eromancer
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Battle Test 3 (v0.0562) Inner Circle Release!
🕑 Added 2018-03-25 02:34:56 +0000 UTC EDIT: I'm going to spend a day or two creating batch processing/file renaming scripts as it's becoming a real task to process this many portraits manually. Once that's done I'll re-upload with fixes for any bugs, edited wetness textures, and less post-processing. Will put off the IC update until that's done.Hey guys!
I’ll be making a full Inner Circle update post tomorrow, but for now I’ll just go over some of the key points regarding BT3. Here’s a broad list of changes:
- Overhauled targeting system / fixed targeting bugs
- Fixed all known and some unknown issues
- Malise has been updated to the newest version (shown in the March update)
- Added the first stage of lust sickness portraits for Malise.
- Fixed holster rigging / guns now properly holstered in applicable Malise poses
- Portraits were re-lit using our new battle/portrait lighting rig
- Added HDR bloom
- Added HDR grading and chromatic aberration for the retro cinematic vibe I’ve been tinkering with in the recent promo artwork
- Police basic attacks now add lust to Malise only (for testing purposes)
We’re now using Ubercharge’s battle/portrait lighting rig; the goal of which is to help us quickly and easily light the portraits to match any environment. We’ve obviously been changing this up with every test release, but we’re not simply treading water. It’s largely growing pains as we develop this workflow that will not only produce good looking results but make for speedy development of future environments.
With the above graphical changes, some things have changed on our end as well. I’m now using procedural 32-bit compositing for all portrait/battle related artwork, just like Uber has been doing for maps recently. Hopefully you can see the difference in how well the graphical elements mesh with each other. The grading also preserves the vibe of the darks without that overly contrasted look BT2 had. I’ll go more into my progress/goals there in the IC post tomorrow.
One relatively minor sacrifice I’d like to point out is we’re changing how we go about showing “terrain” in the pose artwork (currently only visible with the K.O. artwork). In previous releases we had it so that little plot of ground that shows up in some pose artwork would match the environment. We’re changing this to a generic look (currently just a polished black material for now) since having unique textures/versions is technically incompatible with our new workflow. We tested some other ideas that didn’t work too well, but we might come up with something better later.
As far as issues go – the tutorial pop-ups don’t have Japanese versions yet, but these will probably be in the next test release, which I’ll also talk more about tomorrow :D.
As always, let us know if you find any bugs or anything unusual! For anything major, don’t forget to follow these procedures:
Bug Report Instructions (Updated!)
I would like to ask a favor from everyone who stumbles upon a bug. Most of you who have played the game haven't mentioned encountering any bugs at all, which is a good thing, but it also means that bugs still out there are very hard to find and fix, so we must rely on you to provide us with as much information as possible! It takes only few minutes to create bug report, but it can save us hours to fix a bug with minimum amount of info. Please follow these few steps when reporting a bug to make our lives (or rather, our programmer's life) much easier:
- If game screen is not empty make a screenshot (preferably with error message out of the way),
- Add a description; where the error occurs, what was the last action (or few last actions) -- the more details, the better. It doesn't have to be a novel, but every detail counts,
- Send description along with compressed 'User' folder and optional screenshot to us (eromancergames@gmail.com).
Thanks guys!
Comments
Jamie C.
I figured ok that was the only thing I ran across. Other than that it runs like a dodge charger :) cant wait.
Quick update-- I have the procedural automation network working. Automated a lot more than I was thinking I could. Still have a few things left to do, but once done it will handle Uber's lighting system, post processing, positioning and scaling portraits, and auto-cropping portraits -- for all the game's portraits -- in a single click :D. And it's modular/scalable to boot. Will be adding enemy lighting to it as well. It outputs in a way that I just have to run a batch script in order to rename files so they can be used by the game. <a href="https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418449471760891904/428443407673720836/network.png" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418449471760891904/428443407673720836/network.png</a>
AltairPL
Unfortunately, it's exactly like MangoFishSocks wrote, thanks BTW :D. Main problem is that we've found out about it way too late, and there's nothing we can really do to fix it, short of removing the most problematic element (RPG Maker) from the equation ;).
MangoFishSocks
Fullscreen resolutions breaking is a known issue. It's an incompatibility with RPG Maker. They recommend starting the game without RPG Maker's fullscreen mode through the F1 menu and then using F5 to set it to fullscreen through the game itself. This has bad anti-aliasing, though.
Jamie C.
ok interesting nothing on my end seemed bad, I struggled to make it break to fins any errors but I am just not seeing anything. Only thing I did find but i brushed off is resolution. I am 1920x1080 and the game does not seem to acknowledge that. and so good portion of Neon and Malise are hidden by the edges of the border. I looked in options to find a solution but there is none is this not meant to run on that screen resolution.
dd209
Ah, wasn't aware of that. Thanks.
MangoFishSocks
Yes, logically post-processing would be everywhere or nowhere, but so far the only feedback we can give is on this one scene, and if it looks better in, say, lighter areas, to a greater extent than it not looking as good in darker areas, then that's a net positive and the consensus would be to add it. Nothing is set in stone, of course.
The cool thing about this setup is I can have it in some environments and not others. So really this workflow isn't about unique lighting for environments, but post processing in its entirety. EDIT: For now at least :D. If we choose to do some of it in-game in real time later then that'd change.
