Finding Miranda (En, Sp, Fr, It, Ge)

[iksanabot]

IRay never messes up shadows. The creator does. IRay emulates physics realism when it comes to light so if something looks odd it's because the lights aren't well set by the 3d artist (or some error happened in the software). In this case, the shadows might seem strange and that's on me, because the scene had lights from almost all the directions in a circle. Shadows will only stand out when there is a strong light source. On a sunny day, by noon, you will see that you have a strong shadow on the ground. That's because the sun is a much more powerfull light than the sky, ground, buildings, that reflect light. But if the clouds cover the sky then you loose a powerful light source and only get scattered light, from the clouds, ground, buildings. And you won't see almost no shadows. That may be what happened in that scene. Put a circle of candles around you and you won't get pretty shadows. Use a 3 point light and you will have beautiful shadows.

Hmm, so I guess I wonder if you can tell Iray there are fewer light sources, or scattered light even though the couple are surrounded by candles? I love the look of sex by candlelight, but it seems like a huge challenge to make an animation in the middle of a circle of candles that is going to look right when animated. The still images all looked fantastic by candle light or not.

Facial expressions - As I pointed out earlier, while the graphics to this game are probably the best 3D renders for an adult interactive game I've seen, there are still areas to improve in, and that's to do with facial expressions. As an example, and this has been prominent throughout many parts of the story, when a character is written as having some sort of emotion during a scene, for example - sadness, a picture would show a character with an over-exaggerated face of that particular emotion.
The problem with that is we rarely feel one particular emotion at the time, even if it's dominates the other ones in our mind, and they're often mixed in with the others. Depending on the situation, one might feel anger and sadness, or sadness and surprise, or sadness and contempt. Not only that, but there's also levels of each emotion, ranging from being slightly sad (I forgot to wash dishes earlier morning, now I'll miss the first 15 minutes of my favorite show cleaning them), to downright breakdown.
In Mortze's renders, instead of showing that they're complex humans with complex emotions, they seem to be fully committed to just 1 expression that is dictated by the narrative: 100% sadness, or 100% happiness, or 100% disgust, or 100% contempt. A good facial expression would be a mix of two emotions, or even three, where, for example, eyebrows would show a slight sadness (forming that "pyramid"-like shape), while the mouth would curve in a wide smile, indicating that they're really happy about something and are holding in their tears because of it.

I'm not sure how to get better here. Not implying there isn't room for improvement, no, but I don't know what do to to correct that. When explained by Tlaero what emotion to portray in the character I use the old book technique of doing the expresison myself and look at a mirror. I don't do that everytime because some expressions are known after a while but that's my modus operandi. And when the expression is "she looks at you with sadness" I make a sad face and look at the mirror. Could use some insight on how to improve that though.

This reminded me - there was one image where Miranda is giving Lucas head, and it may be when he is orgasming, where the direction of her eye gaze is at Lucas, but the view is from the side so that the player cannot see her pupils. It looked like her eyes were rolling back in her head, which easily could have been on purpose. But I like to be able to see pupils/iris if I can see the eyes. If the effect was intended to be to roll her eyes back in the head to show she found intense pleasure from his orgasm, awesome, but still related to this and to the issue LIE raised. I think a good rule of thumb that I've tried to express to Leo and crew, though not successfully, is to start with the emotion that you want to portray as you want to portray it, but then dial it back just slightly. I other words, err on the side of subtle. So for example, the eyes could roll back, but not so far that you only see the whites of her eyes. I think you are as subtle as they come, Mortze, so please don't feel I'm on the attack here - honestly, you are my favorite, you do this so well. From my experience with other artists, they often portray and emotion that I specify in my script, like LIE says, 100%. I imagine that when the goal is to portray the emotion specified, the bias is towards making sure that emotion appears there and so most artists over do it rather than under-do it. But in my opinion, under-doing usually looks better than over-doing it. It probably leaves more room for interpretation, and I think that is always a good thing.

Thanks again. You are just fucking killing it Mortze.
PS Did Tlaero let is slip that you're Portugese?! I thought you were Belgian or Dutch, because of a football comment you made once.

[Mortze]

Hmm, so I guess I wonder if you can tell Iray there are fewer light sources, or scattered light even though the couple are surrounded by candles? I love the look of sex by candlelight, but it seems like a huge challenge to make an animation in the middle of a circle of candles that is going to look right when animated. The still images all looked fantastic by candle light or not.

