#i need to stop being so focused on only posting fully rendered art here

[cj-can-art]

hedgehog moment.

[spartanburger]

Improving the quality of your image renders from SFM

So I’ve seen a lot of SFM renders that are absolutely amazing, with great poses, shot composition, scene setup, and lighting.  However, so very many of them are also rendered at really low quality.  In order to try and inform other users of some simple steps to improve their render quality, I’ve created this post.

Much of what you see here you will likely already know.  However, I encourage you to give it a read over in case there’s something you’ve missed.  This is primarily aimed at rendering still images (posters or image sequences), not video.  

Progressive Refinement Settings

This is the FIRST stop anyone should take to improving their render settings as they are the quickest, easiest, and will often have the greatest impact.  

Depth of Field & Motion Blur

These settings affect Depth of Field (DOF) and Motion Blur, (duh).  These settings work on a sample basis.  The more samples, the better.  

What’s the issue?

By default, SFM uses “use camera settings” as the default number of samples.  The default camera settings are literally the lowest number of samples you can have without turning the effect off:  8x samples.  DOF goes up to 1024 samples and motion blur goes up to 256, which is 128 and 32 times more samples than the default settings.

Here are some examples (effects or lighting exaggerated to show the effect):

No DOF:

Default DOF:

Max (1024) DOF:

No motion blur:

Default Motion blur:

Max motion blur:

You can see the effect is significant in both cases.

Why does this setting matter?

No matter whether you are rendering as a poster or as a image sequence, these settings will change the quality of your rendered image.  Rendering as a poster does not mean you can neglect these settings.  These settings also greatly impact the quality of the Ambient Occlusion (AO), volumetric lighting, and any lights with the radius that are using radius.  If you ever render an image and it’s really grainy, it’s 99.99% likely to be a sample issue.  Turn samples up and re-render.  

What’s the catch?

The only catch with rendering these is that it will significantly impact your render times.  To really show what I mean, here are the render times for the images above, rendered at 3840x2160:

No DOF:  0.368 seconds

8x DOF:  0.606 seconds

1024x DOF:  50.034 seconds

No Motion Blur:  0.299 seconds

8x Motion Blur:  0.500 seconds

256x Motion Blur:  8.356 seconds

In this example, going from default to max samples, DOF and motion blur caused an 82x and 17x, respectively, increase in render time per frame.  This is not additive - combining 128x DOF and 128x motion blur has a negligible increase in render time over 128x DOF with no motion blur.  Still, this is a significant increase.  

what do?

If you are rendering a still image (poster or only a few frames of an image sequence), always push these settings up to the absolute max.  Yes, it may take a little more time.  Your art deserves that little extra polish, and literally the only cost is time.  Be thankful it’s not blender, where single frames can take hours.

I should note that the number of samples that will be rendered will equal the highest number of the two settings.  So if you set motion blur to render at 256x, but DOF to render at 16x, you will get both DOF and motion blur at 256x.  The only way to completely disable rendering one of these effects while keeping the other is to untick the checkbox next to the setting in the progressive refinement settings window.

Subpixel Jitter AA

This setting applies a very light Anti-Alias to your image.  In short, it helps reduce jagged edges.  The effect is subtle, and often can only be seen when checking the image through a difference filter

This setting is ON by default.  There is basically no reason to ever have this turned off, so leave it on by default.  

Poster render vs Image Sequence

There are pros and cons to rendering as posters vs just rendering as a single frame image sequence.  

Why posters?

Poster rendering has three main benefits:

1. Resolution:  You can render at massive image resolutions, allowing you to get the pixels you might want for a professional print.  This is possible because poster rendering renders using a tiled approach.  This is gonna get a tiny bit technical:

SFM is running the Source Engine - a video game engine.  When you have SFM open, that engine is technically running in the background at a certain resolution.  I believe by default, the resolution is set to 1280x720.  When you render as a poster, that resolution is the maximum resolution that the engine can render, so in order to go above that, it splits the desired resolution up into “tiles” that are the same size as the engine’s resolution.  If you’re rendering at 4k without changing anything, that means that you will get 16 tiles:  four wide and four tall.  

Anyway, this means you basically can render at massive resolutions.  But it has drawbacks, as noted below.

