Hi there, been posting for quite a while now. I loved tiggertoo’s game so much I learned how to code in ren’py. I forget if it was forks or tiggertoo’s game that first got me to sign up on the forum. I was planning to make my own game in ren’py, with my newfound knowledge of ren’py. But then in 2020 all graphics cards around the world vanished for mysterious reasons and there I was with only a 970gtx to my name. In 2020 I was reading up on how daz worked, but when I was never able to upgrade my gpu I gave up. 2023 rolls around though and gpu’s are now always in stock.
Creation of said game is still pending obtaining a modern GPU. Also yes I am aware that in the 2-3 years I’ve “waited” lots of similar games have come out, and no, I might not be able to do anything to set myself apart, but I wanted to do this for fun, so I’m going to.
Welcome! (again?)
I feel like I’ve seen those renders before somewhere, and you saying you’ve posted here before makes me think you used to have another account. Anyways, glad to have you here!
GPU aside (do what you gotta do, wait for what you have to wait, or do what you can do with the tools you have), don’t worry about not being able to set yourself apart. Ren’py games, with daz graphics, are a format. One I absolutely love, I must say. But this format does not define the kind of game you end up making.
For this, you could try to look around on itch.io (or another site) for different kinds of Ren’py games. Also those outside of our community. There are a lot of ways to go about your game. Think about realism/fantasy, but also just about the story you’re trying to tell, what kind of role does the player have? are they rich? do they make rules for others? (like if they are a landlord, or the boss of a company) or do they instead have to follow the rules? (being an employee, having a landlord)
Are there straight up stuffing sessions, do you just ‘leave’ a box of donuts somewhere and let the people do it themselves? do they like it? are they in denial?
Quite a lot of ideas on this forum as well, including from people not planning to make those themselves. Maybe you could get some inspiration from there as well!
and above all:
This is such gold. Go have fun, I’ll be waiting to see what you come up with, and if you ever need help, feel free to ask!
I’ve rebranded Yeah. I alluded to it. It’s not really a secret.
ATM, I’m thinking set in the modern day. Although I’m an old fuddyduddy so I might have to set it in the 90s or 00s or something so my understanding of young adult life can be more truthful. #lookingfornokiabrickphone
I might do fantasy/scifi renders but I don’t think I necessarily have the writing skill to approach either.
00s are always good times tbh, I’d be up for that lmao
also, if you were to want to do fantasy/scifi, you could always think of temporary settings within the main one you’re building, like a play on the big stage, or a in a dream. Having the option to keep whatever story goes on there fairly short should help with writing it as well
Welcome back to the community! I’m now watching you on DA and am excited to see what you create!
I heavily relate to getting into Ren’Py coding because of the games on this forum. Unlike you though, I just can’t seem to stick with it. What resources did you use to learn coding? I’d love to give it another shot and a proper time investment.
I’ve had the same experience with learning image rendering; I’ve downloaded DAZ on like 6 different occasions, but just can’t put aside the time to learn properly. I’d love to have that skill set, I just need to find the right method of learning that fits my artistic level and schedule.
I guess at the end of the day though, I’m a writer at heart and that’s where my strength really lies. On that front, don’t stress out about setting your game apart from the others. At the end of the day, we are a niche community and the number of quality weight gain visual novels out there is extremely limited. Focus on the characters first and foremost, and that alone will keep people invested in the story you’re creating.
If you’re looking for any help in guest-writing or proof reading for your game, send me a message! I’m happy to lend a hand.
I studied computer science in college roughly two decades ago; but python was new to me when I started hunting for bugs in the VNs I played. Ren’py makes getting started pretty simple. I don’t have the skill level to just code new features for ren’py in python though like some projects have done.
It is kind of tough getting used to white space mattering. Maybe I should swap from atom to vscode so I can get the vertical lines of lining up. I don’t know how else to describe it but it’s a ui feature. A lot of the bugs I’ve noticed in ren’py VNs are just due to the whitespace lining up incorrectly.
The part I’m most worried about is the writing. Specifically dialogue. More specifically female dialogue. The art I can produce, it just might be poor art, or it might take way way too long. I suppose the female dialogue can just be awful though. That’s somewhere to start.
