This time a smaller Dev Log because I spent the last weeks only rendering and learning Blender.

In the last 3 weeks I rendered around 2150 renders for animations and yesterday I finished two "smaller" cinematics.
Which puts the render count on around 3200 in total now.
I now have to do one smaller cinematic and the slightly more challenging end cinematic.
And the rest of the stills, which is easy.

The total update will most likely go way over 5000 renders in total and at least 1000 of them are still renders.

And even with two PC's it still takes too long to call it "acceptable".
I am glad that I made the decision to cut the updates in half.

I am already doing 24/7 rendering but I will have to wait till I have a lot more power to go back on these bigger updates again and do them in a fraction of this time.

I am also making some huge improvements in Blender and I might even do future cinematics in Blender which would put every Daz animation to shame. (Ch4 and above).

Of all the renders I rendered since the last post I can only show like 5% because on almost all of them are the new classmates or it displays an "important" event.

One of the 8 new classmates will be previewed here today.
All of them have fleshed out stories that I was preparing before I released the first version of WiAB.
I am glad it's finally time to introduce them.

Let's cut right to the chase.
I will not showcase the other characters but I decided to show a first impression of her.

I cannot say anything about her because this would take away from the journey I am preparing. You will have to experience her yourself and draw your own conclusions.

As I am scrolling through my old renders, you can see that from update to update my style and approach changed and I was never really satisfied.. and to be honest, I will never be satisfied.

But what I like is a cinematic approach. Setting the scene into a certain mood while complementing it with the right music.
Sadly, Daz is very limiting in that regard and I am constantly hitting the "Daz just can't do this" line but I am trying to press out of Daz what I can till I finally swap completely to Blender.

As I already said in the last dev log, Chapter 3 will set a lot of gears in motion and the first small bonds can be created.


I was hesitating if I should show off such a render here but I decided to do it as she is a desired girl and this render here still leaves the mystery intact.


I would love to preview one of the cinematics I finished here because the lyrics there would perfectly sum up Chapter 3.
But, this cinematic shows way too much for a preview.

There will be a Dev Log #6 with some previews but after that, I will release the update.

Thank you for putting your trust in me during these unpredictable times.
Have a good day!

- Ocean