VN Ren'Py Not Going Back [Ch.2.2] [Cicada]

devlog cross-post you know how it is by now

Hello!

Some previews below as usual.

The render count for chapter 3 is now at around 1300. I've not quite finished the big scene yet, I mentioned in the previous dev log that I was hoping to maybe have finished it by the end of this month, but I've still got a little bit to work through to tie the scene off nicely. There's quite a bit of choice and branching elements in just this scene alone, so I'm trying to make sure it's all coherent before I move on. I want to avoid having to come back to this at a later date because of something I've overlooked.

I'm also in the process of acquiring a new computer. It won't arrive for a while yet as I've got to wait for the graphics card I've picked for it to be in stock and available. This is a pretty large expense but it's going to massively cut render times, which as I've repeatedly mentioned is the bottleneck for releasing updates. I'll also be keeping my current computer because there's functionally nothing wrong with it, so I will be rendering with two computers at the same time. This'll mean adjusting my workflow slightly because I'll work through two scenes simultaneously, one on each computer, but that's not exactly a problem, it'll just be an adjustment. I won't know for sure until I actually have the new machine and can run a few side-by-side tests, but prospectively the render times might be as much as 5x quicker with the new GPU, according to examples I've seen online, which is insane to think about. But, as mentioned above, I don't know exactly when I'll actually have the new machine. So for now, at least, I'm just carrying on as usual.

Thanks!

Hello! A quick little update. I've just finished the big pool party scene for chapter 3. It's ended up being over 800 renders for that scene alone. That's over half the size of chapter 1, for reference.

That's all I really had to say, just a small update on things now that I've finally finished the scene. It feels good to move on to the rest of the chapter. For reference, there's 15 scenes left, of varying length. Some are short transitional or set-up scenes, some are longer. But I'm definitely closer to the end of ch3 than the start.
I'm still waiting on the new computer, so assuming that isn't too far away I anticipate progress to speed up quite a lot now that I can move on to smaller scenes with less characters that'll hopefully render quicker (definitely render quicker on the new machine).

cicadaNGB said:

Hello! A quick little update. I've just finished the big pool party scene for chapter 3. It's ended up being over 800 renders for that scene alone. That's over half the size of chapter 1, for reference.

That's all I really had to say, just a small update on things now that I've finally finished the scene. It feels good to move on to the rest of the chapter. For reference, there's 15 scenes left, of varying length. Some are short transitional or set-up scenes, some are longer. But I'm definitely closer to the end of ch3 than the start.
I'm still waiting on the new computer, so assuming that isn't too far away I anticipate progress to speed up quite a lot now that I can move on to smaller scenes with less characters that'll hopefully render quicker (definitely render quicker on the new machine).

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Damn, 800 renders for a scene, that's massive, and especially considering that almost every render pictures lot's of chars (based on previews at least).
Can't wait to see it in action

AlexMpog said:

Damn, 800 renders for a scene, that's massive, and especially considering that almost every render pictures lot's of chars (based on previews at least).
Can't wait to see it in action

Click to expand...

I'm hoping it's all come out well. I won't know for sure until I play it through for the first time. I wanted to try and make sure that it felt like the big party that it is, so there's a fair amount of background things going on. That's also partly why I'm excited about the new computer, too, because the new graphics card I'll be getting will allow me to put even more characters into scenes moving forward to hopefully make the world feel even more alive. Because at the moment I am a little restricted on these big scenes with how many characters I can put in at once. There are a lot of conversations in the scene that I positioned deliberately so that I could get away with not having to show people in the background, too. I'm hoping I balanced it well enough that everything still feels like a big party despite me having to optimize around my hardware a little.

a woman can b.press over 160+kg,wow,impressive-

Hello! A hopefully exciting little update for you all.

I'll probably talk more on this in the dev log later this month, but as a quick note: I now have my new computer, and have run a test render to compare the times. I took the last render I completed with my old pc, and re-rendered it with my new one.

