Visual Novel support group

15681011

Comments

  • Looks perfect! Congratulations!

  • 3dOutlaw3dOutlaw Posts: 2,471

    Yea, I agree, those changes look really good!

  • FenixPhoenixFenixPhoenix Posts: 3,079

    Thank you all very much! Hopefully, the demo will be out this month. Will post the link here for anyone that wish to give it a try. It's a long demo. Basically 2 chapters (introduction chapter + prologue) per main character. So 4 main characters, 8 chapters in total with only about a few scenes overlapping (like when they all get together). Since with each character you get a different point of view, even the overlapping scenes give a different feel and information :). I am very ambitious haha. I gave the main characters 15+ different expressions.   

  • I look forward to it! Thanks.

  • FenixPhoenixFenixPhoenix Posts: 3,079
    edited January 2018

    The demo is finally finished! You can download it here for Windows, Linux and Mac: https://alebrijesgame.com/

    The demo has 8 chapters in total, two for each of the core main characters. If you do play it, please let me know if you encounter any issues!

     

    PS: Thanks @FirstBastion for pointing out my typo!

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  • FirstBastionFirstBastion Posts: 7,754
    edited January 2018

    And thank you for including the police station in your project.  Your art looks great Giselle!

     

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  • dirkbaetendirkbaeten Posts: 49
    edited January 2018

    I gave the demo a quick test by mostly fast skipping through the 4 story lines until the end. I had no difficulties at all (windows pc). For a demo, this is already a lot of material, which I think is certainly enough to give people a good impression about the game.

    The introduction to the game when starting up, before you start one the stories, is very interesting and looks great. It really gives me a desire to know more about the story.

    The pictures in the galleries are amazing. All in all, the background pictures throughout the game look very polished and professional.

    I am not as enthusiast about the character images but they are ok.

    I think the music is quite good at capturing the atmosphere and the sound effects are very nice.

    Post edited by dirkbaeten on
  • FenixPhoenixFenixPhoenix Posts: 3,079

    The demo is finally finished! You can download it here for Windows, Linux and Mac: https://alebrijesgame.com/

    The demo has 8 chapters in total, two for each of the cour main characters. If you do play it, please let me know if you encounter any issues!

    And thank you for including the police station in your project.  Your art looks great Giselle!

     

    Thank you very much!

     

    I gave the demo a quick test by mostly fast skipping through the 4 story lines until the end. I had no difficulties at all (windows pc). For a demo, this is already a lot of material, which I think is certainly enough to give people a good impression about the game.

    The introduction to the game when starting up, before you start one the stories, is very interesting and looks great. It really gives me a desire to know more about the story.

    The pictures in the galleries are amazing. All in all, the background pictures throughout the game look very polished and professional.

    I am not as enthusiast about the character images but they are ok.

    I think the music is quite good at capturing the atmosphere and the sound effects are very nice.

    That's good feedback, thank you! (We debugged it as much as we could, but you never know!) And yes, character art is always very subjective. I wanted to make it more realistic, but my teammates were uncertain. Some wanted to make them more anime, but I didn't want that. So we settled for something in between.

  • The demo is finally finished! You can download it here for Windows, Linux and Mac: https://alebrijesgame.com/

    The demo has 8 chapters in total, two for each of the cour main characters. If you do play it, please let me know if you encounter any issues!

    ​The demo looks/works great on Windows. The kickstarter button seems not work? I went over to Kickstarter and typed in the title and did not find it; so not sure if it is over or simply hasn't started yet.

    If you do not mind me asking did you make the Manga style characters one your own or did you use one of te many daz products?  

  • The demo is finally finished! You can download it here for Windows, Linux and Mac: https://alebrijesgame.com/

    The demo has 8 chapters in total, two for each of the cour main characters. If you do play it, please let me know if you encounter any issues!

