lordaardvarksfm
patreon
Progress Report - October 2, 2020 - Liziverse Rendering Begins & Future Plans
🕑 Added 2020-10-03 10:08:35 +0000 UTC
Hello, everyone!
This progress report is a day late, but that's for good reason - I needed the day to finalize things in anticipation of finally hitting the BRB - The Big "Render" Button!
Yes, that's right! After much shameful procrastination (which was admittedly very productive in other regards, including an arguably unhealthy amount of soul-seeking) , Into The Liziverse Episode 1 finally has entered its 4K / 2160p rendering phase!
Initial projects put the first sequence (of three total) at taking about 14 hours to render. Assuming that the other two sequences take the same time to render on a per-frame basis (they won't, but I don't know if they'll take more or less time), then the project will take 47 hours total to render.
Throw into the mix things like not rendering during the Saturday stream, and other complications involving periods of not rendering 100% of the time, and I am going to give the renders a hesitant window of 5 days to render.
Which means, if everything goes according to plan with the rendering, the post-processing, and the sound design on Tonedeaf Lewdness's end, theoretically Liziverse could be released for 1080p early-access by this time next week. Forever and as always, though, don't take this date as gospel truth.
One way or the other, though, you'll be reading a post from me this time next week! It'll either be a release post, or an update post, but either way, it'll be there. Which leads into the next point of this post:
What Next?
Well, the next release is likely going to be the Marie/Helena video that we’ve been putting together on the past few Saturday streams. It’s rapidly nearly completion, and if it keeps up its current pace, I think it will be ready to render by the end of October, with a release in early November.
Amusingly, the Marie/Helena project will be both longer than Liziverse, and I honestly think it’s just a better overall video—in terms of writing, pacing, content, and animation quality.
I don’t think Liziverse is bad per-se, but I do consider it one of my weakest efforts to date. It was written hastily in a manic afternoon as I was reeling from canceling a project I had sunk over a thousand dollars into and several months into at that point (RIP Surrosluts—you will be resurrected one day!), and I think the rushed preproduction shows its colors in a lot of ways.
Once Liziverse is out the door, I am going to take 5-10 days off from working on animation projects. During this time, I am going to pursue various original IP ideas, and deal with the preproduction needed for them—outlining, writing, and model work mostly.
The highest priority for my attentions is going to Hiveship. As you all are probably aware by now, some months back I got hammered with DMCAs under Nintendo’s name regarding my Samus efforts. This minimally affects the story of Hiveship proper, but it does more imminently impact the plans I had for the Phazon hexalogy. Which is honestly for the best, because the solution I had written for Phazon Addendum B was fundamentally flawed (InsideIncognita and I cowrote it, and honest-to-god, we struggled to find a way to squeeze porn into our porn film—it was extremely heavy on drama and character development).
Thankfully, the Phazon series itself, in terms of its ideas, were pretty far removed from the Metroid games, and so rewriting it won’t be too difficult. I am taking the opportunity to lift elements from the first act of Hiveship proper and install them into what was formerly the Phazon series. I need to determine a new name for it—one of the things I want to tackle during that break between projects! For now, I am going to call it the “Hiveship Prequel Hexalogy”, since that is what the Phazon series has always been.
The biggest issue is replacing Samus herself. I’ve already decided I am going to be keeping the body I had built for her, so everyone’s favorite phat-assed big-titty muscular Amazoness physique isn’t going anywhere. I haven’t decided on a face or hair-style yet, but I am leaning toward a decidedly Irish appearance for her. So pale skin, maybe some freckles in place of a birth-mark, and fiery red hair. Seeing as the name Samus is itself a female form of the Gaelic name Seamus, I think it only fitting to give the original skew an Irish heritage.
The character model isn’t the real cause for concern, though. That title belongs to her outfit. I want Hiveship to be an entirely original IP (as in “I could legally sell merchandise if I wanted to” original), and so as part of that, her outfit is going to be entirely made from scratch, with the extremely talented Ordagon doing the bulk of the heavy lifting. Toward that end, I want to keep the skintight suit aesthetic, but I am leaning toward something a bit more high-tech and scifi than the simple-latex of the Zero Suit.