2. Particles.  Particle systems, mainly those that change over time, will render exactly at the time of the playhead.  Image Sequences have an issue with this, requiring you to render from the start of the particle system life and render each and every frame forward until the frame you actually want.  

3. Depth of field.  Be it a bug or not, image sequences have an issue with the DOF plane not actually being where the image ends up focusing.  Posters do not have this issue.  More on this below.

Why not posters?

There are four main downsides to poster renders:

1.  Ambient Occlusion:  Ambient Occlusion renders on a per-tile basis.  As a result, rendering at very high resolutions can cause blocky AO to appear.  As an example here’s an image I rendered with the internal SFM engine running at default, rendered AO only at 15360 x 8640 resolution.  I’ve blown the contrast all to hell to really show what the effect is like

In some instances, the effect is minimal enough to be overlooked, but in many it might end up looking bleh.

2.  Bloom.  Poster renders do not render bloom.  At all.  There’s no way to fix it. rip.

3.  Render Time.  In my experience, poster renders take longer to render.  More time is spent in processing writing tiles to file, and stitching them together, so it takes more time for a single frame.  

4.  Annoying.  This may not affect everyone the same, but the fact that a .tga file must render for each poster, no matter what output file you choose is annoying.  Especially if you don’t intend on doing any post processing and just want to post the raw image.  

Why Image sequences?

1.  32 Bit Workflow.  Rendering as an image sequence allows you to render as a .PFM.  SFM is confusing so there’s technically two kinds of .pfm file:  A .pfm depth file, and a .pfm output format.  The depth file is essentially useless outside of incredibly nich uses where you want to create a sort of 3D vision thing where the image can be displayed with depth.  Never tick the ‘Write PFM depth file’ box.  It’s all but useless.

However, under the ‘format’ drop down, there’s another .PFM option.  This is Source Filmmaker’s 32bpc (bits per channel) output format.  All other output formats are at 8bpc.  If you’re not going to be doing any form of post-processing, this is meaningless to you.  However, if you do a lot of post-processing and can utilize all that 32bpc goodness, this is the file format for you.  

I’m still very new to 32bpc workflows, but the quick version of the difference is that 8bpc means that color data is very limited.  On the surface with no adjustments, the two images will look identical.  However, the 32bpc file contains a metric fuckload more color data in it per pixel.  This means that if you’re applying any kind of post processing (at least, post processing that supports 32bpc), you will see significant differences.  

For example, here’s 8bpc with some heavily reduced exposure in post:

And here’s the exact same adjustment made to a 32bpc .PFM file:

What about hue?  Hue change on 8bpc:

And here’s 32bpc

BIG difference.

The only downside is the file size.  As there’s lots more data, .pfm files are hueg.  The above images were rendered at 720p.  The 8bpc .png was 0.6MB.  The .PFM 10.5MB.  

2.  It does what Posters don’t.  Because image sequences don’t using tiling, you won’t ever get that tiled AO issue with posters.  Bloom renders, as well.  In my experience, it renders slightly faster than posters, too.  

Why not image sequences?

1.  Limited resolution.  As I mentioned in the poster section, SFM has an internal engine running in the background.  The resolution of this engine is the maximum resolution you can render an image sequence at.  By default, this is 1280x720.  Through launch commands (see separate section below), you can extend this all the way up to 3840x2160 (~4k) which is nice, but SFM does not support resolutions over this at the time.  4k is still great quality, so this isn’t much of a downside.  However, if you’re looking to get that >4k resolution needed for certain high quality prints, image sequences are no bueno.

2.  Particle Systems.  I touched on this in the Why Posters section, but image sequences have an issue with particle systems.  Particle systems that evolve over time have a start and stop time.  Usually, it takes a few fractions of a second for them to “enable” as the particles are emitted.  Like with a flamethrower.  At 0.00, a flamethrower particle hasn’t thrown any flames yet.  You need to move the timeline along a little bit for the particles to have fully emitted.  With posters, there’s no issue.  However, with an image sequence, SFM cannot deal with particles with a start time that is before the first frame of the render.  So a poster of a flamethrower may show you some nice and toasty bad guys, but the exact same under and image sequence will have barely even a sputter of flame.  In order to work around this, you have to set the desired render frame a few frames ahead in time, and render out each frame as if it were a movie until you get to the desired frame you want.  This takes much more time, and creates many junk image files.

