It's been a few days so it's time for an update.
Basically, I'vewasted spent 10-15 hours over the past few days on image generation and editing, with a three different goals:
First goal is to get a set of basic "tachi-e" (standing sprite) images of the main characters that I can use as a basis for making VN dialog scenes.
Working with AI generated images is very much a two edged sword - the good part is that I can at least create *something* that could be used without forcing everyone to scratch their eyes out in horror. The bad part is that *everything* needs tweaking, and the closer you look the more imperfections you see. Minor clothing mutations like missing zipper pulls or collar lines, noticeably different hair styles, lopsided boobs, varying color palettes. I struggle with perfectionism to start with so it's hard to know when to stop grinding on a single image and move on to the next. However, their is nothing for it but to just keep working at it - no magic wand* exists, and either I do it myself or I have to pay someone else.
I thought I was reasonably proficient at image editing, but I've been learning that there is a whole 'nother toolset which I need to master. There's only so far I can get with my old faithful PaintDotNet, lol. Photopea has been what I am trying to learn for more effective tooling so I can more effectively cut-n-paste of elements from multiple images into something that is not horrible, but there is a hidden world of "photoshop" work-alike shortcuts and workflow that is not easily discoverable. Lots of tutorial watching already and more in my future. Smart selection, feathered cuts, layers, color palette match, color picker+small brush to fix seams and weird AI stuff... the list of required skills grows daily.
Here's a couple of samples I picked out - and I must hastily clarify that there are pre-edit, thus the variations in her jumpsuit uniform design.
Second goal is to produce some location background images. This has been far harder than I would have wished - I guess the LORA that I am using is not trained very much on background scenery, and especially not "starship command deck" images.
I did manage to get this guy though...
Third goal is to get a replacement set of images for the heroine when she is in the 'Hole. This is to use in developing the UX feedback when playing your action cards - I don't want to publicly paste gameplay samples based on my pre-alpha version where all the art has been "donated" from another game. I also wanted to lean into the multi-image animation sequences a little harder than the original - a 4 frame image loop is better than 2, and 8 frames is bettter than 4. I'd actually hoped there had been more progress around this aspect in the AI image gen world, but so far I've not found good examples - all the "animated gif" stuff is weird psycho-dream morphing horrorshow junk.
For the glory hole asset work, for now I've got an invited guest model helping me out - not aiming for final assets production at this stage because I'm still learning the tools and workflow. Here's a sample image...
All this time spent on artwork has lead to the code dev being on hiatus for the past week or so, according to my commit log. It's not wasted time, however, because a game with just code and text is not what I want to create - a certain minimum level of artwork is a prerequisite.
Anyway, that's all for now. I've just ticked past the 200 hours mark in my work log, counting research, shit posting in here and other threads, coding, writing concepts and story dialog, and artwork. Only another few thousand hours to go!
Basically, I've
First goal is to get a set of basic "tachi-e" (standing sprite) images of the main characters that I can use as a basis for making VN dialog scenes.
Working with AI generated images is very much a two edged sword - the good part is that I can at least create *something* that could be used without forcing everyone to scratch their eyes out in horror. The bad part is that *everything* needs tweaking, and the closer you look the more imperfections you see. Minor clothing mutations like missing zipper pulls or collar lines, noticeably different hair styles, lopsided boobs, varying color palettes. I struggle with perfectionism to start with so it's hard to know when to stop grinding on a single image and move on to the next. However, their is nothing for it but to just keep working at it - no magic wand* exists, and either I do it myself or I have to pay someone else.
I thought I was reasonably proficient at image editing, but I've been learning that there is a whole 'nother toolset which I need to master. There's only so far I can get with my old faithful PaintDotNet, lol. Photopea has been what I am trying to learn for more effective tooling so I can more effectively cut-n-paste of elements from multiple images into something that is not horrible, but there is a hidden world of "photoshop" work-alike shortcuts and workflow that is not easily discoverable. Lots of tutorial watching already and more in my future. Smart selection, feathered cuts, layers, color palette match, color picker+small brush to fix seams and weird AI stuff... the list of required skills grows daily.
Here's a couple of samples I picked out - and I must hastily clarify that there are pre-edit, thus the variations in her jumpsuit uniform design.
Second goal is to produce some location background images. This has been far harder than I would have wished - I guess the LORA that I am using is not trained very much on background scenery, and especially not "starship command deck" images.
I did manage to get this guy though...
Third goal is to get a replacement set of images for the heroine when she is in the 'Hole. This is to use in developing the UX feedback when playing your action cards - I don't want to publicly paste gameplay samples based on my pre-alpha version where all the art has been "donated" from another game. I also wanted to lean into the multi-image animation sequences a little harder than the original - a 4 frame image loop is better than 2, and 8 frames is bettter than 4. I'd actually hoped there had been more progress around this aspect in the AI image gen world, but so far I've not found good examples - all the "animated gif" stuff is weird psycho-dream morphing horrorshow junk.
For the glory hole asset work, for now I've got an invited guest model helping me out - not aiming for final assets production at this stage because I'm still learning the tools and workflow. Here's a sample image...
All this time spent on artwork has lead to the code dev being on hiatus for the past week or so, according to my commit log. It's not wasted time, however, because a game with just code and text is not what I want to create - a certain minimum level of artwork is a prerequisite.
Anyway, that's all for now. I've just ticked past the 200 hours mark in my work log, counting research, shit posting in here and other threads, coding, writing concepts and story dialog, and artwork. Only another few thousand hours to go!
Last edited:
- Jan 4, 2017
- 3,014
- 2,088
Love the standing image!
