proxxie
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Development Update
🕑 Added 2019-04-08 00:28:49 +0000 UTCGreetings!
First, have some eye candy from 0.8's scene :)
Okay, on with the update! 0.8 is moving closer to completion. Since I last checked in, I've gotten quite a bit of work done on quests for the next release. I've also spent a lot of time doing revision work on the H-scene - both the narrative and the images. Rereading it, I thought the write up may have been a bit lacking, so I decided to spruce it up a bit. I also noticed a number of discrepancies in image colors between my two monitors, which led me down a rabbit hole of figuring out how color works in digital images.
As I may have mentioned before, I recently moved over from Mac to Windows as my main development platform. I've been fairly pleased with the transition overall, but one of the big differences I've noticed is the way images appear between the two operating systems. Color is pretty important to the look I'm trying to achieve in my images - I've opted for a very stylized, anime-esque aesthetic in the character designs, and I've always tried to make colors a bit saturated to accentuate the cartoonish feel. Now, on the Mac, images looked a little different between my two monitors, but on Windows they look a lot different. This led me to investigate why - and to try to figure out how the images appear to my players.
I made a rather long post about it in the Discord, so check that out if you're interested, but the tl;dr version is that almost all applications on a Mac take into account the way your monitor reproduces colors, but many applications on Windows don't - including the Windows UI itself and apps like Windows 10's picture viewer, which you'd think would strive for image quality. RPG Maker MV does appear to correctly manage colors, so hopefully it looks the way I want it to in game! I would like some feedback, though - do the H-scene images look colorful and pleasantly saturated? Oversaturated? A bit drab? Please let me know what you think in the comments, I'd find it really helpful!
By the way, this color issue I'm talking about is only really a problem if you're using a monitor that can reproduce more colors than 'standard' (sRGB). Otherwise you probably won't notice much difference between images that are correctly color managed and those that aren't. If you want an image viewer that correctly manages color on Windows, I've found that IrfanView can do so if you download the plugins and enable color management in settings. Anyway, on to the development status!
Development Status
Planning ~ 100%
Features & Mechanics ~ 0%
To do:
- Create character view feature
- Add help menu
- Write FAQ
- Add transmogrification
H-Scenes ~ 95%
To do: Revise image colors
Other Art ~80%
To do: Create renders for character view in menu
Quests, Events & Writing ~ 40%
Testing and Bugfixes ~ 0%
My focus for the next week is to continue getting the quests and writing done. I'll continue working on that until it's complete, then pivot over to the remaining art and feature work - that'll give me a bit of time between the writing and editing which will hopefully let me see it with fresh eyes.
Feedback Wanted!
I'd like to get your input on a few things! 0.8 will introduce transmogrification, which will let you make your outfit look like another outfit you own (this lets you keep the best combat stats while still looking the way you want). That opens up a lot of outfit possibilities, and I'm wondering what sorts of outfits you guys would like to see! Please let me know your ideas in the comments, and I'll create a poll next week and implement some of your favorites in an upcoming release!
As I mentioned above, I'd also like to know what you think about the colors in H-scene images (viewed in game, not in Win 10's image viewer!) Are they too colorful? Not enough? I'm going for a saturated, Overwatch sort of look, but I don't want it to look like I'd taken buckets of neon paint to everything.
That's all I have to report for now. I'm going to get back to writing - thank you for your support!
Comments
Proxxie
Could be!
PaddyOFurniture
Is this the scene where Val learns to be more accommodating?
John Smith
The wine on the table at the inn from one of the early scenes with Ana is what he is referring to
PaddyOFurniture
I have no idea what that means.
Proxxie
Thank you! This whole color thing really is a rabbit hole. Most of the resources I used to find out about color stuff were for photographers (as you might expect!) There's actually a lot of overlap between what I do with 3d work and photography. Aside from posing/expressions, most of the challenge in making my images is figuring out how to light things properly. I have a lot of photography books on my shelf! (Even though I'm not a photographer.)
Proxxie
I've come to the conclusion that the best I can do is get images looking the way I want them using a color-managed application (like Photoshop) on a calibrated monitor (both of mine are calibrated). It took me a bit to reach that conclusion, though. I'll continue doing more or less what I had been, but I now know that I can't rely on Windows 10's photos app to give me accurate representations of what the images look like.
Proxxie
Don't worry, Ana looks pretty assertive in many of the shots!
I work with camera inspection systems to run quality checks. I’ve been down that rabbit hole before. If you need any help with that sort of thing, let me know.
nope
Wait I'm a bit confused, I understand that the different systems will show different levels of saturation and you can't consistently tell what people are going to see when they play the game. But if its entirely down to their monitor what would "fixing" this actually consist in? At any rate, as long as you have some standard way of saturating things in certain situations, can't you just use whatever levels you were using before and standardize them by scenario? Or are you now nervous that all images have been tainted from the beginning and you wanna be able to control the colors as tightly as possible?
bob billion
remember ana when in doubt use the zombie sex wine.
PaddyOFurniture
Then again, why not both?
PaddyOFurniture
Eenie, meenie, miney, ....
PaddyOFurniture
I look at that picture and I think "Decisions, decisions."
Retromancer
For Win 10 (which I use), I don't know what you mean by image viewer. I just play the game, and the images look fine to me. For the new picture I'm guessing this picture has both Alex and Val. I like, but I hope there are more shots with Ana looking more assertive. For outfits, I would just like to see whatever is in the game implemented, like the old woman's outfit. But for new outfits something that was blue and cream and skimpy would match my idea of the character