3.  Flexes.  In a similar manner to the particle systems, I’ve noticed that face and body flexes can sometimes not be set properly for the first few frames of an image sequence, requiring you to render out 3-5 frames before they jump into place.  The flexes aren’t jumping from their default position, so it’s not super noticeable.  It’s hard to explain.  I have a video that shows this effect.  Notice how the mandibles jump around a bit.  This is because each change in skin is a change in skin is a new shot in SFM.  Like with particles, the work around is to render out 3-5 frames or so to ensure that the flexes move in place.  

4.  Inaccurate Depth of Field Target.  This mainly effects projects with a very high aperture in the DOF effect (basically, super exaggerated effect).  I do this a lot, and it can be annoying.  Here’s what it looks like:  

I’ve added a pole moving away to the camera to show distance a little better.  Here you can see the focal distance is set on the head of the main character.

You would expect that this would then make the head in focus, but no.  With image sequences, the focus target is a noticeable distance in front of the focal plane.

Posters, on the other hand, work just fine, less bloom.

In fact, to get an image sequence to work fine, you have to kinda guess and check in the viewport to ensure it’s set right.

This error shows up in the viewport no matter what, so if you’re rendering posters, trust that the focal plane is set properly.  For image sequences, you have to let the viewport render in the clip editor to see the DOF and make sure it’s set right.  You’ll have to set the render target to be a little further than your target.  

5.  Annoying.  Posters always render a .tga file?  Image sequences always render a .txt _mainframe file.  This is a log of your render settings and the time it takes to render each frame, which is really neat when checking or testing render settings for videos, but otherwise just another junk file to delete.

Personally, I always use image sequences.  I want that sweet sweet bloom effect, and I can work around the other issues.  Render time is not an issue for me, so I’m more than willing to render out a few frames for particles and flexes, and have gotten used to working around the DOF issue.  And although I’m a resolution nut, 4k is enough for what I want.  

Launch Options

Those of you who have tried to render videos at 1080p or 2160p will know that you have to set a launch option to enable this.  There are several other launch options that you can set to help improve quality.  The great thing about launch options is that they’re almost all ‘set and forget’ settings, which you can just ignore them once you’ve set them.  I’ll go over the ones I use here.

-sfm_resolution 2160

As mentioned above, this enables rendering at 4k as an image sequence.  If you’re rendering as a poster, this will also increase the size of each rendered tile.  This has its downsides though.  As I’ve mentioned, SFMs engine is always running in the background at the resolution you set it to.  So with this launch option set, placing objects, posing, lighting, and moving the work camera around can be noticeably slow, because despite the viewports being small, the game engine is still running at 4k in the background (it sure doesn’t look like it :/).  This can have a massive impact on older hardware.  Hell, I have a beefy computer and even it slows quite a bit just when moving the work camera around if I have this set to 2160, especially in complicated scenes with lighting and AO enabled.  

My advice is this:  Use different settings for this launch option when you’re editing the scene vs when you’re rendering.  I use -sfm_resolution 720 to force it to run at 720p in the background while setting up the shot.  Once I’m happy with it, I will save, close, change the 720 to 2160, relaunch, and then render.  

-sfm_shadowmapres 16384

This one can be more subtle.  Lighting in SFM isn’t “real” lighting.  This is a really simplistic explanation, but shadows from lights have a resolution to them.  You have to think of shadows as a “texture” that is projected out of the light and only shows when the light is blocked by a model.  If the light has a large field of view, to light a large scene for example, this resolution stays the same, but is stretched over a large area.

Imagine drawing in photoshop.  If your image resolution is high enough, drawing curves and detail is smooth and nice.  But if you’re drawing on a blank canvas that is only 300 x 300 pixels, you have fewer pixels to register changes in color, so it becomes blocky.  

By default, the shadowmapres for SFM is set to 2048.  I’ve created a quick scene here with a light with a massive FOV to show what I mean.  Notice how the shadows are horribly low resolution, and that this low resolution shadow is then projected onto everything behind it.  