Will there be any huge meaty trunks like in OE, or will all the phallic proportions be closer to the above image?
Will there be any huge meaty trunks like in OE, or will all the phallic proportions be closer to the above image?
That's an as-yet-not-fully edited generated image.
I'm partway through doing the image editing to cut up the arm/hand/boobies/head parts into layers to use in stop-frame animation + Renpy Layered Image. As part of this I have definitely replaced the chode with a more massive kielbasa. Not ludicrous, but definitely a bigger challenge for our heroine.
Also note that I'll have to do much of this work again once I've finalized the "look" for various characters. Young SS Jenny is not going to space.
Ahh, but then I run the risk that I would come to hate game dev nearly as much as I hate my $REALJOB. I'm happy doing this as a hobby for now. At this stage I'm not taking money from anyone, so I can proceed at my own pace with a clear conscience - which crazily enough is STILL faster than a certain developer...Yay! Big dicks and big boobies!
How anything can go wrong here?!
When will you quit your job, create a Patreon page and dedicate all your time to this?
- Nov 27, 2019
- 1,073
- 5,172
There goes the weekend, and now I am officially a Pro-Animator-san (tm).
Yes, that's right, the 2D Keyframe animation barrier has been not just broken, but actually completely smashed into sparkly powder. Behold!
So, that is the result of about 10 hours of image editing, learning, and messing with Synfig over the course of a few days. That's not a great rate of progress, but I guess I was learning how to do it on the go... and in all honesty I can't say it looks any better than "just okay". I think that without spending a bunch more time making the rest of the figure move a little, it just looks robotic - that is, the moving parts are *too* smoothly animated compared to the static surrounds.
Also, "Synfig Studio" is a hissy bitch of a program that loves to crash or just generally be weird. I guess I got what I paid for in that case - it's "free" open source with a capital F, and the janky-ness reminds me strongly of how GIMP is... you *can* get the job done, but don't make any assumptions about how to use it based on existing GUI app conventions.
This is the first animation software I've ever tried using so perhaps some of the difficulties were more due to my lack of foundation knowledge. I did have to repeat the "cut up" step multiple times until I got it right - and if anyone wants to know the "secret sauce" it's this: include a 30-50px area on either side of the "seams" of all pieces, so when they overlap you have still got some leeway of movement/alignment without ugly gaps appearing.
I spent the last 3 hours of the sessions trying to get some booby bounce/shake/jiggle happening as well, but either I missed something or the Synfig "skeleton deformation" functionality is just not suited. I could get some minor movement but it was either too subtle, or would blow up and never look right. I think it's missing a timebased surface warp, so you just can't easily get effects you can get with Live2d or similar. Speculating, I wonder if I could get a better result with some more layering of that area of the image... although the fact the "deformation effect area" was always a circle makes it pretty difficult... more thought and testing required, or perhaps I should concentrate on the basics rather than minor animations.
Anyway, I'm, now officially sick of doing images and animation so this week I'm going to go back to focusing of coding and writing some more mini-game scene scripts.
Edit: I might come back in a few weeks and give either Inochi2d or FrictionGraphics (aka Enve) a try, see if I fare better with those.
Yes, that's right, the 2D Keyframe animation barrier has been not just broken, but actually completely smashed into sparkly powder. Behold!
So, that is the result of about 10 hours of image editing, learning, and messing with Synfig over the course of a few days. That's not a great rate of progress, but I guess I was learning how to do it on the go... and in all honesty I can't say it looks any better than "just okay". I think that without spending a bunch more time making the rest of the figure move a little, it just looks robotic - that is, the moving parts are *too* smoothly animated compared to the static surrounds.
Also, "Synfig Studio" is a hissy bitch of a program that loves to crash or just generally be weird. I guess I got what I paid for in that case - it's "free" open source with a capital F, and the janky-ness reminds me strongly of how GIMP is... you *can* get the job done, but don't make any assumptions about how to use it based on existing GUI app conventions.
This is the first animation software I've ever tried using so perhaps some of the difficulties were more due to my lack of foundation knowledge. I did have to repeat the "cut up" step multiple times until I got it right - and if anyone wants to know the "secret sauce" it's this: include a 30-50px area on either side of the "seams" of all pieces, so when they overlap you have still got some leeway of movement/alignment without ugly gaps appearing.
I spent the last 3 hours of the sessions trying to get some booby bounce/shake/jiggle happening as well, but either I missed something or the Synfig "skeleton deformation" functionality is just not suited. I could get some minor movement but it was either too subtle, or would blow up and never look right. I think it's missing a timebased surface warp, so you just can't easily get effects you can get with Live2d or similar. Speculating, I wonder if I could get a better result with some more layering of that area of the image... although the fact the "deformation effect area" was always a circle makes it pretty difficult... more thought and testing required, or perhaps I should concentrate on the basics rather than minor animations.
Anyway, I'm, now officially sick of doing images and animation so this week I'm going to go back to focusing of coding and writing some more mini-game scene scripts.
Edit: I might come back in a few weeks and give either Inochi2d or FrictionGraphics (aka Enve) a try, see if I fare better with those.
Last edited:
- Jan 4, 2017
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- 2,088
The inspiration is obvious here, not that I care as its actually pretty good art, but will it generate a mention at some point?
Yes, as I already mentioned previously, I'm open that I'm using a darkcookie LORA. The images with the "Jenny" character are just a placeholder while I'm learning the tools.
Last edited:
- Jan 4, 2017
- 3,014
- 2,088
Cool, forget that this came up before. If you come up with something new, that's neat as well. Thanks!