trinian
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The remaster retrospective
🕑 Added 2022-11-30 19:30:58 +0000 UTCHello all and welcome to this week's public update!
We're in that weird period between the supporter release and the public release, when it can be a little difficult to think of anything to really say, so today, I want to look back a little over the last year and talk about some of what I've learned doing this remaster, and how I intend to apply these lessons as we look ahead to 2023 and future releases.
2022 saw fewer releases than 2021 for one simple reason, and that was of course the remaster. However, the total time between 0.4 and 0.5 has ended up being 9 months, and that is far longer than I intended when I set out. It turns out that in doing this I unconsciously ran into a few issues that every developer encounters at some point.
When I started developing Missy, I had some experience with 3D modelling, but I think it's fair to say that those early renders were a bit basic. Over the last year, I'm very pleased with how well my skills have developed. This improvement has been compounded by the added resolution quality of moving to the new engine. To illustrate this point, let's just remind ourselves of how big the jump has been, with a side-by-side of, say, the play, which from 0.1 and was one of the last things to be remastered.
I posted the improved bow at the end of the play back in June, and it's already in the beta test versions that are publicly available, but here it is side-by-side with the old one. You don't have to look hard to see the improvement. The characters have unique and interesting posing rather than a uniform mono-pose that was just then copied for all 3, details like their hair and Missy's crown now obey the laws of gravity. The picture is zoomed in for greater clarity, the characters facial expressions suit the situation and the lighting is... well, the characters actually have shadows now for a start!
See, the thing is, I could go back and improve this again. The group study 3D map has been improved visually for 0.5, and I rendered this scene on the old one. I can see little details with the posing I'd like to improve. Are you starting to see the problem? It's possible to get into a never-ending upgrade cycle which prevents the project moving forward. Sooner or later, a dev has to accept that their time is better spent making new content. Learning this lesson was largely why the remaster took longer than expected, as I spent entire days overhauling existing scenes rather than just loading them up and re-rendering them at the new size.
The techniques that produce these improved renders take slightly longer to set up anyway as lighting must be calibrated and set, but I'm getting faster at this now. Separating image parts and rebuilding them back into composite pictures, a new technique to keep file size bloat to a minimum also adds time. This, like the quality improvements, ends up being a balancing act, which I've been figuring out during the development cycle of 0.5, which has also taken longer than its predecessors.
The upshot of all this is that there is certainly a place for improving old renders and making efficiency savings, but the time to be doing that is at points when development isn't ongoing, such as towards the end of a release cycle when the game is being tested, or alongside adding new content. I feel like this balance was a little off during this development cycle and will aim for a shorter lead time on 0.6.
The remaster was a project well worth undertaking, and that my supporters backed me by a huge margin then stuck with me during all that time is testament to that, but I am so glad it's over and to have finally delivered Chapter 4, which will be dropping for the public soon. I hope you're excited. My supporters have been singing its praises!
Have a great week
Trinian
Comments
Ariel Herrera M
I were playing 0.5 versión few days ago, I like it, really the Jessica plot is like a fine gem but that need a little push, the idea that Jess can be the new mistress of dear Missy is good, for me I can see how Jessica likes Missy, she can be mean almost all the time, but I guess that is because she has a tsundere personality, the way she is with Missy and how she gets a little jaleous with Missy when she is with others girls, I don't know if I'm wrong or no, but good work, thanks.
