now and I just don't have the processing ooomph at the moment to be able to do them.
Except I have :D
You may gather there is a certain dev this morning who is feeling somewhat pleased with herself. :)
So, here's how I did it. It was a combination of events and good fortune really. To start with, I'll be honest in that I had given up on the idea of being able to have animation in H5. A 1060 card just isn't powerful enough to turn out the renders quickly enough. If we think that Chapter One has around 400 images, the entire chapter content only equates to some twelve seconds of animation, and -prior to the remastering- each render was taking me about an hour on average. So it just didn't make sense.
However....post remastering what I started to find was that all the resurfacing I had been doing was reducing the render time for scenes. By re-skinning the asset base I had changed the surfaces sufficiently so that Daz and the hamster were finding it easier to throw light around and that the hour had dropped to closer to 30 minutes. So if the fact everything looks better wasn't reason enough the speed advantage would have been enough to justify it.
So that got me thinking (always dangerous I know). Just how far could I tweak render times by playing with scenes and here's where starting with no asset rig to speak off at the start of the year came in.
For One and Two almost all scenes were made by rendering the background and characters separately as my old 1050 card just didn't have the memory to hold all the assets. So for the test animation earlier this week of the Princess I did the same thing again. Rendered the grass and landscape as one render and rendered her and the altar as an other. This was allowing me to render the Princess at around 5 minutes per frame. So a ninety frame three second animation wasn't taking 90 hours, not even 45 hours but (for me) a mind blowing 7.5 hours...
I was suddenly in the realm of very, very feasible.
My next step was, partly for fun, partly as I always wanted it, and partly for a speed test was to do the opening scene animation of the Intrepid above. This turned out to be the most important piece of rendering I've ever done...(I'll explain why in a minute)
Which just left me that troublesome woman Annie and -that- animation scene. So at first I did what I did for the Princess. Render the background separately etc. Speed time was good given that there are two characters for the hamster to deal with turning out at around eight minutes per render in the end (I did play with the size and whatnot a bit and did get it down to around 4/5 minutes but it did look a bit meh). Even so eight mins is OK...except it didn't look great. The background trick that had worked from a view above POV just looked false in the room set up. Soooo....I tried adding the background to Daz as a backdrop and rendering it all together.
This looked even worse as Annie looked like a cardboard cut out as the backdrop doesn't "exist" as far as Daz is concerned so no shadows etc.
For a while I thought I'd hit a roadblock again - and then I remembered the Intrepid render. Ophion isn't actually an asset. There isn't a huge planet size prop in the background. No, it's what's called a plane. In other words just an image projected onto a prop.
I'd gained some experience with planes whilst doing Four as Sarah has a scene on some paths involving her going in water. For that scene I had to learn how to use them. A plane, I should explain, is a flattish square that you can manipulate, shade, and generally play around with to project an image. So, if I wanted Sarah with her head above water, for example, I'd drop a plane in, shade it to look like water and then lower it until her head was peeking out above it.
The big advantage of planes is that Daz realises they exist when it renders...(you can see where this is going, yes?)
So I made a plane, added to it the earlier room background, faffed with the size and the angle until the camera and the plane were showing what the complete render had showed....and made an animation.
Eight minutes per frame. With shadows. :) So entirely, totally, feasible.
Is it as good as me being able to render the entire room? No. Of course not. But on the other hand I honestly can't tell that much of a difference. If anything it looks as though I've added a little bit of depth of field to bring Annie more into view.
So, I can crack on with the remaster again now. Everything is settled. Crappy graphics replaced? Check. Real life looking characters? Check. Better GUI for movement? Check. Animations...*grins* Check!
Also...geoshells!