MangoFishSocks
That image without the post-processing looks much better to me. Sure you've lost some of that cinematic effect (which I think is better left to cinematics like cutscenes) but the retro style is definitely still there and the picture is much clearer comparatively. As for delaying the IC update, take all the time you need especially if it makes things more convenient for you later down the line. I'd say drop the chromatic aberration for now and try again later once you have some different scenes and lighting set up to get some personal and community feedback.
I really recommend checking out this video for an idea of what I mean when I say "retro cinematic" :D <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=er416Ad3R1g" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=er416Ad3R1g</a> It needs a lot of supporting elements to make it work though, and I don't think those are in place yet (I'm looking at you, UI skin).
So, a few things going on here--- I'll update and re-render the poses with the wetness textures because they definitely don't look as good in 720p (the sparklies). As for the brightness, I think people are getting tunnel vision from looking at a single scene. It's probably not the best scene to be using for this but doing another right now would just cost more time. Regarding some of the post-processing -- I'm not quite certain things are clicking yet with the direction I'm taking the visual style, and I don't think I'll sell you on it without more of the full package. For now I can strip some of that off and it will look like: <a href="https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418449471760891904/427646990973796364/1080p_no_CA.png" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418449471760891904/427646990973796364/1080p_no_CA.png</a> Unfortunately I have zero automation with the new workflow so it's very laborious to process all these portraits. In light of that I'm going to work on some makeshift scripts for batch processing / renaming portraits instead of doing an IC update tonight. This is a necessary step anyways and will save a lot of time.
Mostacho
<a href="http://www.myspace-tricks.de/uploads/images/2018-03-25/ycC7aTjB1p.png" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://www.myspace-tricks.de/uploads/images/2018-03-25/ycC7aTjB1p.png</a> I can still fight without mistakes or other disturbances. I don't know the possibilities you have to portray the characters, but I have to admit the look has become more authentic. Nevertheless, Malise seems to be in motion and cannot be seen sharply. With neon, it doesn't matter that much. Neon looks extremely authentic. I think it's just her face, her hair and the weapons making Malise look fuzzy. If there's anything sharper to add, the rest would fit. Should there ever be a scene in which Malise comes out of the water, then she is welcome to shine 😉
BAB PEEG
Going to say it straight I am annoyed but I understand the project had to be rebooted the girls look so much more ALIVE it's fantastic.
AltairPL
Just remembered, you can always hold SHIFT to make the time pass at normal speed. Not perfect, but always something.
AltairPL
Found and fixed. Only Actions timing was affected, so if you want, you can still set Input to 0%. Ero has some hardware problems at the moment, so no idea when patch or whole build will be (re)uploaded. Thanks again for the report.
And to explain my loght rig, it is tool where we prerender stuff and we can tweak brightness and color of lights without rerender, so ero can make her butt brighter in one day on all portraits oh and also sweatyness or water droplets on malise are too small so it deff looks weird, forgot to mention to ero, my bad :D
To regard this, yes it created some disagreements in our dev team but for you guys it should be good to know we read feedback and try to figure out whats the best. I personally like it when it blends well in background and character outlines dont really scream at you, while you look at it all the time. Also this is particularly dark area combined with further battle backgrounds. I personally dont mind aberration and grain but ero likes it so decision is up to him
AltairPL
Whooops... apparently nobody tested it >.> . Thanks for the report, will take a look ASAP.
AltairPL
For various reasons, I'm gonna leave graphics stuff explanations for Eromancer. @Fredinator - borked fullscreen is known RPG Maker and wide-screen incompatibility... unfortunately, there's nothing I can do about it, but stay tuned for the upcoming IC update for a hint what my plans are.
same for me as mango said !
MangoFishSocks
Again no bugs so far. The grading and chromatic aberration I think is best left to cutscenes and the overworld. It makes the most physically appealing part of the game, the in-battle portraits, less clear especially with the darker shades. It's a good experiment and a good thing you tried it but with negative results. Are the spots/sparkles on Malise's body at minor lust sickness the effect of Ubercharge's texture-based wetness mapping technique shown in the Inner Circle Update of January 31st? Meant to showcase sweatiness? The idea is great but in practice it looks odd. Like a Twilight vampire. Maybe just make her skin more shiny and add fewer, larger drops of sweat if at all possible.
Fredinator
I totally agree. The HDR and lighting is nice but I want to see the girls clearly. Especially Malises butt is barely visible and I want to see that marvelous thing. Also I have some strange white sprinkles on malises body after first arouse level. It's visible in the screenshot above but it is way more visible in my game. And for some reason when I go fullscreen it changes the aspect ratio to 4:3
dd209
I think there's a bug when you set ATB gauge during both Input and Actions to 0% (with concurrent actions disabled). The game simply froze after the android (forgot her name now lol) took a shot - music continued to play and characters played their idles but everyone's ATB stopped and I couldn't do anything except force-quit. Setting the gaueg to default speed for actions seemed to be fine.
Somnovox
Same. It had a grainy/washed out look to it. Not sure what's going on there, but it doesn't look much at all like the images you've been showing. If it's a hasty mockup, I can understand, but the previous battle test looked better.
The game looks great, but it kinda has this grainy effect that I'm not a big fan of. Also the new lighting helps the girls portraits blend in with the environment, but tbh I'd rather see a more defined lighting on the portraits. So we could get a better view of the girls' assets and the upcoming h-scenes.
