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Here's our update we promised earlier. (Due to illness and other events, we were a bit behind schedule.)
Before we get into the gist of this update, we just wanted to share some changes we're making to our posts.
Right now we're in a phase where most of the work we do is very technical in nature. It's quite difficult to show images of this work, or at least images that are interesting and meaningful to users, since most of it is just raw code or crude placeholder content. This is the reason why we've been writing such long and technical texts, to sort of make up for the lack of more representative-looking content.
I'm sure there are some who enjoy reading all that nerdy, techy stuff we've been writing about, but I believe most people are here for the adult content. Plowing through walls of technical jargon isn't necessarily the thing I think most people here want to do, or what we should be spending a lot of our time writing about. So I was thinking maybe we could tone it down a bit from now on. I'm not saying we'll cut it out completely, but perhaps that we'll write shorter, more concise summaries of what we're doing - even though we might not have much else to show at times.
I think in the end what is important is that we're making progress and communicating it. So as long as we have that dialogue, hopefully that will be sufficient to reassure you that progress is happening.
Let us know what you think.
February + early March progress
This past time we've been working hard on a Shape Layering system to be used in our character creator. The purpose of this system is to completely separate the concepts of gender and shape. As a matter of fact, from the perspective of the app itself, there is no such thing as "male" or "female" - just different genitals and different shapes. For example, a "dick girl" would basically be a character with male genitalia, but with a feminine shape applied to the body. Likewise, you could create a character with a very masculine appearance, but with female genitalia, if you wanted to. Obviously, feminine characters with female genitalia, as well as masculine characters with male genitalia, in addition to hermaphrodites, are all possible to create with this system. The point is that these concepts are separate, so you are free to create whatever type of character you can imagine.
Coming up with a system like this has taken a lot thought and testing to arrive at. It has definitely been a journey to figure out how all these things are supposed to fit together, and it hasn't always been easy. Also, it's not only about the implementation part of things either, but also how we can author content for it in an efficient manner. We believe we have now come up with a complete system for all of these steps. The coding parts are done, and we also have internal documentation detailing every step of how to create content for it. So all that remains now is to start creating content!
We hope that by the end of the month, we'll be able to provide a glimpse of how this system works with "real" content. So hopefully things should get a bit more image heavy from now on.
Other news - Moving to DX11
In YL2, we're making use of many DX11 features to offer a better experience. Looking at the adoption rate of DX11 (95%*), we have now taken the decision to move over to DX11 fully. By utilizing DX11, we can vastly improve many computational operations to create a much more fluid and fun experience for the user. By only targeting DX11, it also means we can save time by not by not having to implement operations twice (once for CPU and once for GPU), in addition to making the code base less complex as well.
We don't think it's unreasonable that an app that will be VR compatible only works on DX11+ systems.
* source
Summary
If it's ok with you guys, we wish to make shorter, more concise updates from now on, focusing less on technical jargon and more on content.
In February and March, we've been working on a shape layering system to be used in the character creator, that will allow you to create a vast array of different characters.
YL2 will be targeting DX11 to offer a better user experience.
Comments
However, since there's so much customization in the game, the speedup may balance out with the extra overhead. Character customization for instance seems like it takes the base model and shapes it to the modified version on the fly. I don't know how heavy this process is, but imagining me programming it... I wouldn't be able to do it w/o incurring a lot of processing power over the current way of just having static characters.
I do have one question.
Regarding your shape layering system with how you're really blurring the lines between genders to further accommodate people's proclivities. I was wondering if the new system will have the Yiff cloud for uploading interactions and how you plan on allowing people to filter through content they don't want. Obviously custom tags are a thing and could solve it all on it's own, but I rarely see people use the feature. I'm quite vanilla myself and generally turn off all content I'd rather not see.
Ahhh
There's one thing I also forgot regarding Shape Layers.
I get that you start from a gender neutral base and add shapes to transform the characters into whatever you're into. Looking at the process that way though, I can't help but feel anxious that the innate femininity of some characters might be lost. For instance, in YL1 you have the cat. You can make the cat's breasts larger if you want, however, in comparison to Giraffe's breasts, the cat's breasts don't look good large. Other parts of the characters physical balance makes it so for the cat, the best size is generally on the smaller size. Basically, by making things toggle-able or into a meter you kind of lose on the innate artistic direction to express the character's physical beauty. I can't say much about YL2 since I don't have my hands on it, but I won't deny it has me slightly worried.
Also that challenge of the shape layering system seems interesting to say the least. Being able to apply a shape through a mask means you can make just the arms extremely muscular and the rest of the body really soft or something like that. That's a lot of versatility. I hope it all blends well with each other and doesn't mess with the textures or fur.
Hmmm... just talking like this is inspiring me to make some YL1 tutorials XD. Thanks for staying passionate about your works, and I do hope that in the future you continue to give as much insight as you want in your comments.
I know you might be oversharing or that no one can do anything with the information you give, but I do hope you understand that some of us really do appreciate the in-depth analysis into what you're currently working on and the minute challenges you face.
Good luck in your endeavors.
@sergmonax Yes it will be possible to export models.
No not really
You will be able to configure height and scale of your model in the character creator of YL2.
So, it's announced that YL2 has or will have genitalia/groin options for characters with vulvae, cocks, or both, but at least so far not for characters with neither. A "none" option for the genitalia would have to be the easiest option for the category to implement out of all of them, and it's certainly not like there wouldn't be demand for its inclusion in the product, so I'd like to see a "none" option be added there.
And then whereas there’s currently support planned for characters with specifically a cock, a vulva, and an external pair of balls in between, there’s a request on the Yiffalicious forums for YL2 to support characters who have a vulva and a cock but who don’t have that external pair of balls in between. Note also there being characters in the fandom who have just a penis down there without an external pair of balls to go with it, as well as characters who have a vulva down there with a pair of balls as well and characters who have neither a cock nor a vulva but who still have a dangling pair of boyballs down there.
To make YL2 capable of supporting all those different types of characters at once, I suggest making testicles toggleable/placeable separately from the base genital/groin choice, rather than being automatically, forcibly and exclusively bundled in with the choice of a cock(/cock and vulva) for one’s base genitalia/groin configuration selection.
Consider also that testicles may have to be treated separately from the base genitals choice internally anyway in the case of, e.g. allowing players to choose from multiple different kinds of cocks for their characters that have cocks, so allowing players to toggle testicles on their own may really be a matter of exposing already-to-be-implemented functionality to the player and nothing more in such a case.
Cock: humanish, canine, horse, dragon, none
Balls: even, uneven, hairy, none
Vagina: humanish, dog, horse, cloaca, none
Anus: humanish, puffy, none
That would also allow, for example, a scaly character with a cloaca and no separate anus.
Going tail-hole-less isn't my thing, personally, so I don't think I'd get much mileage out of the idea of taking the back-door away (my main character's a null character who's a total butt-slut), but in any case I'd recommend that to implement the idea of removing the back-door how you would do it would be to add a toggle for it that would be separate from one's choice of genitalia, rather than making it an automatic, forcible and exclusive part of one's genitalia choice. You can see in my suggestions this running theme of avoiding "automatically, forcibly and exclusively" bundling different things in with one's character creation choices like that.
Still, though, I'll just reiterate that I would greatly appreciate a null/"none" choice for the genitals - it'd mean the difference on whether or not I'd be able to faithfully recreate my main character in YL2, for one thing.
Edit:
... I typed all that while having completely missed Arrkhal's post. Yup, I'm more or less suggesting what Arrkhal's suggesting.