Well, there's only one week left in March, and all told I've done...about half of what I hoped to. It's been one of those months: setbacks, diversions, and unforeseen complications. However, while this may be the last update before April, the foundations I've laid might just cause the end of March to be the most productive days of the month. Collaboration It's frequently discussed how modern occupations can often be lonely business. People work in isolated conditions for long stretches at a time to accomplish a variety of tasks. On the flip side, this means working together has become more important than ever. And for entrepreneurs in particular, making good connections is vital for growing your place in the industry. This past week I had the opportunity to do both—which itself has been a long time coming. A few months ago, my friend and fellow author Kate Emmons enlisted my help to create a website for herself and her debut novel releasing later this year. No sp...

Following last post's flurry of updates, VNgen development has hit a more technical stage over the past two weeks. While no less exciting for the long term, in the meantime it means making design decisions consumes almost as much time as actually programming. But as you'll see, the slower change of pace is paying off, 'cuz VNgen is about to take on a whole new dimension. Don't sweat the small stuff But first, a few words on the smaller tweaks and additions. In keeping with last post's theme on adding new entity types to the mix, over the past two weeks emotes were added as well. These are one-time animations that play and then self-destruct, layered between characters and foregrounds. Since visual novels typically rely on only a few different character states, having a secondary means of expressing emotion can go a long ways towards selling the mood of the scene. Like other VNgen elements, emotes aren't fixed to this type of usage, either. They can also be ver...