VN Ren'Py What I have to learn to make Visual Novel?

[StupidRabbit]

I'm trying to organize what I have to learn to make my first game. I'm aiming for games like "Become a Rock Star", "Being a Dik", etc. Right Now I have a Ryzen 5 1600 + 1060 6gb + 8GB RAM.

•CHARACTERS - DAZ STUDIO: Characters and models; Pose; Shapping, Morph and Fit; Lights and Camera; Surfaces; Animations. Something Missing?

•ANIMATIONS - DAZ STUDIO (???): Daz is the best option to make animations? It's there another option? Remember that I will use Daz Characters

•ENGINE - RENPY: Renpy Structure; Characters and Say Statements; Showing Images; Python; Control Flow; Sounds and Music; GUI Customization. Something Missing?

•ANOTHER SOFTWARES?- Maybe I need to learn something about Photoshop, but what? And what others software you guys recommend to me to learn?

I Know that I aiming for something big right away, but I'll at least try to deliver the best I can do.

I really appreciate the help.

 

[Droid Productions]

GIMP or Photoshop for image postprocessing.

I recommend picking up AfterEffects for video compositing and vfx, but it's something you can do later.

If you're doing DAZ characters, bite down and do animation in DAZ; trying to use the Blender Bridge for this is likely to turn you prematurely grey. With the latest DAZ versions, animation's gotten a lot less painful.

Expect some things to be easy (Characters/models/shaping) and some things to be hard (Lights, angles, good posing).

 

[mickydoo]

You'd want to look into doubling your ram, while the gfx is on the smaller size it is up to the task, but 8 gig of ram will make your scenes lag in the viewport if you are not careful.

 

[Droid Productions]

You'd want to look into doubling your ram, while the gfx is on the smaller size it is up to the task, but 8 gig of ram will make your scenes lag in the viewport if you are not careful.

Yeah... I'm feeling the pain with 24GB and a 1070ti... you'd definitely want at least 16GB, and ideally an upgraded GPU.

 

[mickydoo]

Yeah... I'm feeling the pain with 24GB and a 1070ti... you'd definitely want at least 16GB, and ideally an upgraded GPU.

I have a 2070 and 24GB, by design my scenes are pretty simple so ram does not bother me, but when I first got this PC with the 1050 in it and 8GB of ram, lagged in the viewport pretty bad at times with relative simple scenes.

 

[Droid Productions]

I have a 2070 and 24GB, by design my scenes are pretty simple so ram does not bother me, but when I first got this PC with the 1050 in it and 8GB of ram, lagged in the viewport pretty bad at times with relative simple scenes.

Yeah, my problem with RAM is more multi-tasking. I usually have Unity+Photoshop+DAZ open. Sometimes AE, if I'm making a video. Occasionally either AE or Daz will get greedy, it'll hit the swapdisk and my PC will freeze for 5 mins

 

[DoctorPervic]

Just wanted to share my own personal experiences in this matter. another option I find when creating animations in daz is to render out the images as stills, then compile them in your favorite video editing software. I use

You must be registered to see the links

it works perfectly for combining many images into a fluid animation and can do a huge host of effects.

Also when doing animations in Daz, I try to make an animation as small as possible, so I reduce render time. for example, a sucking cock animation can be only 8 frames, frame 0 is the cock going in the mouth and frame 8 is the cock at the deepest point in the mouth.

Then just take the middle renders 1-7 copy them and reverse name them. so 7 becomes 9 and 6 becomes 10. ect...
Next all you need to do is string them together using a video editor.

 

[StupidRabbit]

image postprocessing

I was forgetting this part. What do you think about using denoiser softwares?

 

[StupidRabbit]

You'd want to look into doubling your ram, while the gfx is on the smaller size it is up to the task, but 8 gig of ram will make your scenes lag in the viewport if you are not careful.

I'll try to do that. Thanks

 

[StupidRabbit]

render out the images as stills

I've heard about that. It can really help the production process. I'll search more for it. Thanks.

 

[Droid Productions]

I was forgetting this part. What do you think about using denoiser softwares?

Intel Denoiser will work fine. Disable the internal daz one.

 

[Deleted member 3168478]

it is good advice to upgrade your gpu but you can work with current one. I have 1660 6gb and it is ok. Scenes take from 10 min to 1,5 hour. Main problem will be with how many chars you can insert in one scene. If g8 then it will be only 2 if not only one. But you can use scene optimiser. with it you will be able to make scenes with 3 chars with ok quality. Also just delete anything not in your camera view and you will be fine.
about other questions i recommend you to start with just writing plot and learning daz. your prime target will be to start rendering every day (night) as early as possible cause it is the most time consuming part. You will learn other things later.

 

[The M.O.]

GIMP or Photoshop for image postprocessing.

I found Gimp fiddly to use. I don't know why it is that way after so many years. Perhaps they are afraid to touch certain elements to keep it running on Linux. Anyway, if your in a hurry (as I was when I gave it a download) it's controls are fiddly and uncertain.

I'd recommend tracking down a copy of Paint Shop Pro 9. It was Photoshop's cheaper competitor back in the day, and does all you want for editing. Clone brush .ect

Make sure your getting JASC Paint Shop Pro though. JASC got bought out by Corel who came out with a multitude of sub-standard iterations using a completely different engine.