I am looking to suits like the Nanosuit in Crysis, Jill’s Battlesuit in Resident Evil 5, and the Nova DLC suit for Dead or Alive 6. I like the idea of a combination of carbon-nanotube-esque weaves, hexagonal tiles, and a general armor-and-shield aesthetic, not unlike that seen in scifi like Mass Effect. A major point I am focusing on is the ability for the suit to regenerate itself, with the suit’s design itself reflecting that capability. As such, I am eyeballing a shibari-inspired metal exoskeleton tracing the length of her body, with criss-crossing webbing through major areas like the back, stomach, and legs. Canonically, this skeleton houses stores of nanites and sensors that, when detecting a breach in the suit, act quickly to repair the damage in a matter of minutes.
This solves a long-standing issue that Ordagon and I were having troubles writing around in Hiveship—her very first encounter aboard the titular Hiveship involves tentacles that tear away at her suit to penetrate her and fondle her breasts. But she has several encounters between then and the end of the film, and it both seemed kind of silly, and like it would lose something, if she just explored the entire ship with her tits and ass hanging out.
But if the suit can repair itself, then that means that a given encounter can tear her suit in whatever sexy way it calls for, she can get her fill of alien jizz (and she gets a lot of alien jizz), and then her suit repairs itself while they smoke and discuss the price of tea in China for pillow-talk—all for the next encounter to tear her suit all over again, and again, and again.
Another freedom that designing our own character (and suit) yields is resolving the problem of the skintight-suit-versus-power-armor dichotomy. Simply put, much like the Nanosuit in Crysis, this new skintight suit is her power-armor. More specifically, the nanites stored in the metal skeleton rapidly assemble and disassemble into armor plating, allowing the suit to serve as lightweight flexible wear for acrobatics and exploration when necessary, while doubling as a protective combat suit in situations for a more lethal persuasion. One suit, two purposes—and a perfect justification as to why she boards an unknown alien vessel in a sexy skintight suit.
I highly doubt that we’ll have the outfit finished by the end of this 5-10 day break, but I am hoping we will at least have some concept art to show, as well as a nude character model to display.
Outside of Hiveship, other original IPs that I want I put some of my attention to are Fallen Throne, Surrosluts, and an as-yet-undisclosed IP that I am pursuing a visual-novel project for.
For Fallen Throne, I would like to create character models for the main characters. Nualia is getting (and actually already has had) a redesign of her face (mostly fixing her weak chin, which I simply cannot stand), Caldreth will be getting a redesign of her physique, and then the Usurper Muheri and Grand General Elexis will also be getting character models (finally). There are also other characters who, while not main characters of the Nualia-focused Fallen Throne story, are main characters of their own stories, and I would like to build them, too.
Yes, despite my relative silence on the subject, I have been very busy when it comes to writing Fallen Throne. The universe has expanded significantly since I last spoke about it, and I am hoping to get some writings up on the Google Drive during this time.
Content-wise, my opinion has not shifted from wanting the primary Nualia-focused story to be a game trilogy. I just think that my plans for that story are better served as a player-driven adventure than as a linear experience with the viewer as a passive passenger.
But, with that in mind, I have been eyeballing a Fallen Throne anthology web series. This would be a collection of shorter videos, loosely related, in the Fallen Throne universe, exploring aspects that the primary story delegate to secondary or tertiary roles. Each main character would have their own video focusing on establishing their character and their relationships with each other, and I have flirted with the idea of some ancillary characters going on their own little adventures, exploring the greater world of Fallen Throne in the times before the cataclysmic events of the main story. These videos obviously wouldn’t be made during this break—again, it’s only a week and some change!—but I would like to explore the ideas further.
For Surrosluts, it’s honestly much the same story. I already have about a dozen stories that could be told within the universe that I have outlined out, but the major problem is I don’t have any original character assets for them. I would like to explore this issue more.
Surrosluts is in an awkward space, because while it is an “original IP,” and it would use “original assets”, it wouldn’t be “merchandisably” original. And the reason for that is that a major element of Surrosluts, both aesthetically and canonically, is the utilization of idealized video-game character models as the android bodies that people remotely inhabit and pilot. Specifically the Dead or Alive characters, as the DOAFantasy models I have built (and am rebuilding) over the years.
Toward that end, Surrosluts would use original character models for the humans in the series—the actual characters—but it would use assets borrowed from other IPs, such as the Dead or Alive characters, to represent the androids these characters pilot. In a nutshell, you can think of it as “imagine if you could be and/or fuck your favorite videogame characters”—Surrosluts takes that idea, and makes it reality with a cyberpunk backdrop.
What I need to do is pick a singular story and then focus on building original-character assets for it. I will most likely pick the story that the original Surrosluts video involved into—it’s simple, it’s steamy, and it’s a gentle introduction into the parallel worlds of hypersexualization and extreme corporate oppression that is the Surrosluts worldscape.