The old computer rendered it in roughly 1 hour 25 minutes (85 minutes)
The new computer did it in just 16 minutes 44 seconds (17 minutes)

I am genuinely fucking shocked and wish I'd done this earlier. Holy fucking shit this is so much quicker. I knew my old PC was relatively slow with render times, as I'd compromised on speed in favor of having more VRAM when I bought it about three years ago. But the new system being legitimately 5x quicker slightly shocks me. I knew it'd be better, and I had hoped for that level of performance but I didn't actually expect it to do it.

And as a bonus, I'll show you the render itself. It's not anything too special, but take it as an extra preview I guess.

cicadaNGB said:

Hello! A hopefully exciting little update for you all.

I'll probably talk more on this in the dev log later this month, but as a quick note: I now have my new computer, and have run a test render to compare the times. I took the last render I completed with my old pc, and re-rendered it with my new one.

The old computer rendered it in roughly 1 hour 25 minutes (85 minutes)
The new computer did it in just 16 minutes 44 seconds (17 minutes)

I am genuinely fucking shocked and wish I'd done this earlier. Holy fucking shit this is so much quicker. I knew my old PC was relatively slow with render times, as I'd compromised on speed in favor of having more VRAM when I bought it about three years ago. But the new system being legitimately 5x quicker slightly shocks me. I knew it'd be better, and I had hoped for that level of performance but I didn't actually expect it to do it.

And as a bonus, I'll show you the render itself. It's not anything too special, but take it as an extra preview I guess.

Spoiler

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Click to expand...

Congrats on your new computer, the new render speed it's an improvement for sure. And of course, a Lucy preview it's always welcome

cicadaNGB said:

Hello! A hopefully exciting little update for you all.

I'll probably talk more on this in the dev log later this month, but as a quick note: I now have my new computer, and have run a test render to compare the times. I took the last render I completed with my old pc, and re-rendered it with my new one.

The old computer rendered it in roughly 1 hour 25 minutes (85 minutes)
The new computer did it in just 16 minutes 44 seconds (17 minutes)

I am genuinely fucking shocked and wish I'd done this earlier. Holy fucking shit this is so much quicker. I knew my old PC was relatively slow with render times, as I'd compromised on speed in favor of having more VRAM when I bought it about three years ago. But the new system being legitimately 5x quicker slightly shocks me. I knew it'd be better, and I had hoped for that level of performance but I didn't actually expect it to do it.

And as a bonus, I'll show you the render itself. It's not anything too special, but take it as an extra preview I guess.

Spoiler

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Click to expand...

Like a kid with new toy,lol.

Call of Booty said:

Like a kid with new toy,lol.

Click to expand...

Whenever I buy new stuff, whether it's a pc/mac, phone, - personally I am like a big baby , it's natural in my opinion.

Just posted a dev log over on itch. Putting it here as usual, although there's nothing in it really that I've not already mentioned here in the past month. So you can skip the text here if you're already up to date and just check the previews instead.

Hello!

A few previews attached below as usual.

Some good news to start of this month's dev log. I now have the new computer I mentioned getting in the last dev log. I've only had it less than a week now, but it has massively increased my productivity. The render times of the new machine are legitimately 5x quicker than my old computer*, which I'm also still keeping so I'll be working with two at the same time. This is going to vastly speed up how quick I'm able to get updates out. I can't say yet how much longer it'll take to finish ch3, but it's going to come a hell of a lot quicker now. (*the raw numbers from my test comparison was that my old computer completed a render in ~85 minutes while the new one completed the same render in 17 minutes. A crazy difference.)

Some more good news: I've finally finished the big party scene of ch3. Every scene from here on out in the chapter is a smaller, less crowded scene, which will also make working through them a lot smoother, and therefore quicker. The big scene ended up being over 800 renders, which, for reference, is over half the size of chapter 1. So it took a long time to make, but there should be a lot of content there for you to enjoy.

I'm hoping that in the next dev log, once I've had a solid month of working with the new equipment I'll be able to give somewhat of an estimation on how long's left to go before chapter 3.

Thank you for your patience as always!