SummersGone
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Summer's Gone - Season 2 - Chapter 1 - Dev Log #34
🕑 Added 2025-06-18 14:12:57 +0000 UTCHello,
Renders: 5700 -> ~6050 (350 + 25 Treats)
Less than 2000 renders are left, which sounds weird considering the previous updates were about that in full.
My calculations for the final image count are usually off, but it’s gotta be at around 7800 to 8400 renders by the end. (Only stills)
Chaos
The past two weeks were absolutely chaotic. Probably the worst two weeks in the past 2 years. All in all, I may have gotten to work on 8 out of the 14 days with only 1 PC available.
I said last time that the previous log was supposed to be my last log in Berlin… Well, no… This one is. I’ll talk about it further down and what the Treats have to do with it.
Music
I managed to license two new songs… and not just any songs... These two songs really feel like SG. I’d give them a 10/10.
One of them you’ll see in S2 Chapter 4, and the other in Chapter 9.
This adds two more cinematics to Season 2.
Season 2 is going to be a new personal milestone in production quality… The amount of amazing music I already got… About 25-30 songs already.
Genesis 8 to Genesis 8.1
Most of my characters were Genesis 8 models. That’s kind of the version number for Daz characters. The newest is Genesis 9.
So, during a free minute, I slowly started porting the characters over.
Why?
G8.1 has a better facial rig and access to more realistic expressions. The reason why I did it is the eye area.
You see, in G8 only the eyeballs really move when a character looks around. This leads to some horrific looking expressions when you’re at an angle to character.
I’ve created two examples.
I copy and pasted the pose and expressions into both variants. The only thing that really looks different from before, are the eyelashes. G8.1 has its own asset and doesn't work with the shaders from G8.
Bella's eyes aren't closed on the right side. It's just that the surrounding area doesn't work together with the eyeball. POV BJ scenes will look a lot better now.
On the second image, you don't really see it, but I needed an excuse for an underboob shot.
You'll definitely notice the eye-behaviour improvements in the game. (Especially during animations.)
Vanessa, for example, was already a G8.1 model.
The porting was simple and it gave me the opportunity to clean up some characters. (They now load faster.)
Sadly, the areola boob asset I’m using for Nia and Sonya isn’t working right now. I tried it with different Daz versions. So I can’t update these two to G8.1 at the moment.
KSK
I often talk about German bureaucracy to vent, and yesterday I got hit with a pretty weird one.
See, I’ve been paying a monthly invoice for the UI I got from my designer Messe, and that is soon coming to an end.
So, my tax office sent me an E-Mail that I now have to pay 5% on the amount of the invoices to the Künstlersozialkasse. (Artists' Social Security Fund.)
It’s so that artists in Germany only have to pay half the social taxes. (I don’t fall under it. You actually need to have studied game design to be eligible iirc. And it has other drawbacks.)
To make it short, I now have to pay 5% on every invoice I previously paid for, that had something to do with UI art and was above 450€ (2024)
Neither of us will get anything from it though. He’s not from Germany. He doesn’t even benefit from it. I sometimes wonder how these things can be legal. (It’s about 360€ I now have to pay.)
This is worse than the IHK. At least, they pretend to do something for you.
It’s not the world… It was just so unexpected and weird and shows how many weird, hidden things there are in Germany’s bureaucracy jungle.
Treat – Goth Trifecta – Vol. 1
The treats will come out on Friday or Saturday. I still need to do post-work and can’t do it before the move.
It wasn’t planned to do a treat, let alone a big one like that, but this was the only good thing that came out of the chaos from the past two weeks.
See, I usually don’t mention when a family member dies, because it doesn’t directly affect my work.
I work in good times. I work in bad times. I work during the end times.
Work distracts me and makes me feel comfortable.
But what happened recently severely affected me.
This is the third family member to die in the past 7 months, and they all hit me to various degrees.
The plan was to move away from Berlin on the 14th. On the 3rd, I got the message that my uncle, who lived next to us during my days as a bibi, was doing bad.
Okay, I thought… I’ll be there soon, but his condition worsened rapidly around the 8th, and they were thinking about moving him into a hospice.
I couldn’t drive the 8h over, because I had to take care of the move and other work-related stuff.
Then, it got really bad on the 10th, and I decided to drive down on the 12th. I had scheduled 5 viewings as well as an electrician coming over on the 11th.
A few days before, I called my uncle, but he didn’t pick up because he was sleeping most of the time. So, I sent him a voice memo, telling him that I’ll be there soon.
A day later he sent me one back, saying how happy it makes him that he’s going to see me one last time.
I think you know where this is going.
I had already packed one PC into my car, when two hours before my drive, I got the message that he passed away.
That voice memo where he sounds ill, yet so happy that he’d get to see me again… just for me not making it in time.
That was the reason I made the Treats, I needed some distraction.
Normal work is a lot more routine; it doesn’t distract me nearly as much.
Community Treat
Which is also why I will be doing something I haven’t done before. Maybe a one time thingy.
I will do a community treat. A custom treat so to speak voted by the community.
You can post your idea, or like the idea from someone else, and I will put the three ideas with the most likes into a poll.
The only three rules:
- Max three characters
- Must comply with the TOS from Patreon and Steam.
- SG Characters only.
Before you write down your idea, check if someone else has come up with it/something similar.
Oh, and I know you guys mean well when you say “take some days off.”, but I feel much better working. I cope much better with it by doing some Treats instead of lingering around.
Previews
Two previews with Zara today.
The angle and composition makes it look like she can crush melons between her thighs.
I had created some really nice Cheeto renders the other day. I can’t preview them but will point them out after the update’s released.
This is the scene though.
The last log from Berlin.
I haven’t slept in 32 hours due to move-anxiety. It’s toally irrational but I can’t turn it off. I will take some melatonin soon, and try to get some sleep.
In a few hours, I will disassemble my workstation and get everything into the car.
This time tomorrow, I should be half-way to Cologne.
I pray my PCs get through the journey just fine, and I’ll be back online on the 20th.
- Ocean
Comments
The Greggen
That'd be cool.
rain
Hey Ocean, first of all I’m really sorry for your loss. As for the community treat idea, I had something playful in mind: I think it would be really cool to have a treat set with Bella and Nika in a GTA 6-style cover art. Something inspired by the bold, cinematic vibe of GTA posters — with a mix of action and attitude. It could be a stylish and fun concept featuring just the two of them. For example, in the GTA 6 cover, the characters are sitting on a car. In this treat set, using Bella’s “Cancer Car” for that kind of pose would be a really nice touch.
Dušan Smrček
Stay strong my friend!!!
