Future of The Manifest

 Hi Guys,

I've been thinking about the progress of The Manifest so far, and my own journey from downloading Daz and buying my first asset in February to now, and the last few months of video game development, and to where I am now.

I feel I can create much higher quality renders, I've learnt to use Photoshop (which I was again new too) and can now edit assets, allowing me to create things like custom uniforms etc which in the past I couldn't do. I've also learnt a lot about Daz, how to use assets, shaders, environments, HDRIs and a lot of other things development wise.

There's a few things I've done very negatively in the past which are coming back now to cause problems with the game, I made these errors because of inexperience, and am seeking advice on the best way to proceed.

These errors are primarily based around render times. The picture of Mercedes attached, to edit the jumper asset, render the scene, and fix some of the errors that occurred, took me 33 minutes. In v.0151, every single scene with Miss Miller took over 12 hours just to render.

This means that updates will be far slower than I'd like going forward, so I've thought of three primary ways I can proceed, and would like some advice from all of you who have donated money to me.

Firstly, continue as normal, whilst some places (like the car sex scene) will have lots of content, others will be smaller amounts of take a long time. If I was to create a sex scene in Miss Miller's bedroom for example, to create a 30 render scene, that would take me 360 hours of pure rendering time (15 days), so then to create the rest of the content you'd be looking at 3-4 monthly updates to give a good amount (300-400) render update.

The second option is, make the updates smaller and more frequent, release scenes as they are done on a scene by scene basis rather than a day by day basis. Same content, but in quicker, smaller amounts.

The third option is move some of the locations in the game, this will create giant plot holes, but some of the characters will need to move house, job etc. If I can move Miss Miller to a house where a render takes, say 1 hour, that 30 render scene now takes just over a day instead of two weeks.

The fourth option is to restart a new game. Take what I've learnt from The Manifest and create a new entity entirely. I'd likely keep some of the characters, however I could improve the looks of some also, for example, Penelope is a base model you could recreate in 5 seconds, as is Dusk and a few of the others. The later models (Mercedes, Miss Miller, Ana, Chantelle) I had a lot better knowledge, and this is why these look better and I'm more proud of them as they're my own creations. 

If I was to create a new game, you'd be looking at 6-10 characters maximum, so you'd have better progress. Whilst currently I feel it's immersive, I may have over-stretched my ability to keep up the content, and I need about 10 machines to render all the scenes I have imagined and have a proper update come out each month.

I have an idea for a new game, based on a mystery island you'd move to with your family, that would incorporate some of the more supernatural assets I have lying around, such as vampires and mermaids as well as a secretive island community. This would also be British based, so I'd not be varying into another culture like I am currently.

So let me know what you think, v.0155 is still coming out as promised regardless, I'm not planning on abandoning the game suddenly or anything like that at all, I just am disappointed at the lack of content I'm creating because of previous errors I've made with choosing assets, characters and locations, and wanted to let you guys know why, and have some feedback on how best to proceed.

Thanks again to everybody that has donated, it's great to have something I can work on between my lectures that I enjoy creating, hopefully you all enjoy seeing, and stops me from having to stack shelves in a supermarket on the weekends because I have a small income from it.

White Phantom