Tldr I’ve been having fun learning about ren’py and dazstudio both. Not sure if I can produce anything worthwhile, but I’m going to share what I do end up creating. I’ve already gotten some great tips on forums/discord; so thanks.
edit: I highly recommend anyone coding in ren’py immediately grab vs code for free. The vertical lines alone are a godsend.
Right now I’m establishing what “shots” as in photography style I can “get” as in figure out how to render to an acceptable level. You can maybe guess scenes/settings from the test renders I’m posting on dA. I’m also hoping to avoid a totally linear story, and I need to get a framework underway. AKA, I might hire writer in 2024
I’m still early enough in the planning and writing that if I find out I just can’t render a damp shirt then I’ll know in advance of trying to write one into the game.
Extremely long description about process on deviantart. But suffice it to say I’m confident I can include at least mild outgrown clothing in a game. Although attempting and failing to put on clothing is still something I haven’t demonstrated mastery over, because I suck at placing the fingers in the exact right spot. But in terms of actually making clothing designed to auto-fit perfectly… fit incorrectly instead? I can do that.
I’ve been thinking about using real photos for backdrops, just because the backdrops are rarely the focus of a VN.
But well… the result wasn’t actually that great. Then again this is a random old photo, if I started taking ones with this in mind I might find a good combination. Then again maybe not.
How do people feel about mixing photos and renders?
It would probably matter more depending on if you are planning on doing sprites or full scene renders. I think for some renders using partial real images are fine, like a horizon behind houses or maybe the sand on a beach, one all of a coffee shop with some real graffiti. There are plenty of VN’s that have certain renders be partially real images. But at least in my opinion generally when a VN uses complete real photos as a full back drop when models are also in the scene it’s super distracting. It’s obviously used more often when using sprites vs full scenes but I will say I’m not a fan of it.
I also did a version with depth of field. I didn’t link it here because it turned out poorly. This is the only reason to render such an image. Otherwise I might as well let ren’py merge the images.
With depth of field there’s no real difference between an image and a scene. Other than the fact that the image doesn’t cost any render time at all and the scene can make it take a long time (or even overshadow your vram limit.)
But yes, I agree, I think that it might be good to use a real photo as a backdrop in an indoor render only visible out windows. That would mean no need for grass or trees which are hard to make use of when indoors.
Today I was working on my first “scene”. No end of trouble. I was trying to deform a butt imprint into a bench that was to seat two people but was one polygon wide, and I bashed my head at that. Then I did a bunch of detailed lighting on the wrong camera because I hid my main camera, then all the lighting temperature was wrong, but I only noticed when my brown strand based hair turned grey. Then a plate of cake wasn’t the same plate as a plate of eggs. Then I forgot Oh yeah, got a better chair, deformation worked, but I was too lazy to lasso geometry delete the chair and replace it with a single chair object so it was part of the restaurant scene object which meant…
The deformation for the butt imprint in the seat cushion would destroy the table if she got within 2 inches of the table.
Blah blah blah. 6 hours ago she was going to get fat in animation or series of images or whatever. Now I’m not even happy with her as a stock figure in a stock pose. And I’m out of time.
ETA on a game: +1 years more than yesterday.
edit1:
edit2: Good news dear self: You now know what a smoothing modifier is, and are better at using scene subsets. You have more experience with lighting/hdri settings and what they do and what they mean. {9000 temperature default is nuts, even 7500 is too high, the above orange-ish image is down around 3500, so something like 5000-6000 is going to look normal, although IIRC in real life normal is 7500 so that’s why some lights default to 7500 or 9000 I guess.}
Bad news: You tried to learn about the daz3d pbrskin wit micronormals, and got it to work in an example, but when you tried to use it in the above image, you made a ghost.
I got some help with the bite being taken out of the donut from the official discord~! Thanks {I’m not sure if the person who helped wants to be shouted out or not so I left their name missing from this sentence for now but I can always edit this post to add it later.}
The full unbitten donut was making it so I never learned how to do a chewing facial expression (plus it was cute how she was being coy and hiding from the camera behind a donut). Heh. I guess I have to learn eventually though. This is a poor facial expression for chewing, but I can always try again another day.
Also I’ve gotten better at using renderqueue and multiple cameras, so total volume of renders required for a game, are certainly possible. Although I’m still being pulled towards the dark side of using sprites because it’s not just 10-100 faster it’s 10-100 times EASIER
Yeah. I alluded to it. It’s not really a secret.
Hooray.