I cannot tell IRay to cheat the same way you can't tell physics to cheat one the light in your room. You can remove some candles or you can work something out in Photoshop but you'd have to render the same picture twice. I could tell IRay that the fire in that particular candle is weaker than the other candles but that would result in the immediate surroundings of that candle to be more darker. That would look weird. All the candles lit the walls one way and that particular one doesn't? Weird candle.

This reminded me - there was one image where Miranda is giving Lucas head, and it may be when he is orgasming, where the direction of her eye gaze is at Lucas, but the view is from the side so that the player cannot see her pupils. It looked like her eyes were rolling back in her head, which easily could have been on purpose. But I like to be able to see pupils/iris if I can see the eyes. If the effect was intended to be to roll her eyes back in the head to show she found intense pleasure from his orgasm, awesome, but still related to this and to the issue LIE raised. I think a good rule of thumb that I've tried to express to Leo and crew, though not successfully, is to start with the emotion that you want to portray as you want to portray it, but then dial it back just slightly. I other words, err on the side of subtle. So for example, the eyes could roll back, but not so far that you only see the whites of her eyes. I think you are as subtle as they come, Mortze, so please don't feel I'm on the attack here - honestly, you are my favorite, you do this so well. From my experience with other artists, they often portray and emotion that I specify in my script, like LIE says, 100%. I imagine that when the goal is to portray the emotion specified, the bias is towards making sure that emotion appears there and so most artists over do it rather than under-do it. But in my opinion, under-doing usually looks better than over-doing it. It probably leaves more room for interpretation, and I think that is always a good thing.

That's what I already try to do. And the reason why I don't use preset facial expressions. You tend to see many exaggerated expressions and you get the uncanny valley effect right away.
One thing you have to consider is that we're dealing with 2d pictures. Static pictures. It's easy to convey a palette of emotions with written media like a book, or with non-static media like a movie where the actor has very small moves of the cheeks, lips, brows, in the same shot that portrays different emotions like hanger + sadness. In a 2D picture, with a describing text as "Miranda looks at you with desesperate eyes" you will struggle to make an expression with despair AND another emotion like hanger for instance. And you have to remember that I can't guess what hidden emotions are behind the character's mind if Tlaero doesn't instruct me to.

PS Did Tlaero let is slip that you're Portugese?! I thought you were Belgian or Dutch, because of a football comment you made once.

Maybe. But that is information that I've already disclosed somewhere, either here or in my site, can't remember. Besides, who cares?

[caravaggio]

Caravaggio, I've never had Tortellini Napolitana. Mortze told me what to call it. So, in this case at least, it's more likely to be a Portuguese take on your cuisine than an American one... (-:

No way! Just goggle Tortellini Napoletana and you'll see THE INTERNET is killing your pasta Caravaggio!

hahaha, DAMN internet!


(Caravaggio yells at internet)


Anyway, short but important lesson: tortellini are from Bologna region, in Naples (napoletana) they don't have the slightest idea on how to do them, maybe they can do ravioli, but definetely not tortellini, beware in your future games.. an italian chef dies everytime our cuisine is disrespected

[Mortze]

hahaha, DAMN internet!

I loled there! Old man yelling at cloud

an italian chef dies everytime our cuisine is disrespected

Loled again.
But note that Miranda and Lucas aren't in Italy, so it is kind of EXPECTED to have Italian cuisine be murdered in any italian restaurant outside Italy. Hell, they aren't even in an italian restaurant. I could have them be served pizza with pinneaples!

[iksanabot]

I cannot tell IRay to cheat the same way you can't tell physics to cheat one the light in your room. You can remove some candles or you can work something out in Photoshop but you'd have to render the same picture twice. I could tell IRay that the fire in that particular candle is weaker than the other candles but that would result in the immediate surroundings of that candle to be more darker. That would look weird. All the candles lit the walls one way and that particular one doesn't? Weird candle.

I see, but then would a solution be to tone down the light in all candles or add a bright scattered light source that tones down the candle shadows I realize it might make the animation look like it's taking place in a location other than where the still shots are, but I'm not talking major different, just a slight difference to make any disjointedness in the way the shadows move in the animation less noticeable. Again, I'm not meaning to be aggressive here, or poking you to go back and re-do those images are whatever, I'm just discussing in the hopes of being helpful in some way

PS Did Tlaero let is slip that you're Portugese?! I thought you were Belgian or Dutch, because of a football comment you made once.

Maybe. But that is information that I've already disclosed somewhere, either here or in my site, can't remember. Besides, who cares?

