Hi all,
Sorry for being a bit quiet over the past few weeks. Lots of bits going on both in and out of Jury!
Patch notes:
- Updated imagery for the front of the hotel across both Ep1 and Ep2
- Fixed a number of the lewd scenes which I accidentally made mandatory when adding in the scene replayer
- Spelling/Grammar across both Ep1 and Ep2
Updates to Ep1 and Ep2:
I’m taking this opportunity between episodes to revamp a couple of scenes that, personally, I really dislike.
I have re-designed the front exterior of the hotel. This was the first scene I ever made for Jury, it uses a really terrible asset for the hotel front, and Rachael’s outfit is horrendous…
It’s been mentioned by quite a few since Episode 1 released that there is a pretty significant disconnect between the look of the hotel from the front (a bland building on a high-street), compared to the expansive gardens it offers to the guests. I can’t help but agree. As Episode 3 starts to look at areas outside of the hotel, I feel I need to address this now, rather than end up re-working even more scenes later in the game.
See below for the hotel I’ve managed to create. I feel it fits the narrative and looks a lot more in keeping with the rest of the hotel grounds seen in the game.
The main issues with this is finding the appropriate assets (3D Models). There’s not a great deal available to get the look I wanted, so as a result I’ve had to customize quite a bit and take bits and pieces from a load of different packages. The above scene above has been created using about 12 different products. At least you’ll have never seen THIS in another visual novel!
This did mean that I needed to re-render a bunch of images (over 200) the scene on the bus, the scene outside the front of the hotel with Rachael, the scene with frost at the door, the jurors arriving, the backgrounds of frost in the lobby in ep2, leaving for court in ep2 etc. It took a little longer than I had hoped, being that the new hotel asset with characters was about 25GB+ for each scene upload.
Still, I'm happy with the results and it creates far less work for me in Episode 3.
Lovense (Not yet released):
I’ve almost integrated Lovense into Jury. I've got the code done and it does work, I just need to code the toy response pattern into each of the applicable scenes. I know for many of you, this won’t make a difference to your experience of the game, but integrating Lovense into Jury is being done for multiple reasons:
- It exposes Jury to a whole new audience.
- Perhaps helps other discover Lovense and their products (I never knew they existed before being told about it the other week). They are pricey, and personally I’m yet to try one out myself (watch this space!), but they seem like the front runners in their field.
- It’s pretty ‘cutting-edge’ for the AVN genre to be able to offer this, and I think over time it will become a pretty standard addition to most adult games.
- It’s fairly simple and low-cost to implement, maintain and just offers those who have the products a little something extra for free.
See below for a little preview of the Lovense Screens:
I thought it makes sense for Aimee to be the advocate for the products, (she works in an adult retail store after all!).
Of course, the in-game guide will be explained by her, and she’ll be the one to talk you through how to use your Lovense devices (will even help you make sure they are working if you ask her nicely!).
Episode 3:
Still in planning stages right now. I’m well into the second half of the episode now, and bouncing ideas of some trusted individuals to make sure I’m staying at least ‘semi-realistic’ in my ideas. I had hoped to have the whole thing planned out by now, but it won’t stop me getting started on the content I have planned.
The challenge with planning is that even though I have the main story blocked out from start to finish, the day-to-day interactions with each of the characters is not. I have a ‘profile’ on each of them, then I build/write their character into the game using that profile to make sure I stay within their personality and traits. The good part about that is that I have free reign over who the characters interact with, and what possible scenes I can create with them. It also allows to me make use of the newest assets they become available (so I’m not totally locked into using ‘x’ room with ‘y’ props to make ‘z’ scene, because that’s what I planned to do 6 months ago…).
To be honest, taking a break between planning sessions is quite good for the narrative. It allows you to mull ideas over, and I can't count the number of times I’ve sat back at the storyboard a couple of days later and looked at what I did previously, then thought ‘What the hell was I thinking?’ and deleted or edited it. The Jacuzzi scene was VERY different on the first draft, let me tell you!
The 12th member of the jury:
Yup, those of you who have played more recently will have noticed the additional dialogue that’s been added in to cover up my naïve mistake of having only 11 jurors on the bench. There is supposed to be 12, which has been pointed out by a number of the community. However, this does give a pretty happy opportunity to add in another member of the cast. I’ve already developed a few variations of her, and I want her to bring something different to what the others already offer. I've not settled on anything just yet.
I’d happily welcome any ideas from you in the comments on this post. Perhaps think about personality traits, interesting hobbies as well as physical appearance? I'll genuinely be reading what people have to say. I have a few ideas myself, but always happy to be offered up some alternatives!
New PC:
The new PC is up and running and all assets transferred (about 1.5TB!), but I've not been using it while I re-do some of Episode 1. My current DAZ version on my old pc is .20 version, and DAZ have a nasty habit of messing with the lighting settings between versions. As a result, if I half render a scene on PC1 with .20, then render the rest on PC2 with .22, then I end up with a very slight lighting mis-match.
Now I'm done with the Episode 1 revamp scenes I'll be able to move over my 4090 and start using a PC that doesn't take 15 minutes to open a scene!
Well, that's it for the moment. I hope that at least provides a bit of re-assurance that I'm not sat on my hands doing nothing. I'm still progressing as quick as I can!
Thanks again for all the reviews, comments in the community forums and the general support!
Speak soon!
Nickle3DArt