With the as-yet-undisclosed IP, I won’t say much about it now. I will a bit later down in this post, though.
Those are all the things I’d like to do in the 5-10 day break after Liziverse is released. It’s a lot of stuff, obviously, and I don’t expect any one idea to be pursued to completion. Rather, I expect a little bit of progress in all areas to be made. And that’s perfectly fine by me, because that is what I am taking those days off for. They are a break after all—their focus is on me and my mental health, not on work and productivity.
After that break is done, my next project is going to be the Rachel x Chaos project. I won’t discuss the details of the project itself here—you can read about it more in this Patreon post if you are so inclined.
Taking a lesson from Liziverse and Phazon Addendum B, I am not going to rush headfirst into production on Rachaos. I am going to take my time to get the screenplay written to as close to perfection as I can get it, and take my time building all of the assets properly and to spec. You all will, of course, be kept up to date on the progress as I make it. But I will not be animating day one (well, I likely will be, but they will be animations I am certain will not change).
The first thing I want to do is finalize Rachel’s outfit that I have been slowly hacking away at on Twitter, followed by finishing the screenplay and posting that to the Google Drive. After that, I have some secondary assets I need to build, I need to clear all of the casting in preparation for the project, and then put together the relevant scenebuilds for it.
I am going to try my best to motion-capture all of the non-sexual animation for Rachaos as well. That’s going to be a time of a lot of experimenting and trial-and-error, so anticipate that patch being slow-going in terms of forward progress. I want to get it right, and not rush through it like I did with Liziverse.
But how about after Rachaos? Well, now we’re getting into long-term plans.
Long-term plans
What is 2021 going to hold for me? I can’t say for certain, but I can tell you one thing: I will not be posting a schedule for 2021, like I did for 2020. Go look at that pinned schedule again. Yeah. A lot of good posting that did us. All that came out of that was broken promises, broken hearts, and broken psyches. I’m not doing that again.
With that being said, I am going to float some high-level ideas. These are not commitments, but aspirations.
The first aspiration I am going to float is an emphasis on experimenting with Unity and game development. First and foremost, that means a reduction in animation projects for 2021. As of right now, there is only a single animation project I am aiming my sights at for 2021. What that is, I’ll get into in a moment. Let’s talk about Unity some more, first.
You remember that as-yet-undisclosed original IP that I mentioned earlier. Well, that goes hand-in-hand with my Unity aspirations.
Specifically, my super-long-term plans for Unity are as such: develop three smaller game projects, not to polished-completion per-se but to mechanics-and-content-completion. Then, as a fourth project, begin working on the first Fallen Throne game.
Right now, I am eyeballing one smaller game project a year. This first game project I have actually brought up in passing previously, and that is a visual novel idea. The game itself would be entirely 3D, using actual models in Unity for the characters. But the characters will behave much like 2D avatars in visual novels do, during the story-intensive elements. Animation will be minimal during these aspects.
During the sex sequences, however, they will be fully animated in 3D. It will be very much like my SFM productions, but playing back realtime in Unity, rather than as pre-rendered video-file.
It is this visual novel that the as-yet-undisclosed IP is geared for. In all actuality, the IP came first—the idea of adapting it to a visual novel came later, after I became concerned with how character-focused and text-heavy the idea was becoming. A visual novel is a perfect fit for the story as I have it being written, and it serves as a great entry-point for me getting into Unity—minimal complex systems like full-motion player control (fixed cameras are much easier than actually controlling a character through a 3D space), while giving me an environment to safely explore how Unity handles things like models, materials, and animations—the core principles of a full-fledged game like Fallen Throne will hopefully one day be.
The as-yet-undisclosed IP itself is much closer to Down the Rabbit.Hole than it is to Fallen Throne—it is, as I said, heavily character-focused, and it has a very mundane and relatable plot, compared to Fallen Throne’s save-the-world-and-the-very-concept-of-time-itself plot. It centers around a shy futanari character who has a clinically-diagnosed need to constantly fuck, and her developing and cementing a relationship with a nymphomanic sex-addicted woman. A match made in heaven, but of course, no relationship (or visual novel) is complete without its own share of complications and setbacks—and when you have two characters with an impulse to fuck anything with a pulse, you better believe that things won’t be a smooth sail for these young lovebirds!