Ha, yes of course it doesn't matter, except that I came to that conclusion after something you said about a football coach, and finding out I was wrong means I was wrong about the football trivia around that time. No biggie either - I'm North American and we don't typically know that much about "soccer" but at the time I was living in the Netherlands and was trying to fit in by learning about football.
I didn't learn much...

[Mortze]

I see, but then would a solution be to tone down the light in all candles or add a bright scattered light source that tones down the candle shadows I realize it might make the animation look like it's taking place in a location other than where the still shots are, but I'm not talking major different, just a slight difference to make any disjointedness in the way the shadows move in the animation less noticeable. Again, I'm not meaning to be aggressive here, or poking you to go back and re-do those images are whatever, I'm just discussing in the hopes of being helpful in some way

Nobody is saying you're being aggressive
The only solution would be, in my pinion, to rework the lighting, and consider other sources of light.

By the end of the game the 2 are in the bathtub and there a lots of candles surrounding them. Their light isn't very important. It's a secondary light source. The scene is mostly lighten by the lamp on the table at their side, and by the bedlamps behind them by the bed. Those are the primary lights.
In the spa sex scene, all the candle lights and the pool lights are primary lights. That results in a very diffused and scattered light. Light comes from everywhere. That results in poor shadows.
We learn from our mistakes.

[Mik]

Always thought myself you can't fool iray....had a dark scene where I don't want to have the strong shadow of a fill light
(or more shadows of other light sources) but need overall more light to see certain details.

Lately I found this topic in the daz forum and I have not tried this myself yet, but it might be useful...

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/ ... the-camera

[EscapeEvade]

Anyway, short but important lesson: tortellini are from Bologna region, in Naples (napoletana) they don't have the slightest idea on how to do them, maybe they can do ravioli, but definetely not tortellini, beware in your future games.. an italian chef dies everytime our cuisine is disrespected

The funny thing is that when you Google "Tortellini Napoletana" the first several entries are all actually "Ravioli alla Napoletana."

My dad was 100% Italian-American and lived in Italy for 6 years. He also came from an Italian restaurant family. He taught me to distrust any Italian food not served in a restaurant in Italy that is frequented by actual Italians... the logical extension of which is, "Almost every single 'Italian' restaurant in the US is awful."

[tlaero]

I really enjoyed this game but I still liked Redemption for Jessika more.

That's totally fair. Of the three, I personally think that DwE has the best sexual ramp, RfJ has the best story, and FM has best female protagonist. So, even if you felt the same as I do, a small change in which of those 3 aspects matters more to you would give you a different opinion on which game you like best.

As for my process for writing, it's fairly complicated. I'm largely always "on" when it comes to writing. Certainly whenever I'm driving or lying in bed or waiting for something I'm doing scenes and dialogs in my head. I'll picture the characters and run through what they're saying and doing over and over again until I have something I like. Then, when I'm happy with the scene, I'll sit down at the computer and type it.

I usually work out the start and end of a story, add a few important points in between, and then write in the joining pieces when I've got the general flow worked out. Before I do anything, though, I spend a lot of time thinking through who the characters are and how they'd act in various situations. When I understand that really well, I'm in a good position to think of situations and reason through what would happen, because I know the characters involved. That lets me decide that, if what the characters are going to do isn't interesting, then the scene should be skipped.

An erotic game adds a bit of complexity, because there are required elements (sex scenes). My typical genre is Science Fiction/Fantasy, which is noteworthy in that there is no defined pattern in it. Most other genres have defining patterns that, if you don't follow, your readers will hate it. Take, for instance, the mystery genre. You'd damn well end it with someone figuring out the mystery and explaining it to everyone else. If you don't, mystery fans won't want to read it. Same in erotic fiction. It damn well better end with a sex scene. In SF/F, there are no rules. That's a large part of what makes some people like it and other people hate it. Make sure you understand the "rules" of your chosen genre before you start writing in it.

But the most important advice anyone can give you for being a writer is this: write. It's a skill like any other. Expect the first thing you write to suck, and the second thing you write to suck a little less, and the next thing you write to suck a little tiny bit less, etc. The only way through that is practice. And the only way to practice is to write. So just get started and keep at it.

Tlaero

[tlaero]

You've humbled me yet again, but not as a competitor who is striving to write games as good as yours, which is how some people could interpret my meaning - in fact I don't consider us competitors, as I know you don't either.

Hey iksanabot! I'm glad you enjoyed the game. I surely don't consider us to be competitors. There's plenty of room in our genre for a number of good developers to be successful, and you're squarely in the "good developer" camp.