    ​The demo looks/works great on Windows. The kickstarter button seems not work? I went over to Kickstarter and typed in the title and did not find it; so not sure if it is over or simply hasn't started yet.

    If you do not mind me asking did you make the Manga style characters one your own or did you use one of te many daz products?  

    Thanks for downloading the demo! Correct, the Kickstarter hasn't started yet. We were going to launch it this week, but our jobs got in the way.

    As to your questions, it's a bit of both. I used DAZ to create the characters, choose their clothing and shape their bodies. Then I rendered everything individually and brought them over to photoshop. Then I layered everything how it should be... and pretty much painted on top of the skin. I got rid of their faces and drew that from scratch (same with the expressions). I also remade some of the clothes textures. The hair I also drew, using a couple of hairs I owe in DAZ as reference (for Alexandra and Eva). LineRender9000 help a lot in cutting down the time spent creating the lineart. Then I just had to line the details by hand, but the brunt work was done by the script. 

  • EJWorksEJWorks Posts: 483
    edited February 2018

    I wrote two murder mystery stories that were perfomed by my college ASL club. It was an audence interactive play where we used the whole room and pretended it was a 1940's night club. Currently I'm changing the scripts into visiual novels that has choices. The player is never seen, but every thing is from their perspective as they go from room to room, pick up clues, and ask questions of those in the night club that are possible witnesses/suspects. The goal is to try and figure out who the killer(s) is, means, motives, and opportunities before the game ends.

    I have other game ideas, but I wanted to do this one first since I already have a script and would just need to tweek it a little to create options. I hadn't found any forums yet that focused on using Daz to create the art, but I'm using Ren'play.

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  • plarffplarff Posts: 264
    edited February 2018

    Busy with an Adult VN myself using Blender/Daz and Tyranobuilder. Been battling trying to import either DAZ model into Blender scene or blender model into DAZ scene. Getting the materials to follow is a problem.

    Here's one of the models. I did apologize to her seeing as her necklace is digging into her skin   ;0)

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  • EJWorks said:

    I wrote two murder mystery stories that were perfomed by my college ASL club. It was an audence interactive play where we used the whole room and pretended it was a 1940's night club. Currently I'm changing the scripts into visiual novels that has choices. The player is never seen, but every thing is from their perspective as they go from room to room, pick up clues, and ask questions of those in the night club that are possible witnesses/suspects. The goal is to try and figure out who the killer(s) is, means, motives, and opportunities before the game ends.

    I have other game ideas, but I wanted to do this one first since I already have a script and would just need to tweek it a little to create options. I hadn't found any forums yet that focused on using Daz to create the art, but I'm using Ren'play.

    That sounds like an interesting game. Looking at the render you shared, my advice would be to work on illuminating the scene properly. If you are going to use the characters as avatars, I'd suggest rendering each character separatedly and then building everything in Ren'py (that's the one we used as well). I did recommend some products to dirkbaeten, within those options were products to illuminate scenes. You can see the post here.  However, those products will work if you're using iray. I don't render in 3delight, but I'm sure you should be able to get some light sets for it.

     

    plarff said:

    Busy with an Adult VN myself using Blender/Daz and Tyranobuilder. Been battling trying to import either DAZ model into Blender scene or blender model into DAZ scene. Getting the materials to follow is a problem.

    Here's one of the models. I did apologize to her seeing as her necklace is digging into her skin   ;0)

    She looks lovely. I can see the material problem a bit in her upper lip, but otherwise she looks very good! If you hadn't told me about the necklace digging into her neck, I probably wouldn't have noticed XD.

  • plarffplarff Posts: 264
    EJWorks said:

    I wrote two murder mystery stories that were perfomed by my college ASL club. It was an audence interactive play where we used the whole room and pretended it was a 1940's night club. Currently I'm changing the scripts into visiual novels that has choices. The player is never seen, but every thing is from their perspective as they go from room to room, pick up clues, and ask questions of those in the night club that are possible witnesses/suspects. The goal is to try and figure out who the killer(s) is, means, motives, and opportunities before the game ends.

