Pics 240: Ariane in 4K, AND a Beta Demo! (Patreon)

I call the above picture "Uncanny Ariane". The full picture is attached.

The Ariane character normally uses a Genesis 8.1 model which has been around for a few years and is well supported with clothes and accessories which is why I used it in making the game. But it's not the newest most sophisticated model, that would be Genesis 9.

The player character, both male and female, use Genesis 9, so does the new Rachel, and I have access to a tool to convert 8.1 characters to 9, which is what I did above.

This is a different look that is extremely detailed. You can see every pore, every wrinkle, every hair. It is the most "Photorealistic" image I've made of Ariane, and that includes the AI experiments I did a couple of years ago.

So why didn't I use Genesis 9 in the first place? Newer does not always mean better.

I figured out a while ago that trying to do a "photo realistic" character is not worth it. They take a lot longer to render, and photorealism can cause problems.

First of which is the "Uncanny Valley" problem. (I wrote about this back in 2008, and the reasons are still valid.) This is usually referred to android development (robots that look like people, not the OS), but my experience says it's a thing in 3D models. Better if 3D characters look like 3D characters.

Second is the idea that games, including mine, are ultimately fantasies. Realistic video game characters can distract from such fantasies. This is why actors, like Keanu Reeves in Cyberpunk 2077, or Norman Reedus in Death Stranding are modeled in games rather than filmed.

Still, I like experimenting. Here's a version of the opening picture with the G9 version of Ariane, and attached below is a 4K version of this picture.

I thought I'd make a more detailed render for the opening image, but realized that despite the exactitude of the conversion, the A9 version looks too "off model". The irises look too big, the eyelashes look off, so does the smile. I'll probably put this project back on the shelf.

In even bigger news: Date Ariane Remaster 2.0 Demo

I'm far enough to release a beta demo of Date Ariane 2.0. It's about 330 MB in size, so to large for a Patreon attachment, so lack of any other place to put it, I put it as a free downloadable demo on https://arianeb.itch.io/date-ariane-remastered This means anyone can download it, but I'm fine with that. But this demo is unfinished.

Tell me what you think. Questions I'm wondering about: Is the "anxiety" mode too distracting. It's designed as a Tutorial of sort, and can be disabled in Preferences, should I get rid of it?

Can you go through it and find "missing images", or lines of dialogue that are not voiced? What I am working on Still

So far I have been redoing the paths of Date Ariane Remastered, there are 26 of these, and so far I've done 10. I am making sure that all the places you should be able to reach are still reachable, and adding new code if it isn't.

I'm adding new compliment lines and additional content to make the game feel more conversational, too. Every path I've rewritten has added one or the other.

Once I do all 16, I'll release the first beta and will share all the paths to try them yourself. Probably next week.