I play a little bit of go, but I can't exactly remember how we ended up with a go picture. I wanted a montage of things for them to do and suggested a few things. Mortze liked some of them but not others. We brainstormed a bit and came up with the go game. Mortze added the fact that they were naked while playing it, and, when I saw the picture, I added the fairly ridiculous joke about them playing "strip go."

Tlaero

[Mortze]

I play a little bit of go, but I can't exactly remember how we ended up with a go picture. I wanted a montage of things for them to do and suggested a few things. Mortze liked some of them but not others. We brainstormed a bit and came up with the go game. Mortze added the fact that they were naked while playing it, and, when I saw the picture, I added the fairly ridiculous joke about them playing "strip go."

You mentioned to me, in another context, that you played go, and when I was thinking about the montage I remember that personal detail of yours and decided to include it (another bit of yourself) in the game. Of course, since I am a pervert, and a lazy one at that, I decided that they should play naked.

[john milton]

There are lots of things to say about this game, but I’ll try not to make an excessively long comment. I don’t have the time to read the previous ones right now so I apologize if I’ll write things that others said already .

I think that as a game, this is the best one you’ve made together so far. I’ll do my best to explain my position below.

I’d rather start from the graphical point of view. Mortze, everyone knew you were talented, Dwe looked good, Pandora looked great, and RfJ looked amazing. But I’d have never thought that a game in this genre could look nearly as good as Finding Miranda. The attention to detail is striking and Miranda’s appearance shows a deep study of the character, I especially enjoyed how natural her poses looks and my god, her expressions. You can figure out what her feelings are just by looking at her, even without reading the description. I swear that a few looks she gave the player made me quiver in my chair.

The way you render emotions is, in my opinion, among your strongest points. And I can’t think of any other 3D artwork which stroke me with such an emotive impact.

Moreover, I think that the choice of showing Miranda both with and without make up strengthens the valorization of her as a person not just as a strikingly beautiful woman, and it’s something I appreciated.

I also loved the way you shot a few scenes from different point of views like the first date and a couple of other occasions, very nice touch. Besides I found the switches from first person to third person to be extremely well balanced.

As regards sex scenes, I rarely found such scenes to be as realistic, natural and smooth as they were in this game. I found them to be more than just a steps ahead from any of your other games. I’d really like to congratulate for your work.

If I can point out what in my opinion could be room of improvement, I’d say that the only facial expression which didn’t amaze me was sadness. While shock, happiness, arousal, bliss, ecc… are rendered in such an accurate way that they seem alive, I found sadness not to be as powerful.

The only other thing I can think of is this: I’ve recently read a report about why men does like anal sex in pornography; among other things that it said there’s one that stuck in my mind, it stated that one of the reasons why men like to watch anal sex, is because it allows you to look at a (full) women’s vagina while she nonetheless being penetrated. I found myself quite in agreement with it, and I realized that in not many games that happens.
It came to my mind that such a thing might break the naturalness of the gesture, nevertheless I think this could be a way to enhance an anal sex scene.

As regards the writing and the story I found them both to be lovely, a few games in this genre gave me a good time, but with this one in particular I had fun. I really had fun. The scene in the casino is hilarious and the writing in the whole game is damn good.

I think that the character of Miranda is way better than the previous women you dated, I loved them as well (Jessika more than Elsa), but you could describe them both just with a few sentences. Miranda on the other hand is a complex character: she’s gorgeous, intelligent, playful, empathic and yet cold (in appearance), so strong and yet so frail. Above all she’s, in my opinion, a character to discover. And there’s still much to say about her.

And I loved the fact that Miranda is so comfortable with her sexuality, this might be a characteristic that I’ve always appreciated in women. But it’s something I deeply enjoyed, and I think you showed an amazing synergy in describing and rendering her attitude toward sex, really great work.

The other character that surprised me is Lucas. Around the game you can find a thousand of hints to his past, his tastes and who he is in general. You get to know which are his favorite pastries also!
Saying that I mean that he’s not just a name and a face, he’s a character with a story, a past, fears and hopes, skill and flaws (not a great cook). I really think he is a huge step forward from the others PC, under any point of view.

And I also loved the fact that while Miranda struggle to find herself, Lucas gain point by being true to the person he is. A meaningful contrast in my opinion.

I’d just like to ask a question if I can though, does Miranda’s power have limits? I’m asking this because she could consider her insomnia as a problem to solve and doing so she should see the solution to it.