    I have other game ideas, but I wanted to do this one first since I already have a script and would just need to tweek it a little to create options. I hadn't found any forums yet that focused on using Daz to create the art, but I'm using Ren'play.

    That sounds like an interesting game. Looking at the render you shared, my advice would be to work on illuminating the scene properly. If you are going to use the characters as avatars, I'd suggest rendering each character separatedly and then building everything in Ren'py (that's the one we used as well). I did recommend some products to dirkbaeten, within those options were products to illuminate scenes. You can see the post here.  However, those products will work if you're using iray. I don't render in 3delight, but I'm sure you should be able to get some light sets for it.

     

    plarff said:

    Busy with an Adult VN myself using Blender/Daz and Tyranobuilder. Been battling trying to import either DAZ model into Blender scene or blender model into DAZ scene. Getting the materials to follow is a problem.

    Here's one of the models. I did apologize to her seeing as her necklace is digging into her skin   ;0)

    She looks lovely. I can see the material problem a bit in her upper lip, but otherwise she looks very good! If you hadn't told me about the necklace digging into her neck, I probably wouldn't have noticed XD.

     Thx, yes about that how do i eliminate that upper lip material problem?

  • plarff said:
     
    plarff said:

    Busy with an Adult VN myself using Blender/Daz and Tyranobuilder. Been battling trying to import either DAZ model into Blender scene or blender model into DAZ scene. Getting the materials to follow is a problem.

    Here's one of the models. I did apologize to her seeing as her necklace is digging into her skin   ;0)

    She looks lovely. I can see the material problem a bit in her upper lip, but otherwise she looks very good! If you hadn't told me about the necklace digging into her neck, I probably wouldn't have noticed XD.

     Thx, yes about that how do i eliminate that upper lip material problem?

    I think the lips and the face materials might not have the same settings. Just compare them and tweak the lips so they coincide with the rest of her. The only time I've gotten a result similar to what you have, is when I'm converting textures from 3delight to iray and I forget to convert the lips; so I know the problem is in the material settings.

  • tcassattcassat Posts: 74
    edited February 2018

    I'll bookmark this topic for later reference. I'm trying to create a Visual Novel using DAZ, but I've only been using the program for a few days and I need to learn a lot. The first test I did has a terrible appearance (pic related) and I'm pessimistic about my ability to do something acceptable, but I'll try to practice for at least a month before giving up on this project.

    One thing I did not understand is how I deal with copyright issues. The last package I bought was Sakura Eyes and on the store page it says that the use is free for commercial projects, but I do not know if I need any more permission, or if I have to put in the credits the names of the authors of every asset I acquire. Another problem is if I buy renders made by other artists, will I have to ask for information about each assets and shaders they used? Do I have to get the same assets in the DAZ store before I can make commercial use of the game (for example, through Patreon)?

    Post edited by tcassat on
  • 3dOutlaw3dOutlaw Posts: 2,471

    I believe rendering images, and making a game from stills like this is fine....it's only if you get into interactive 3D, like using assets in Unity3D or something, then there is an interactive license.  More info here:  https://www.daz3d.com/interactive-license-info

    Best to read that in any case, along with the EULA.  I think you are OK due to section on "Two Dimensional Works" in the EULA, but thats just my opinion.  A quick note to Support via a ticket can confirm this formally.

    I think it looks great!  yes 

  • I believe you are free to use anything you buy on the daz sight in any product that does not include giving the customer access to the model data. You only need special license when you product would require including the model data to the customer

    Example of things that do not need a license

        Anything that is a 2D image: Visual novel, film, a CCG game like magic the gathering or even making a 2d sprite sheet from the daz model and making a 2d side scroller game

        A 3d film 

    Things that you would need a license

         Using your daz model in a 3d game

         Using 3d model in an application like Marvelous designer

    Keep in mind this is very basic guidlines but should give you a good handle on it

     

     

  • tcassat said:

    I'll bookmark this topic for later reference. I'm trying to create a Visual Novel using DAZ, but I've only been using the program for a few days and I need to learn a lot. The first test I did has a terrible appearance (pic related) and I'm pessimistic about my ability to do something acceptable, but I'll try to practice for at least a month before giving up on this project.