 

[Droid Productions]

PSP9 is.. old. I know it, I've used it for years, but... *damn* it's so old it remembers the constitution before there were amendments.

If you have the cash to spend, get Photoshop. It's more resource intensive, but does what you need better.
If you don't, get GIMP... it's suffering from the usual HCI issues of OSS tools, but it's a lot better than it used to be, and the price is right. It'll do everything Photoshop does, though it won't look as pretty doing it.

 

[probably_dave]

Good luck in your project StupidRabbit.
I'm in a similar place just starting a new game. It's following a similar structure to yours.

Below is what I've learnt from when I started to now (still not that advanced so I'm sure I'm also missing things):

Daz Studio:
Try to learn how to use dForce properly early on. It can be a bit awkward at the start but once you start getting used to it, it comes in very handle to make things look natural (hair, clothes, etc).
Another one is the Mesh Grabber tools. This will save you having to export to Blender (which is another tool some knowledge of would be handy, but not fully required). This will allow you to make minor tweaks to things that can make your renders look a lot more natural.
Unfortunately, I can't comment on Animations as I've not started them yet, but are up there on my list.

Ren'py:
I don't know your programming experience, but having a basic knowledge of classes and object orientated programming will help a lot especially for more complex games. Try to plan out as much of the code as possible before hand so you don't have to go back and change everything just for one minor change

Other Tools:
I started out using GIMP and found it very difficult. I got a trial version of Photoshop and have never looked back. Yes, it's expensive but the time savings compared to GIMP definitely makes it worth it. I'm not talking spending hours touching up every aspect of the render here, more the correction of any poke throughs (using the Healing Brush tools), the denoising filter and the Camera Raw Filter that can help give your images that extra edge. They are the ones I tend to use, but there's many, many more features to improve your renders. Doing the same in GIMP was taking me nearly an hour which I can now achieve in Photoshop in a matter of minutes.

 

[StupidRabbit]

Intel Denoiser will work fine. Disable the internal daz one.

Intel Denoiser will work fine. Disable the internal daz one.

Thanks for your answers dude. Then I'll look for you to ask about the step by step in the whole process.

 

[StupidRabbit]

it is good advice to upgrade your gpu but you can work with current one. I have 1660 6gb and it is ok. Scenes take from 10 min to 1,5 hour. Main problem will be with how many chars you can insert in one scene. If g8 then it will be only 2 if not only one. But you can use scene optimiser. with it you will be able to make scenes with 3 chars with ok quality. Also just delete anything not in your camera view and you will be fine.
about other questions i recommend you to start with just writing plot and learning daz. your prime target will be to start rendering every day (night) as early as possible cause it is the most time consuming part. You will learn other things later.

Yeah, I will practice every day. The main plot is already done, but I have to add some more content to it, but I'm trying to be careful because my PC doesn't help much. And I have to improve my English till then. Thanks for the help.

 

[StupidRabbit]

I found Gimp fiddly to use. I don't know why it is that way after so many years. Perhaps they are afraid to touch certain elements to keep it running on Linux. Anyway, if your in a hurry (as I was when I gave it a download) it's controls are fiddly and uncertain.

I'd recommend tracking down a copy of Paint Shop Pro 9. It was Photoshop's cheaper competitor back in the day, and does all you want for editing. Clone brush .ect

Make sure your getting JASC Paint Shop Pro though. JASC got bought out by Corel who came out with a multitude of sub-standard iterations using a completely different engine.

Photoshop is easier to find tutorials over the internet too.

 

[StupidRabbit]

Good luck in your project StupidRabbit.
I'm in a similar place just starting a new game. It's following a similar structure to yours.

Below is what I've learnt from when I started to now (still not that advanced so I'm sure I'm also missing things):

Daz Studio:
Try to learn how to use dForce properly early on. It can be a bit awkward at the start but once you start getting used to it, it comes in very handle to make things look natural (hair, clothes, etc).
Another one is the Mesh Grabber tools. This will save you having to export to Blender (which is another tool some knowledge of would be handy, but not fully required). This will allow you to make minor tweaks to things that can make your renders look a lot more natural.
Unfortunately, I can't comment on Animations as I've not started them yet, but are up there on my list.

Ren'py:
I don't know your programming experience, but having a basic knowledge of classes and object orientated programming will help a lot especially for more complex games. Try to plan out as much of the code as possible before hand so you don't have to go back and change everything just for one minor change

Other Tools:
I started out using GIMP and found it very difficult. I got a trial version of Photoshop and have never looked back. Yes, it's expensive but the time savings compared to GIMP definitely makes it worth it. I'm not talking spending hours touching up every aspect of the render here, more the correction of any poke throughs (using the Healing Brush tools), the denoising filter and the Camera Raw Filter that can help give your images that extra edge. They are the ones I tend to use, but there's many, many more features to improve your renders. Doing the same in GIMP was taking me nearly an hour which I can now achieve in Photoshop in a matter of minutes.

WOW, excellent tips. So far I've only planned the plot and the characters, but I plan to start planning other things as soon as I learn more. I will follow your project.

 

[lordparcival]

Thanks for this Thread. I was asking myself the same thinks im also thinking about getting into this and starting my own VN. This answered some of my questions especially regarding where i get the Assets and how to generate scenes.