New site layout problems fixed, working on images, details and such. Two new polls up.

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Well shit; Google backed down.

So funny story. http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-31659669

APPARENTLY THEY CHANGED THEIR MINDS.
(After I paid for a site already; hilarious. Good for a lot of other people though.)

This is good news of course, but I m not risking this shit happening again/for real. I already paid for the new site anyway... so I might as well use it. I also don't have to deal with many of the blogger/google restrictions on what I post on the new place anyway. (There are theoretical restrictions on what you can have on these blogs, or so I have heard.) So the current delays are still current, I hope to resume production sometime next month... I have no clue what to do with this blog now, there is no point in maintaining two pages and yet it apparently can continue to exist. I will probably just leave it up as a redirect as planned... No reason to not use the new site really; it should be better in every way once I get everything situated/figured out. I did not expect google to change their minds on this, especially not so quickly. Also: vote in this poll would be appreciated: (http://www.poll-maker.com/poll242101xEe5a41Bc-9).

Situation Update - Edited 2/26

Ok so I have a website, but I need time to set it all up. I am doing the best I can considering my web skills are mostly ten years out of date. I hope to have this done shortly, then I can begin moving the actual content from this blog to the new one. I plan to leave this blog up as a redirect, after I wipe all the images from it. I also plan to remake all the site images and banners, my skills have come a long way since I made those and they needed updating anyway...
 
EDIT 2/26: I have no idea how long this will take, but it is going to push things back two weeks at the absolute minimum. (So what was supposed to be this month's story set will likely be next month's instead due to unforeseen blogger circumstances.) New banners and such are looking nice so far, even in early previews due to octane. Side note, the Octane people sort of got back to me; still waiting on one message. Long story short, it seems like I have to manually do tattoos from this point forward due to Octane limitations. This isn't really a problem in most cases, it just takes some extra work to set up.

The only issue here will be for Salune's skin since she is fairly covered in tattoos, that one will suck to fix if I can even do it. There is the possibility that I may have to just edit the character down a bit to make this more doable, I will see how bad it is when I get there. (She has like... eight or so different textures that I will have to edit manually to get the tattoos working in Octane.) I will attend to that whenever I get the site setup, it is just one thing in a long list of crap I have to do before I get back to making sets again.

Even when I can get back to making proper content, now I have no idea what my new system will be like since now I have to pay just to host this stuff. Previously, I had planned to extend Patreon image set exclusivity for a month or two more, but now I don't even know what to do. Blame blogger for all this crap, I just hope other artists have some sort of backup plan as well... I can't even imagine how many people are getting screwed by this.

Status Update 2/23/15: Major problem next month and next set preview.

IMPORTANT EDIT: So I just got an email that blogger will no longer allow graphic explicit content as of march 23; (it looks real) which is a major problem as this blog is currently where I host my content. I can just remove all graphic content and give general previews such as this one, but I am not sure that will do it and this is still really bad. I don't get much of any real support from this yet, so paying for an actual website would be silly... Especially considering I just spent so much to buy Octane.  I have no idea what else to do other than wiping graphic content; other ideas/advice welcome... (And I thought things were going bad already...)

RE-EDIT: I am actually considering a separate website now, I have asked around and found some decent options, but this is still really shitty; for all adult artists on blogger, not just me. Any Patreon support would really be appreciated; especially now that I apparently am going to need it. I may have to redo my whole system due to this shit, I will see what happens. This completely fucks my schedule and I basically have to suspend further work until I figure this out. No point in making this stuff without someplace to put it...

Hey all. So I've been messing with Octane and trying to fix some problems that I've had with it so far. One major problem is fixed but the other I am still waiting to hear back from the Octane support people on. It has been a weird last week or so for me (it still is) and at best I may be able to finish the first part of this next set before next week. (The other half requires that tech support I haven't gotten a real response/solution to yet.) I could just render it with poser; but since I am building scenes with Octane in mind now, it would be silly not to use it. (It also takes literally a tenth the time and looks better.) Due to my getting Octane, I have to re-figure a ton of crap and do a lot of  things differently now; but overall it's much better. (At least for me as a creator, I am assuming the images look better too; I think so)

In any case, I did manage to get three figures working in an Octane scene which is nice because I can do what I was planning to do with this first part of set 9 and not the backup plan. Here is an early preview of part one of the next set; it will feature James and the two elf sisters from the last set. As always, this image may not be final; it is just a preview. I do not plan to release the set as part one and part two, but I may release part one on Patreon until part two is done; and then just post the full set. Even if the Octane people get back to me today, I still need time to finish all of this stuff; so getting everything done by next week is highly unlikely. Given all that's happened, I'd be surprised if I have anything done by the end of this week; but as always I will do my best. (Now highly unlikely to be done soon in any way due to blogger shenanigans, see above.) 

