Quick (or not so quick) update

Last month was an absolute shit fight, not just for creating content but just life and work in general, but shit happens, gotta roll with the punches lol. Talking VN wise, unfortunately the latest version of Daz is buggy as fuck and I have no way of rolling back to a previous version because they don't keep older versions on their site and the installer is deleted after installation.

The bugs introduced are the worst thing possible for those that render image sequences (such as in comics and VN's) or animations because Daz is not saving lighting settings and the majority of character morphs in the scene save file. That means when I go to reopen the file to complete working on it or render it overnight in a batch, the lighting and character shapes has completely changed and needs reworking all over again. This can be hours work for a single scene sometimes, sometimes days for a bigger scene, sequence or animation.

Sometimes the difference is only small which is even worse because I don't notice it at the time because that's not what I'm looking for while building a scene (because its never been an issue before this update and really should not have been introduced in this latest update, that's what the save button is for, to SAVE! lol) so I keep on working on that scene or animation, render dozens of images/frames, only to notice the jarring and very annoying difference when I go back to the sequence or play the animation to realize I've wasted hours, sometimes days and have to redo 50-80% of the work all over again.

The only way to roll back is for me to contact Daz support directly and request an older version and its up to them whether they give it to me or not, its been nearly 2 weeks without a reply though, which I'm told is normal so I'm crossing my fingers for a response soon.

In the meantime I am seeing a lot of artists are moving animations and in some cases entire rendering to Blender. I've been testing it out a bit myself and I am very impressed with how powerful a program it is and how closely I can get the same look in Blender as I can in Daz, not to mention the animation tools are light years ahead of Daz which will speed up the process but also allow better quality animations. There's still some things I need to figure out from a workflow perspective but if I can get them figured out I might even move most future work there, it really is an amazing program. Did I mention it renders faster than Daz too? And that's E-Cycles, don't get me started on Eevee lol.

On top of the Daz shit-fuckery, the programmer I'm using for the VN had some family issues and couldn't get the alpha test to me on time, I want to be clear though: he cannot be blamed for putting his family first, especially in these times! He got the alpha test to me recently and I was hoping that it wasn't too far away from my vision that it would take heaps of back and forth messaging to fix. The guy basically nailed it to 95% of what I wanted and that's without me even giving very detailed instructions, I'm very impressed! It looks like I've found a great coder for the VN so that is definitely a plus for what was otherwise a shitty month.

There were also some teething issues with the new rig, just little things like transferring Daz libraries, configuring the CPU, GPU and RAM timings (or so the guy who built it for me says, I know fuck all about computers lol), transferring settings for photoshop and postwork programs, etc. To be expected, especially with my luck lol, all fixed now but it was just another small thing that added to the list of speed bumps. I haven't even been able to get out any free or promo renders recently because of it all as I've been flat out just trying to navigate these hurdles to keep Patreon content flowing while moving the VN closer to release.

I also underestimated how much work was required to make the base or foundation of the VN (for lack of better wording right now) which are things like title screens, GUI, interface, buttons, character dialogue cards and all that little shit that takes time but is done and dusted in the first release so I don't have to worry about it for future updates. I'm pretty sure everyone who's ever made a VN has underestimated this on their very first one, maybe their 2nd and 3rd too lol, here I was thinking I'd nail it first go, EEEEJIOTTT!!

However, these issues are looking 80% resolved now with the remaining to be resolved this week I hope so production is back to normal and looking to release the first part of the VN at the end of the month.

Regardless, I am still producing content in the meantime with "Anthropologist's dedication" so every tier is getting the stated value and benefits. The VN will eventually replace the comics on the lower tier (as all VN/game Patreons out there do) because it will contain more content per month/release than any comic I've ever released on any tier. 

If I am able to continue comics while working on the future updates (which I'm hoping I will), they will be extras on top of the VN therefore moved to higher tiers (I can't increase my workload by 1000% for an 80% paycut of course lol)

I hope I've covered everything, I'm sure I'll remember something I forgot as soon as I hit the "post" button, but as always, feel free to hit me up with any suggestions or comments.

Thanks again everyone!

DA.