Quick reminder: You can follow development more closely on the Trello board.

TLDR;

• New Membership Available: "⚜️ Foundation" Tiers
• Raven's skin rework
• Scene 7 cinematic progress
• Moonlight NSFW Animation
• New backup solution (off-site)

New Membership Available: ⚜️ Foundation Tiers

Echoes of The Cataclysm will always be free - that's a promise I'm making to this community. But today, I'm opening a limited window for those who want to be more than players.

For those who want to be founders.

Three ⚜️ Foundation Tiers available for a limited time:

• Echo Witness - "I like what you're doing"
• Cataclysm Survivor - "I LOVE what you're doing"
• Genesis Catalyst (only 10 slots) - "I NEED what you're doing"

What ⚜️ Foundation Members Receive:

• Early Access to Chapter 1 (1-3 weeks before public release)
• Permanent Discord Titles that will never be available again
• Name in Credits - (Genesis Catalyst earns eternal recognition in ALL releases, forever)
• Behind-the-scenes content documenting the creation you helped make possible

Once the Foundation period ends, these tiers and SOME of their exclusive benefits disappear forever. When these tiers close, they're gone for good - along with the chance to be recognized as a founding supporter.

View Foundation Tiers

✅ Last Week's Progress

What I accomplished since the last update:

• Raven Skin - Not only have I been moving her into Blender, I've also been finalizing her looks over the past few months - and a concern that I had was her skin. Bringing in a character over from Daz3d into Blender doesn't always translate well; it's a lot like language translation: sometimes information/data can get scrambled or changed from its original form. Not only that, but simple enhancements to make it look as good as possible is something to keep in mind! That's why I've recruited help from the best: Termz. He is known as the 3d character skin expert. Yesterday, he helped me with going over Raven's skin and making necessary adjustments. He's already been a big help, and this is just an addition to my appreciation of how much work he's put in. We had an amazing work-session that helped to polish and finalize Raven. In addition, I'll be taking some feedback and addressing them in the coming few days. I'll have something to share with you all next week. Thank you again, Termz!

🛠️ Current Development

What I'm working on right now:

• Scene 7 Animation - If you're not aware, the next scene will open up with a cinematic animation! This will include 2 locations (just think, 2 Blender files), multiple dynamic shots, FIVE (yes, 5) character animations, and also: we cannot forget music! As a status update: the first location (~6 shots) is ready to render, the second location (~5 shots) is around 75% animated.
• Scene 7 Writing - While this scene is finished, I'm just doing some minor rewrites and some polishing - simply because Raven deserves a very fleshed out introduction.
• Moonlight Animation - As full transparency, I want to let you know that I'm also working on (in some spare time) a NSFW animation for BigBat_Productions | Moonlight a Sci-fi Adult Visual Novel (I would highly recommend you check out his AVN!). I'm working on this animation, not only to hopefully assist Bat, but also as a way to avoid burnout. When working on the above animations for scene 7 , it can lead to burnout just watching, tweaking, and adjusting an animation that only lasts a few seconds. And to help me avoid burnout, I tend to switch from animation to animation - in this case, I'll be switching between scene 7 and an NSFW animation for Moonlight. So far, I've been making decent headway, and it's looking good!

⚙️ Technical Corner

• Backups - I've purchased a small addition to the already existing backup safety precautions and this time it's the off-site rule of the "321 Backup Rule"'s. As a refresher: I've already got Git for the game itself - this also stores a version history of every single minutia of change that you see in the story, the visuals, and the game; everything. It also stores an Obsidian vault, where I store all of my ideas, references, character sheets, storylines, plot writing, etc. (this is what I call the Echoes of The Cataclysm bible). I've already got a Synology NAS which backs up ALL files every night - this is all of the source material, such as Blender files, images, reference materials, and also backs up everything above. Finally, I'm adding Backblaze (not sponsored😉) as the off-site solution to my backup arsenal. Backblaze is surprisingly affordable option that includes UNLIMITED backup storage, which I was floored to discover. Obviously, this is all automated as it's too much work (and too easy to forget) to backup all of this data and progress. The combination of the costs of these things adds up; not including all of the 3d assets - your support helps keep these safety systems running! 🥰

💬 Community Corner

Again, make sure you visit and check out Batman's Moonlight AVN!

Thank you everyone for your support - each and every one of you!

Don't forget to check out the Trello board for detailed progress updates! ❤️