If people could keep voting in the polls, that would be nice... the VN poll still has less than half the votes of the one on the right for some reason. I guess pollmaker gets to stay on Patreon; people here like it even less than the normal polls. (http://www.poll-maker.com/poll242101xEe5a41Bc-9)

So I got Octane, and it's awesome.

Hello again. Instead of going into details here, I will simply say that this project now potentially has a lot more of my time than it previously did due to impending real life changes. Due to that and a few other factors, I caved and bought Octane. It is amazing so far with a few issues here and there that need fixing but as the previews below show, it is quite nice. This also renders in minutes as opposed to the hours that poser renders take. The main problem there is that I am limited to small scenes with only about two figures maximum or else my gpu can't handle it right now. (I think I have ways around this but so far that is what I have found with preliminary tests.) That means that making stuff for octane renders is a bit more work for me right now as I need to make many small scenes as opposed to a large one with many parts. (This may be for the best.) Also yes, this was partially why I had that last poll about if people wanted fewer, quality images or not.

I will do the best that I can with this and hope that this works out better than things have been; but either way I think changes are going to have to be made to my current system. What those changes are, I am not totally sure yet but fair bet the Patreon exclusivity for things will be lengthened at the very least. (I have been considering this for a while as people who actually read this know; this is a pretty good time and reason to do so.) So the Patreon mini-sets from here on will absolutely use Octane; it is perfectly suited to them as the below images show. I have no idea what this means in regards to main sets yet, I would like to use Octane for them but it would be weird if some images couldn't be done with it and some could, but I will try. As far as the game goes, I also have no idea if this will work for it or not, I will see. The problem there is that some scenes I want to include that I just have no idea how I would get it working in Octane given the limits I have with textures.

Here are those previews, feedback would be appreciated. The left image is an octane render of a Lucia image I had on DA (check there for a comparison) and the right image is the octane render of the mini-set 6 preview in the last post; the difference is clear. (I will re-render the rest of mini-set six and repost it as soon as I sort out one of the issues I have with Octane.) I also replaced the old character images for these two on my characters page with these for obvious reasons, the rest will follow as soon as I can get to it. As far as the next story set goes, this kind of fucks everything since I have to change a lot of it (basically break it into two scenes, maybe three) to try and work Octane in. I will do the best that I can, but I may have to break it into two small sets as opposed to the one large set I planned. I know that I also wanted to have the previews up around now, but this screws that plan too. I will try to get the early preview up in the next few days and a regular preview up sometime after that. Also this poll and the one on the right still need votes so check them out: (http://www.poll-maker.com/poll242101xEe5a41Bc-9) For some reason this poll has less than half the votes of the one on the right... no idea why this keeps happening.

EDIT 2/20: Early preview is up on Patreon, hopefully the regular previews will be done by early next week.

Patreon changes, mini-set 6 posted, new polls up now and previous poll results!

Hey everyone. I had some time yesterday after all so I did this month's Patreon stuff as well as changing around Patreon again. I have added in various access options to games I make and edited some other stuff. Basic game early access is lower now, beta game access is where it used to be. Higher tiers have been totally changed and more details specified for them. Mini-set 6 features four images of Helenya and is up now, along with a new wallpaper for all tiers. A preview of mini-set 6 is below. Construction on the next story set will start tomorrow. If you like my work, please spread the word and consider supporting me on Patreon to get early access to my stuff and other goodies (like these mini-sets): https://www.patreon.com/redleatherart. Any and all support is appreciated and helps motivate me.

In the mean time I have put up two new polls; one on the right and one in a link in this post. I am trying a new method of polling, to see if this gets better/more results. This poll asks who you want to see star in my first VN attempt that I am planning through in the general sense. This is not a special poll and so I will not necessarily use the winner of the poll, this is more of an interest gauge. If something wins by a huge margin though, there is a much higher chance it might happen. Be aware; the first three options will limit what I can do in the VN, as I need to get the recurring characters out of whatever trouble they get in to. The last three options allow me to do darker shit like bad ends and the like as the character will not be overly important and is somewhat disposable, including the last option for using (what I planned to be) a future recurring character. I can figure something out if I decide to use her but semi-harsh things happening to her is fine for reasons that may be revealed later if necessary. Anyway here is that poll, (http://www.poll-maker.com/poll242101xEe5a41Bc-9) so vote now and spread the word if you want to see your favorite character in that list in a VN/choose your own adventure game or if you want to see some darker shit with one of the unnamed characters! (I am not sure which I will do, maybe the second one if one of the darker options wins; maybe a bit of both) Comments/feedback welcome on this or the current slave training game. Note: I am not working on the VN game yet in any actual fashion, I am just gauging interest in what people want to see so that I have a better idea what to plan when I do start work on it.