    One thing I did not understand is how I deal with copyright issues. The last package I bought was Sakura Eyes and on the store page it says that the use is free for commercial projects, but I do not know if I need any more permission, or if I have to put in the credits the names of the authors of every asset I acquire. Another problem is if I buy renders made by other artists, will I have to ask for information about each assets and shaders they used? Do I have to get the same assets in the DAZ store before I can make commercial use of the game (for example, through Patreon)?

    Yes, as stated above, so long as you are rendering the images and adding them to the game as images (jpeg, png, gif) you shouldn't need any further permission. As to buying images from other sites/artists, you'd need to check the rules for each of those assets. If you use free content in DAZ, you'll also need to revise which will allow you to use them "for commercial projects" because some of them may have restrictions.

    Now, I'll be honest, unless you have a background in photography (so you know how to set up lights), architecture or 3D design, the chances of mastering DAZ in a month would be very small. I'm not saying this to discourage you. I'm saying this so you can be realistic about how much effort you'd have to pour into this. If you believe in your project, my advice would be to not set these types of deadlines. Take as much time as you need. Do it slowly if you have to, but better to do it late than wrong.

    To give you some context, I have a background in design, painting and photography. Even so it took me more than one year to understand enough about how DAZ work, what surfaces do what, how to create bump and normal maps to create my own textures (and what do they do), etc. Which also means that the demo I shared... well, yep. That took more than one year! And though we wanted to put it out quickly, I wanted to do it right. So I delayed it as much as I needed to so that I could produced art that I'd be proud of.

    Now, back to your deadline. There's certainly several ways to accomplish good results in less time, but that implies buying the necessary products (which is costly). So you've got to decide time vs cost. You either learn how to do things by yourself through tutorials and experimentation (timely). Or you use money to make the process easier (cost) by acquiring the products that would give you (some of them) one click solutions.

     

     

  • Yes, the one month deadline is ridiculous, but I don't have big pretensions. Your scenarios have professional quality and I know that it takes years of studies in various subjects to achieve this artistic quality.

    My goal is a little simpler. I want to try to generate an image that is not offensively ugly. Maybe a month of practicing is not enough even for this. Anyway, at the end of February I will try to generate the same image in the classroom and compare the results.

  • tcassat said:

    Yes, the one month deadline is ridiculous, but I don't have big pretensions. Your scenarios have professional quality and I know that it takes years of studies in various subjects to achieve this artistic quality.

    My goal is a little simpler. I want to try to generate an image that is not offensively ugly. Maybe a month of practicing is not enough even for this. Anyway, at the end of February I will try to generate the same image in the classroom and compare the results.

    What you can always do, is have each month as your milestone. Then compare a render from past month to the next month. If you are seeing progressed, then that's encouragment for you to keep going forward. If you put effort into it, then there can only be improvement. If you need encouragement, you can always start a thread in the Art Studio section :) that way people can advice on how to fix problem areas that you might be struggling with.

  • I've done a little more practice and I think I've achieved the first goal of doing something that is not offensively ugly. But I still have serious problems to solve, especially involving the Sakura8 models and the shaders. I can not make the girls look cute. 

    They get a silly face, even with the expressions made especially for the Sakura 8 models.

  • I don't see what's so silly about her face. She looks fine to me! :D

    I see you have the Anime Doll Kit installed (hence the hair). I highly recommend using one of the light sets she comes with, if you're not already, as they were made to get the best results with cel-shading.

