Another new/old comparison (Patreon)

Hey, everyone. Sorry, there's no new demo yet, but it will be available very soon. In the meantime, let me show you a very simple comparison of the old and new images, because this example in particular would give me something to talk about. As you can see, this is from the scene in the tenth act when Blake and Suya go to the coffee shop. The dialogue in it is pretty important for the development of Suya's character, but it's also absolutely awful and will be rewritten. But let's not focus on that for now. Let's take a look at the image itself.

I got to this part after I finally upgraded my first GPU to a different, much more powerful one, and as such from that point on my images stop being so grainy. But I was still mostly working with my previous technical sensibilities and didn't utilise my new tools to actually make the images look good, I was just happy that they were rendered quicker. Which is why you can see the awful flat lighting (I was using the camera light all the time), absence of frame focus (it took me, I think, fifteen acts before I realised that I should be using it. And only after I saw it in another game), bad framing (I think I know what's happening. Back then it was difficult for me to simulate clothes properly, so I think Suya's skirt was sticking through the table, and that's why I raised the camera up so much. Professionalism!); pretty much everything you can do poorly is done poorly. And take a look at her outfit, too. As you can see, I changed it. Suya has to wear a dress, it's pretty important for the event, but since later on she and Blake can get to stuff in the alley, I decided to originally give her an outfit with detachable skirt. Which made sense at the time, but the asset I had didn't look exactly right for the occasion. Purpose over visual, basically. It was nice but not as stylish as the situation required. Now, years later, not only I have the advantage of actually knowing how to work with simulated clothes, but my library of assets is much wider as well. Look at all this cleavage! This is what Suya wanted all along.

Anyway, all of this is minor stuff, but once again it's interesting to look back and see all the little things I've learned to do better with the time. And none of that would've happened without people believing in my ability to improve and develop. I'm still not sure how come I got so lucky. But enthusiasm is contagious, I guess? That's all for now. Thank you for reading, and hopefully we'll see each other in May as well! :)