This launch option forces this resolution higher.  Although it’s technically supposed to max out at 8192, in my experience, it goes up to 16384 without issue:

Much better.  And the best part?  In my experience, this has essentially zero impact on performance and render time.  There’s basically no reason to not have it on.  

NOTE:  If  this launch option doesn’t seem to be working, back it down to 8192 as that’s the officially supported maximum.  In 99.99% of cases, you shouldn’t need anything more than that.  

-r_novis 1

This is less of a quality enhancer and more of a bugfix.  Source engine uses a Potentially Visible Set (PVS) system, which uses the camera to see which parts of the map are visible at a time, and then doesn’t render the parts of the map outside of view.  If you’re having any kind of map visibility issue, this might fix it.  In general, I like to have this setting enabled.  Although PVS is supposed to help performance, in my experience, the effect is unnoticeable.

-nop4

Okay this is just another bug fix one, but if you’re ever encountering a “perforce error” in SFM, this launch option disables perforce.  I dunno what perforce is, and there’s literally no documentation on what it does for SFM.  Well, it does fuckin’ nothing in my books because nothing changes when you put this launch option in, other than getting rid of perforce errors.  

+mat_forceaniso 16

This forces anisotropic filtering.  The shortest explanation is that without anisotropic filtering, textures in the distant appear stretched out.  SFM by default has it set to only 1x pass of anisotropic filtering, which sucks:

SFM supports up to 16 passes.  You can see how the texture almost appears higher resolution with this turned up:

I haven’t noticed any significant performance impact on this effect, though I have noticed that SFM might take a second or two more to launch.  

Okay this was a long post.  Sorry.  rip your timeline.  But I hope these things have helped improve your renders.  

[macaroni-rascal]

all of this and heaven too: bawson fic

@texasbama asked for the fic and she shall receive <3

So basically, Mike is supposed to be getting inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame and then he sees Ginny in a dress and their night get sidetracked.

For obvious reasons.

(cross posted on ao3)

The dress:

He's being inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame…and he can't find his favourite cuff links.

Mike has checked the drawer where they usually are, every possible place in his closet, and the bedside table, for whatever reason they may have ended up there. Nothing.

"Ginny! The cuff links? The ones you gave me? Any ideas? I'm running out of places to look," she's in the bathroom and he can hear her faint laughter through the door. Of course she’s laughing at him.

"I'm looking at 'em! You forgot them in here, old man," her voice is full of mirth and he's about to head over to open the bathroom door when she beats him to it. 

Mike has decided he's not at all interested in being honoured; leaving the house is most definitely the worst possible thing he could do right now. Leaving this bedroom even. She looks unbelievable, so unbelievable he blinks a couple times just to make sure she's actually real. He takes a second to remind himself that she is his wife. She is all his; she agreed to be with him for the rest of their lives in front of everyone who matters to them both.

He’s never going to get over it, it astounds him over every time he sees the ring on her finger.

The grey sheer fabric hangs off her like a dream, the tie accentuating her waist and the dipped neckline brings his eyes to her beautiful breasts like he's zeroing in on a target. His favourite part though, is that one of her beautiful, long, strong legs is visible through a sinfully high slit in the fabric.

Mike lets his eyes rake slowly over her. He starts at her feet, the heels she's wearing making her legs pop and his mouth go dry. His gaze travels slowly up her body, along the curve of her thigh to the flare of her waist, her chest and neck, until finally landing on her face and the artfully tousled hair falling around her stunning face.

This has to be a dream. This can't be his life. There is no way he won a world series, is being inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, and has a living, breathing goddess as a life partner. There is just no way.

He almost pinches himself but his hands are tingling and his brain is working too slow to force any of his limbs into movement. 

Mike doesn't actually say words, but a garbled "wow" comes out of his mouth at one point and he's wholly unprepared when she smiles, wide and adoring, all her affection focused completely on him. She's even more beautiful and he's even more lost for words. 

He snaps out of his blatant admiration to see that she's holding something in her hand, something insignificant and expendable and definitely not in need of his immediate attention.

"Mike?" She walks closer to him, a knowing smirk on her face. Each step she takes, the fabric flows around her body like a curtain next to an open window, graceful and enchanting. He's getting glimpses of her leg and he's not really sure what to do with himself. They have somewhere to be, there must be a reason for this dress. He's forgotten at the moment; much more important things have garnered his attention.