They are now my second favourite thing after planes. In my slightly mad drive for perfection I wanted bodily parts that had gone into other bodily parts to reflect that. I.e....to be wet. *has done that too!* (NSFW)
Anyhoo, enough from me now. I've no more experiments etc to show. It's just crack on time. My apologies, as always!, for the delays all this faffing is causing but I think it's worth it. :)
Comments
Nottravisgames
More than welcome :) Hopefully, you will all have more sense than me and not try to make a big game on a 1050/1060 card tho! But even if you do have a "powah-rig" there will always be times when the scene can get demanding and so maybe my little insights will be of use :)
Thank you for this most informative post! Especially all the technical explanations. If my own work ever comes to light, It will be extremely helpful. I once again, doff my floppy hat!
Nottravisgames
:D and without $6million too!
Quinfax
Gentlemen we can rebuild this game. We have the technology.
Nottravisgames
Thankees :) *tries!*
acac
That's awesome! I'm always amazed by devs who can do everything, from art to writing to so many other things!
Nottravisgames
*will see how things go?*
DA22
I am happy that you are happy and over the moon Notty the marvelously amazingly wonderful. :P Loved the anim and the pic, they do look great. With regard to the remark of Huity, though I am a bit scared to say it. Animations should be saved ,unless you can do the whole game, for those moments where they add to the dramatic effect and are better as a still combined with the imagination of the player. These are not always by definition the NSFW scenes. I think for example that the scene where Amanda is introduced in the moonlight might benefit from her turning her head to you with a mischievous smile. Just hoping I did not give you to many new ideas :P
Nottravisgames
*eyes....*
TotesNotThea
I have a serious game related question, is this the right place to ask it? Gonna ask anyway, can't get moderated here ;-) With the intro screen now being animated, do you plan on adding sound effects to it? It would look totes awesome with a rolling kind of sound over the top!
Nottravisgames
Thankees :) I confess to being super stupidly pleased with myself over this one. It takes h5 visually to a whole new level now. Of course the big question, when I get to Four, is what scenes to animate...*tries not to catch Huity's eye*
Sulring Durgul
Well, you know what they say: practice makes perfect! Or in this case, even more perfect. Jolly good, Notty!
Nottravisgames
Sir, yes, Sir! ;)
hisstoryman
Congrats! Now get to work dammit! π
Nottravisgames
Faffing? :) Alright, by that no real experience other than what I've stumbled across :)
TotesNotThea
Congrats! and well done! Truly excellent work! Have a Jaffa Cake as a reward! :-) About you saying you have no experience, what was the last nine months then? ;-)
Nottravisgames
(whispers) I agree... ;)
GhostPhil
Seeing an animation for a flying spaceship is better than any sex animation π₯°
Nottravisgames
*laughs* Thank you. I thought it might be useful to share how I went about it. Not only for others who want to try this but also a little peek under the hood to prove that I do occasionally do some work :) But totally with you on the render time - and the file size as well. Funny in that if I hadn't made the decision to lose those grey corridors none of this would have happened! But aye, miles and miles away from what I had in Two. When you think that original attempt took nearly a week of 24/7 rendering too, it's just crazy...
Congratulations, Notty! That was a joy to read. :) Never in my wildest dreams have I thought you could bring the rendering times for animations as down as you have. Imagine what you'll be able to do with another PC. ;D Also, it's looking miles ahead of what you had originally in Two! You may actually get me excited for animations. Me! Totally unheard of!
Nottravisgames
*chuckles* thank you.
Huitieme
First of all, congratz on cracking this tough nut! I'm at the same time proud of you and completely in awe :D I haven't checked the NSFW ani yet (being at work), but I glanced at the picture (for merely a few milliseconds) and it warmed my pants... I mean heart. Warmed my heart!
Nottravisgames
*grins* I'm a very, very, happy dev this morning :) It shouldn't really be possible, especially if you consider I have no real experience at any of this, and yet....it somehow is :)
TomberryDood
The sheer enthusiasm in this post is getting me pumped. Hell yeah!
Nottravisgames
I'm sorry it keeps getting pushed back, but I don't think I've anything left to faff with now at least! But worth it, yes?
NeimadFR
Well damn you keep giving me good reasons to wait for the remaster :D