And I have the sensation that Jessika will have a crucial role in the story development, if Morland didn’t want to kill her I have to suppose that she can’t but being a part of a project of his. Especially since Xara said that her death would make more damage than failing his plot. And since he can’t take advantage of her sense of guilt anymore, the only instrument to control her I can think of is Marc.

Anyway, even more than making this game I wish to thank the both of you for being so open to feedback and for listening so carefully to people’s opinion. It makes you honor.

Congratulations again for such a great work!

John


P.s.
Since I love Frank Sinatra I’d love to dedicate this song to Miranda.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1v7dAxgdqM

[IndulgingInFantasy]

Hello community, with this release I finally decided to break my silence and after several evenings spent on the game here are my thoughts.
Let's with first thing that player comes in contact with, the art- it's gorgeous. It was hard for me to believe Mortze was a novice when "Elsa" hit and I used to avoid talking about talent when it comes to posing premade models, but if anyone has that spark it most definitely would be him.
The sex scenes- are pretty good, some of the choreography deserves a huge commendation. Here's hoping you won't be limited in your own games.
It really shows you put a lot heart in both of those areas.
Only one nitpick, technical but it's connected with a story so I'll get to that in a moment.

Some technicalities:

I liked the construction of the game, it allowed replayability and some freedom of choice. Character archetypes also improved, While Tlaero went full fanservice with womanizer I really felt the "above average person in dire straights" vibe of the other one. I'm a European I give "thumbs up" to pubic hair.

There was enough content for the game to be engaging and leave an impression.

The story- I prefer previous two games.

I mean dialogs were witty and funny, there were unexpected moments (e.g. reconciliation), warm and romantic moments (Miranda giving chips to Lucas in the casino etc.)but...
Miranda, yes even her supposed flaw looked like a super power (and it's a damn of a stretch). That James Bond scene would be a perfect mockery of Lucas prior his rewrite.
Second thing, as I mentioned before is more technical. In my opinion constant hair changes made the model lose her Identity. It was fine until after the 2nd date, and then you were effectively introducing new character almost every scene. While I liked Lucas as a character I felt no emotions towards and couldn't connect with Miranda.

On a personal note: I'm skeptical towards where this story is going because, after/if Miranda turns coat to destroy evil from within, saves lives, saves "the redhead", probably ending up R.R. Martin style in the process, the only things missing would be giant, sentient spaceship and dinosaurs shooting lasers.

Also

I love all the outfits, and I would like to see more scenes/images in the games of characters in various stages of undress. Sex starting from naked is great and all, but sex starting from clothed, where you don't get everything off because the passion is too strong to wait, or where they don't get everything off because the characters just like the way each other looks in that exact state of undress - that is so hot and contributes to the variety.

This guy definitely knows his stuff

Don't stop creating, the world is richer with you.
IIF

[tlaero]

Hey John, thanks for the review.

I've told this story before, but when Mortze approached me and offered to do images for my games, I ... wasn't optimistic. I had seen the work of a lot of artists and assumed he would be similar. So I asked him to send me a render of a woman he found attractive. I was expecting a stock V4 character with melon-sized breasts and an expression I had seen hundreds of times before. He sent me Elsa. I blinked twice and said, "Wow." So I asked him to send me 3 or 4 facial expressions (I think I told him the expressions I wanted), and when he sent them, I practically ran around my house cheering. He's an amazing artist, and his facial expressions are definitely one of his strong suits. In my opinion, facial expressions are the most important part of the art in these games. I'm so incredibly lucky to have him creating the art for our games. Finding Miranda has almost 1300 pictures in it, and I think maybe 3 of the expressions aren't perfect. A-freaking-mazing.

As for the limits to Miranda's power: Yes, it definitely has limits, not the least of which being that some problems don't have solutions...

Tlaero

[caravaggio]

Anyway, short but important lesson: tortellini are from Bologna region, in Naples (napoletana) they don't have the slightest idea on how to do them, maybe they can do ravioli, but definetely not tortellini, beware in your future games.. an italian chef dies everytime our cuisine is disrespected

The funny thing is that when you Google "Tortellini Napoletana" the first several entries are all actually "Ravioli alla Napoletana."

My dad was 100% Italian-American and lived in Italy for 6 years. He also came from an Italian restaurant family. He taught me to distrust any Italian food not served in a restaurant in Italy that is frequented by actual Italians... the logical extension of which is, "Almost every single 'Italian' restaurant in the US is awful."

haha so even Google knows!

yeah, there are a lot of tourist-trap-restaurants even here, go figure