"You like the dress, huh?" Her voice hasn't lost the playful tone. Ginny is standing right on front of him and it's the best kind of catch 22 because he doesn't have a full view of her in the dress, but she is within touching distance. 

His hands slowly drift to her waist, running around her body, down her hips before resting on her thighs, one smooths over the fabric, the other finds bare, warm skin.

"We're gonna be late if we don't go soon."

Late? Late to what? There cannot possible be somewhere more vital than his current location. A hand that smells faintly of jasmine lifts and gently nudges his chin, he didn't realize his mouth was open. Lord, the things this woman does to him.

He finally finds his voice after a couple rough swallows.

"You...look...," just because he found his voice does mean any words were found along with it.

She smiles bashfully, her dimples in full view and he really wishes he had knowledge about poetry because he's absolutely positive than anything he says, any comparison or compliment he can muster won't come close to how he feels right now. 

"I have no words, that's how beautiful you look. You've rendered me speechless," the tenderness in his voice surprises him. Maybe it's the accumulation of the day and that she's with him, beside him, that brings everything to the surface. She always been a disarming presence in his life, he's ecstatic to say that hasn't diminished since getting married.

Married!

"Mike Lawson? Speechless? I didn't think that was possible," the sly look on her face has only grown more prominent. There is love and warmth shining through along with her playful expression. His already waning self control is evaporating in the same manner his voice has.

She has to stop. He has things to do, people to see, honours to receive.

His hands have continued to move over her skin, along her dress, caressing and savouring the fact that this woman is in his arms. That his wife is in his arms.

"We're gonna be late," he says definitively.

Her head swivels to look at the clock before turning back and quirking an eyebrow.

"We can make it, we've got time," he can tell she's going step away and that's out of the question; his idle hands tighten around her, bringing her body flush against his. 

"No, I think we're gonna be late," he swoops down and kisses her, moaning lowly at her taste and how she responds to him so swiftly and fully.

He immediately wraps a hand around her thigh and lifts so she has one perfect leg wrapped around him, her body open and inviting. He's drowning quickly and happily, no care to the rest of the night or anything people expect of him.

He whines a little pitifully when she makes to pull away.

"You have a hall of fame to be inducted into, Mike," she's still wrapped around him, and her chest is heaving ever so slightly. 

He just shakes his head, runs a hand over and down her leg before wrapping his fingers possessively around her ankle, anchoring her to him.

Mike understands where she's coming from, it's all very important and prestigious, but he has his priorities and he just thinks she should respect those priorities and resign herself to the fact that between a choice of sitting a crowded room with a bunch of people getting an award, and slowly and lovingly unwrapping this dress from her body, he will choose the latter every single time. In fact, he has yet to meet a situation, an item, or a person that means more to him than her.

He realizes he must have said all that out loud judging by the look on her face.

"So, we're gonna be late," she finally says, voice warm and sure.

Ginny surges up, attacking his mouth and body with renewed vigour, almost like she's trying to bury her way into him. He holds her just as intensely, like if he tries hard enough and holds her tight enough he'll be able to say with his body all he can't with words. 

He's always been the more eloquent of the two, it just so happens she's the only one he knows who can make him forget he speaks any language. Semantics and phonemes become unreliable and insufficient. They do as good a job as possible, Mike wishes there was another way he could show her.

He's not an artist, not a gifted writer even if he could find the words, can't write a song or any other typical type of way in which love is expressed. 

He really hopes everything else he does to demonstrate the ineffable magnitude of his love for her shines through. He cooks her breakfast most days; always makes sure there is grape soda in the fridge; gives her back rubs after games; wears her jersey when she's playing; lets her hog the blankets; always lets her shower first even though she takes longer.

Right now, in this current moment, he decides to do one of the things he's best at, maybe more than baseball: making Ginny Baker come.

It's an art form he's perfected. 

Mike regrettably lets her leg fall, backing her up until her knees hit the bed. He pushes her to sit down before getting to his knees in front of her. Now that he's retired and his joints aren’t under constant strain he's become much more flexible with just how long his knees can last.

She runs a hand through his hair, the other going behind her to support her as she half leans back, head falling back, the long line of her throat looking delectable.