Gameplay wise, I am thinking of having three unique modes of gameplay—the meat-and-potatoes visual novel gameplay, rife with environmental interactions, branching conversations, and a metric fuckton of variables for the game to opaquely to keep track of; a rhythm-game-styled masturbation mechanic (something that the player’s futanari character will be doing a lot, since even having a big dick can’t get her laid as often as she medically needs); and an as-yet-undetermined gameplay mechanic for proper sex scenes.
In terms of unique twists on the visual-novel gameplay itself, I am borrowing from the wonderful Disco Elysium, and quite literally giving her dick a mind of its own. The hornier she is, the more her thoughts are invaded by lewd ideas. These lewd ideas open unique conversation and interaction opportunities that are otherwise hidden from the player—and like any good conversation branch, some have positive outcomes if pursued, and others very bad outcomes. But you’ll never whether or not her girlfriend likes cum in her coffee till you try it at least once, right?!
If things get especially bad, then her horny thoughts actively change what she hears other characters say. And, of course, since the player is controlling our blessed-yet-cursed futanari protagonist, that means that they are fed bad information too. Did her girlfriend really just ask for a quick buttfuck in the middle of the checkout line? Probably not—but what did she say, then? Hopefully you can make something up that doesn’t sound too out of line! Otherwise it’s gonna be really awkward for not only you and her, but for all the people around you, too! Big oof!
And if she ends up going too long without busting a nut, bad things happen. Remember when I said that she has a medically-diagnosed need to fuck? Well, like with any other medical diagnosis, if you neglect it, there are health ramifications. I haven’t quite settled on just how bad things get, but expect a hospital visit at the absolute least if you let her balls get too blue.
A natural consequence of this is that her ever-growing libido is a constant shadow over the player, and it will at times force the player’s hand. Sometimes they’ll have to just bug out of a party or a date to go jerk off and relieve the pressure, or pick up an easy date and some extra-large condoms to blow a load or three. Either way, the player will end up missing entire encounters, or getting themselves into hot water with their girlfriend—you didn’t knock up that slut, did you?! When and how you end up managing her libido will result in a different experience from others who managed their time differently.
Of course, all of this is rather complex. What visual novels lack for in nuanced animations and freedom of player movement, they more than make up for in complexity of writing, variables, and the interactions between these two. And so, toward that end, I intend to break up working on this visual novel into three phases.
The first phase will be a quick vertical slice. It won’t make much sense in terms of story, and will jump into the middle of the action and already assume various character relationships (rather than growing them out organically), but it will importantly feature all of the major mechanics in the game: branching story, masturbation, sex, variable tracking, various opportunities to miss depending on when libido management is done, and lewd thoughts influencing and distracting our shy protagonist.
Assuming the first phase goes well, both on a technical level in terms of creation, and in terms of player interest, then the second phase will be a proper from-the-beginning creation of the first few chapters. Maybe the whole first act, if not then at least the first half of it. Enough to give players a feel for how the game would actually play out naturally, as opposed to the condensed and feature-packed vertical slice.
And, assuming that the second phase goes well and players are interested in more, then the third phase would be actually building the game out to completion (more or less). If I were to get to this point, I would likely look to bring on a few people to help with writing, animating, and designing—that’s a lot of work for just one person to do.
Importantly, though, in between these phases, I will do animated videos. After the first phase is done, I will pursue the one video project I am currently eyeballing, which is the first episode of Overbreed. What all I’ll do after that, I can’t really say—it all depends on how phase one and phase two go. If it turns out the visual novel is just too much for me to do with my current skill level, or people just have no interest at all and everyone wants me to go back to animating, then I’ll refocus and work on more video projects. If not? Well, then it’s really up to the timeframe.
I think now is a natural point for me to end this post. We’ve already wandered deep into the “what-if” bushes, and I’m not comfortable discussing any plans or thoughts beyond this point. Overbreed marks the end of my certainty. After that, everything is speculation.
As a quick recap:
· Liziverse is currently rendering
· Marie/Helena will hopefully be out in early November
· I am going to be taking a few days after Liziverse’s release to flesh out various original ideas and get some assets made
· Rachaos is the next animation project
· I want to pursue experimenting with a visual novel focusing on a shy futanari with a big dick and a need to breed
· Overbreed is scheduled for 2021.
Will Rabbit.Hole Episode 4 arrive in 2021? Will the project that Phazon Addendum B is being rewritten into? I don’t know. I honestly, truly, and sincerely don’t know. Toward that end, we will simply go wherever the wind takes us.
On that note, I bid you all adieu! I will see you all again next week! Hopefully with a release, but at least with an update!