  • 3dOutlaw3dOutlaw Posts: 2,471

    I think it looks good smiley, but I agree, Sakura Expressions do not naturally look anime-ish.  I like the flexibility of mixing Sakura characters, but getting good classic anime expressions is more difficult. Maybe its the character is rigged for more realistic expressions, versus toon figures, like AnimeDoll and Cookie.

    I have found that if you set the eyes closed, and then use the face rig dials, like X-Rotation, you can get the anime eye smile shape by tweaking the eyelids, and probably do more with the mouth than just trying to use the default morphs.  More difficult, but possible.  Then you can make a dial out of it for future re-use or sharing.

  • FenixPhoenixFenixPhoenix Posts: 3,079
    edited February 2018

    The demo is finally finished! You can download it here for Windows, Linux and Mac: https://alebrijesgame.com/

    The demo has 8 chapters in total, two for each of the cour main characters. If you do play it, please let me know if you encounter any issues!

    ​The demo looks/works great on Windows. The kickstarter button seems not work? I went over to Kickstarter and typed in the title and did not find it; so not sure if it is over or simply hasn't started yet.

    If you do not mind me asking did you make the Manga style characters one your own or did you use one of te many daz products?  

    Kickstarter campaign is now live! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/340693452/alebrijes-a-detective-visual-novel

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  • Quick Question Each pledge section has one price in the header and a second one for example the second level reads as: Pledge MX$ 90 or more about $5 Fanatic (Approximately $5 USD) I assume the top 90 is your country currency and me being in the USA my cost is only $5? I was thinking of doing the Cat level but there is a huge difference between the 450 and the 24 amounts listed
  • Geminii23Geminii23 Posts: 1,327

    Wow this is really fantastic.  I write screenplays and have wanted to delve into alternative ways to get my stories out in the world.  Graphic novels, animated shorts, etc.  I had no idea Visual Novels were a thing.  

    Do you know if VNM allows for recorded narration and lip syncing of characters?  In your demo I noticed that the images stayed in place for very long stretches during the read.  I assume this is something you have control over?  For example in a dialogue exchange with two characters, would you be able to flip back and forth to give it a more animated real time look?

    Great demo btw.  Really amazing!

  • Lip sync... to do that for real, I think you'd want a video clip rather than a gif+audio file because you know it'll get f***d up somehow when you split the animation from the audio.

    Maybe there's a way to containerize the clip and the audio so that it goes off together at the same rate on every computer though... I don't know that much about the various VN software. I'm only experimenting in Ren'py.

    Just looking at Ren'py, you can use a lot of popular video playback file types, and audio types if you want to try to sync audio to a separate animation file within the program.
    https://www.renpy.org/doc/html/movie.html

    I've played VNs with voice over, but I think static images tend to be the norm... or voice within a movie clip. I can't think of a VN that does lip sync as an internal style without doing it as a video clip or floating it over a static character image.

    There's no reason you couldn't try to seamlessly reproduce the style of a VN screen within a video clip, I guess. Or otherwise flow between cutscene movies and the internal work of the game.
    (With Dontnod's Life is Strange as an example of not really VN, but VN-style of narrative gameplay that includes animated cutscenes married into the world of the game.)

  • Quick Question Each pledge section has one price in the header and a second one for example the second level reads as: Pledge MX$ 90 or more about $5 Fanatic (Approximately $5 USD) I assume the top 90 is your country currency and me being in the USA my cost is only $5? I was thinking of doing the Cat level but there is a huge difference between the 450 and the 24 amounts listed

    Yes, because I'm in México, the currency has to be displayed in Mexican Pesos. So the price in USD is shown in parenthesis, it's an approximation because it depends on the conversion. So, for example, to get the full game, you'll need to pledge at least $270 MNX (early bird) which translates to $14.61 USD.

  • dreamfarmerdreamfarmer Posts: 2,128

    Giselle, just sent you a PM about the Kickstarter.

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