His fingers fiddle with the tie at her side.

He wonders.

"Is this functional or purely decorative?" He asks, still thumbing the strings. 

"I think that depends on how late you plan to be."

He really is going to unwrap her like a present...and happy birthday to him. He tugs at the string, it falls away and he gently unfolds the fabric from around Ginny's body until all of her, every perfect inch, is open to his gaze, hands, and mouth.

Mike leans into her, planting kisses on the taught skin of her stomach.

"Do we have to go?" He mumbles into her the softness of her belly. Everything he needs is right here. 

The feeling of her bare skin is intoxicating and she's settling more into the bed, getting comfortable and letting Mike do as he pleases. He kisses over her cloth covered centre, teasing and loving, nudging her legs apart to give him more room. They don't have a lot of time if they want to make it, so Mike does the expedient thing and simply hooks a thumb into her panties, pulling them to the side so she's bare for him. He tenderly licks over her wet and swollen flesh before setting about devouring her with a conviction he could almost call religious.

Oh, he just loves the sounds she makes; a perfect symphony of whispered pleading, gasps and moans. She makes these desperate little noises, coming out broken and needy from the back of her throat that make him incensed. 

Mike tries to take as much time as he can, but her hands are pulling on his hair and her hips won't stop bucking up into him. He brings one hand to rest on her pelvis, pressing down and she shudders at the pressure.

His tongue is writing poetry in a language he doesn't know all over her, circling her bundle of nerves and sucking lightly before nipping at her skin and rubbing his chin into her; she bucks at the rough but soft texture of his beard against her.

Ginny lets out a low moan, a shaky exhale follows as she tightens her hands in his hair, making him wince and redouble his efforts. He feels the edge of her heel pressing into his back and wraps his free hand around her leg, clutching her to him.

The scrape of her shoe alone his back, even through the layers of his jacket, button down, and undershirt makes goosebumps run down his arms. He wants to be naked, or at least shirtless.

He loves the feeling of her bare legs wrapped around his torso, her hands digging into his shoulders, her soft luscious skin against his own is basically a panacea for him at this point. Whatever troubles, anxieties, or worries he has inevitably lessen the moment she’s with him, touching him soundly and comfortingly.  

A light hand skimming down his back, her fingers laced through his, or her hands running through his hair make him react like an affectionate house cat. He doesn't purr, but he comes very close to preening under her attention.

Which is why when he focuses all his attention on her, he wants to make sure she fully grasps how dedicated he is to her and her pleasure.

He is very good at speeches, finding the right words to convey what needs to be said in a clear, sometimes not-so-succinct manner, but words fail him with Ginny. But this, this he can do often, well, and with great enthusiasm. 

"Ah---ah ah ah!" She’s close, he can feel it in how her legs are shaking, how her voice lilts higher and higher, how her back arches beautifully. She looks like she's coming out of her body, like the sensations he's creating are making her forget herself.

The hands in his hair grips him almost to the point of pain when her entire body tightens as she flies apart, sobbing loudly and gasping for air like she forgot how to breath for a few seconds.

Maybe she did, he thinks smugly.

He kisses over her beautiful, wet, swollen flesh a few times, just to watch her twitch and hear her whimper.

He takes one last taste, savouring her on his tongue before he gets up, leaving her still panting and flushed on the bed as he makes his way to the bathroom to wash his face and hands, flatten down his hair, and straighten his suit.

When he walks back out, she hasn't moved save an arm she's thrown over her eyes; her other hand is settled low on her belly like she's trying to hold onto the feeling still causing small aftershocks to run through her.

"We gotta go, Baker, we're gonna be late," he's sure the smile is clear in his voice but he tries to sound exasperated.

She slowly leans up to her elbows, leveling him with a look that screams "not amused." She falls a little short of the mark because her lips are kiss bitten, her cheeks and chest are still flushed, and she looks completely and utterly debauched.

God, he wishes he had a camera.

Oh wait. He does.

"Don't move," he pulls his phone out of pocket, swipes to get the camera and takes a few pictures. He watches with an delighted grin as the disgruntled scowl on her face transforms into a teasing little smirk as she lays back a few inches and poses for him.