As far as the other new poll; it asks what kind of hair you prefer on female characters. Options available include long, medium, short, ponytails, braids, updos/buns and fancy/eccentric hair. (The last one is for the weird/complex hairstyles.) For a length reference, Zayla's hair would be medium; so longer than that is "long". The results from last weeks polls are that people seem to be alright with either quality or quantity when it comes to images, which is good to know; and that people want me to focus on the story arc, so that is the plan for now. Here is that preview of mini-set 6, and I will post again toward the end of the week (hopefully) with some previews of the next set. (Early previews should be on Patreon in a few days.)

Status Update: 2/11/15 - So far so good.

Hi again. So almost all that stuff I said I was looking into panned out. I have some music and sfx to put in the game, and I got the semi-complex event triggers working. There is little else to do from a structure standpoint given that I want to keep this first game somewhat simple, so it is coming down to time and content. I want this game to have a fair bit of content/different scenes but the more I put in, the longer it will take. Each event for this game is basically it's own miniset, and each miniset usually requires a day or so of work alone. (This is just for the images alone, that does not include the writing/coding of either.) It is probably best that I do what I currently plan to do though, I personally hate it when a game has multiple scenes with identical images and only slightly different dialogue, so I want to avoid that. (As I said before, I plan to have 3-4 variations per training option, each one would be a different image/scene.)

Initial tests that I did have shown that having the in game timer at 30 days might work, but I can't know until a handful of events are working. (It may need more, which is no problem.) I wish that I had something visual to show for this so far, but since it's all coding that would be a bad idea. I have made a lot of progress this past week and have gotten almost everything I wanted to include working in the technical sense. (Still working on the gallery. Actually I have the gallery basically working now, at least for images. Apparently I was trying to do this an old way which no longer works, so now that I have used the new method it works.) I will be busy this coming weekend, so there will not likely be an update until next week sometime, when I will be working on this month's story set. If you want to support my work and help all this along, my Patreon is www.patreon.com/redleatherart. I plan to post a few previews of some events and such on Patreon whenever I get them done; and the game itself will be posted to Patreon a while before it gets posted here for free.

Ideas/questions/requests still welcome, now is the time for those things; before the actual content gets made.

Status Update 2/8/15 - Looking into some new features for the slave training game.

Hey. So I worked on some coding related stuff yesterday with the time that I had. I am still working through some extra things, trying to see what little extras and helpful things I can get working. I want this game to be nice, but I also want to keep it simple enough that I can finish it in a few months. There are many little things that I would like to include if I can; such as more variations, sound effects, music, and maybe a gallery.

As currently planned, each 'activity' is basically it's own mini-set, with 3-4 variations of one or two images each (more for the complex options) depending on how many times it has been done and/or Salune's stats. Once I get most of the coding situated I can work on making the scenes/writing. I know enough from previous small games and other things I have made to get all the mechanics right before doing content. Essentially the base coding is all situated, but the rest will depend on how many bells and whistles I can get working/find content for.

I still could use votes in the new polls, votes so far are really low for whatever reason. One poll asks if you prefer quality or quantity when it comes to images, and the other asks if you want me to focus on story sets. I do use the results from the polls, as shown in the previous post and prior polls so votes are appreciated. Questions and comments are welcome, just keep it constructive.

Patreon miniset 5 posted, previous poll results, and two new polls up now!

Hey all. I have posted Patreon miniset five, it features Zayla and some imps in a few images. Below is one one the seven images as a preview. If you like my work and want to support me, you can get access to sets such as this each month as well as helping to decide what goes into them (to some extent) most of the time as well as just getting my normal sets early. (I am still considering extending the Patreon exclusivity length.) Support also helps my side projects go faster; such as animations and games. Just in case you didn't read the update in the other post; I have also posted the two new bios on the character page if you are into that.

I have taken down the old polls, a few hours before it was technically over but there have been no new votes in the special poll since yesterday so I figured it was done. (I also have something to do later, so I am writing this now.) The result of the special poll is that most people want me to work on the slave training game, so I will do that for the first half of February. If you have questions or want to ask if certain things will be in the game or make a suggestion, feel free to ask in the comments. (The scenes are still being planned so now is the time.) The other options in the poll got a fair few votes though, which is always nice to see that there are other things that I do that people like. The other polls are discussed after the break, to keep this post from being too large. New polls are up though, so vote on those! I am not sure when my next update will be given that I will be working on the game, but I will try to post something next week with a progress report.