Weekly Update 2018-05-20

Good evening everyone,

So there has been a lot going on over and here and in the sweep of everything happening, we kind of lost track of time. Without any additional delay, let’s dive in.

The new machine is nearly complete. We’ve acquired everything but the graphics card. The parts in hand have been assembled and using the on-board GPU we’ve fired up the machine and began migrating assets. The migration process itself turned out to be a much larger project than expected. It turned out that during our short run in producing this game, we’ve acquired over 400 Daz Studio packages (about 50 gigs of characters, clothing, environments, props, etc). I am happy to report that as of noon today we have completed the tasks of downloading and cataloguing the assets.

So what are we currently capable of? With the onboard GPU we can begin staging some low-density scenes and preparing them for rendering once the card is in. The end of this dark tunnel is finally within sight. Soon we’ll be attacking this project with a lot more fire power. And believe me, we are ready to light this fuse.

In the downtime during the system failure, we’ve manage to complete Act I for all characters. Writing and coding are complete, now it is just a matter of staging, rendering and integrating. We are incredibly excited about that.

And if all of that weren’t enough, we have been undergoing some redesign of our Patreon page. Not to fret, nothing material is changing. Reward tiers are the same, though we are enhancing the rewards themselves. We just needed to update the verbiage. We are also simplifying the download structure to speed up distribution. Semantic versioning each tier has turned into a huge bottleneck that slows distribution of each build. We’ve streamlined this so that once the next distribution is complete, we can have it uploaded and ready for download in less than an hour.

We are on the verge and terribly excited to begin releasing updates again. While this period has been very productive we have been missing a very important part of our creative process, your feedback. Sure, we’ve been writing our asses off, but without your input we have no way to be certain that what we’ve written is worth a damn. Believe me when I say we are very anxious to get our product back into your hands. And we will, very soon.

The only part we’ve left to acquire is the graphics card needed to produce the renders. The remainder of the system is built. There were some last-minute changes to the specs to improve speed and redundancy, but we paid for that out of pocket. We have no interest in delaying this project because of financing. So here it is, hopefully the last time I’ll post this parts list. But since you helped pay for a portion of it, we feel you are entitled to see where your money is going.

Parts in Hand:

· Intel Core i7 8700K – $328.28 (Paid for by Patrons)

· Vortex Plus CPU Cooler – $27.89 (Paid for by Patrons)

· 16GB Ballistix RAM Module – $168.99 (Courtesy of Sjoher)

· 3TB HDD – $59.89 (Courtesy of Sjoher)

· Phanteks Full Tower Chassies – $99.99

· EVGA SuperNOVA 850 – $119.99

· 4 x Artic F14 Case Fans for a total of 6 case fans – $31.96

· Motherboard: ASUS ROG STRIX Z370 – $180

· 960 EVO M.2 SDD (To hold OS and Daz and increase overall system speed) – $217.99

· 3TB HDD (To mirror the first and provide system redundancy) – $59.89

· NXT Sentry 3 Fan Controller (To optimize negative case pressure) – $32.99

· 16GB Ballistix RAM Module (Total of 32GB of RAM for building larger and more complex scenes) – $168.99

· Windows 10 – $92.99

Parts to Purchase:

· GTX 1070 – $550.00

So here it is, the last hurdle. My contract work that I took up on the side to help pay for this hardware was completed last Wednesday. Deducting for parts already purchased, we have about $160 left in the till to put towards the card. So, there is still a small gap to clear but with your help, I have no doubt we’ll get there soon.

I want to thank everyone again for their patience during this black-out. You sticking with us has meant a great deal. It shows you have as much faith in this project as we do and that you are as excited about seeing it come to fruition as we are.

Salute to you my friends! We will speak again very soon.