"I can’t decide how I like the dress on you more: fully on or half off...," he snaps one more photo as she throws her head backs and laughs at him.

She finally gets up, not bothering to retie her dress, letting it hang open unashamedly.

He takes it back, he likes it better like this.

He runs his eyes down the length of her body and back up again.

Oh yes, no doubt in his mind.

He knows she's about to go the bathroom to clean herself up, but he stops her with an arm around her waist.

"I said we we're gonna be late. We gotta go, rookie."

She pats his arm and tries to get to the bathroom again, "Let me freshen up, I'm not really fit for public just yet," he doesn't let go and she squints at him.

"What if I told you that I didn't want you to freshen up? That I want you to be able to feel how how wet I made you? That I'd like to be able to slide my hand into your dress and feel how wet you are, steal a taste, lick my fingers when no one’s looking?"

He watches as her pupils become impossibly wide, swallowing the beautiful brown irises. The breath she'd only just reclaimed comes out in short, shallow gasps and her lips part.

She kisses him roughly, licking into his mouth and moaning at the faint taste of herself on his tongue.

When she pulls back, his breathing matches hers and why are they leaving the house again?

Suddenly, his arms are empty and she's sashayed around him, tying her dress back up and swaying her hips in such an enticing way he feels hypnotized. 

When she spins quickly at the doorway, dress as right as she's going to get it, the smirk still firmly on her face and hair deliciously messy he thinks he's been more grateful for anything in his life, he almost misses what she says next.

"Consider this my present to you," her voice is low and full of promise and he's about to make a flirty quip about birthdays when she hikes her dress up a little, reaches around her waist and pulls her panties down her legs, steps out them gracefully and struts back over to him.

He's stock still, not moving for fear the beautiful mirage in front of him will disappear from his sight. 

She tucks her panties into the pocket of his trousers, biting her lip as she does and making him want to sink his teeth into the flesh himself.

His wife turns and walks out of the room, leaving him standing gobsmacked and breathlessly turned on. 

His wife.

He hears the front door open.

"I thought you said we were gonna be late! Move it or lose it, old man!"

Just like that, he bounds after her, hand digging into his pocket, curling around the damp fabric and thinking he's never been this happy in his whole life.

Ginny standing expectantly at the doorway makes him rethink himself. Each moment with her he gets happier, more content, more blissful. 

How is he going to survive falling deeper in love with this woman when he already feels full up with affection?

He's excited to find out. 

[ivyplays]

Here is my Atelier collection. I loved it very much. But I’m no longer buying Atelier games. I’m very, very disappointed. The developers/publishers of my favorite series made a marketing decision that forces me to drop the series and probably put my collection somewhere under the sofa. Here is why.

Long text under “Keep Reading” (about niche games, about prices, about console industry and Steam).

This collection was my pride and joy until a week ago. I was collecting box versions of Atelier games since 2009. I became a fan of them when I played Mana Khemia on PS2, but back then I didn’t actually own any disks myself. When the series hit PS3, I became a valid paying customer for Gust. This developer never really lived up to my expectations, but I’ve always found something special about Atelier games - a unique charm. They’ve never looked up to date, and it’s really visible how low budget they are, but the 2D art is extremely pretty, the music is unbelievably good, and the alchemy system - the main reason why I like the series - is always superb with a remarcable twist in every new installment.

Every one of the games shown in the pictures were my presents. My boyfriend bought them to me for my birthdays, on valentines’ or other special occasions. It was a tradition. Every time when a new Atelier game came out and there was some special day for me to celebrate, I knew I would get it. I don’t like surprises. The feeling of knowing I will get a thing that I want excites me more. I’m also an adult of an age when I usually don’t expect presents at all - we skip buying presents for a lot of Holidays, because we don’t really need anything, and a sweater or a purse is not a present, it’s an everyday thing (we’re not rich at all, we’re just not focused on general shopping). So we ended up with a tradition. I get Atelier games, and we pay for them way more than they deserve, because it’s really hard to find niche boxed games in my country, even in the capital, so they are usually overpriced. Ordering a game by post is also troublesome and you can easily end up with nothing. So finding a new Atelier game was always a hard mission. It also made it special.

Now this tradition is over. My collection is complete. Maybe, just maybe, some time in the future I’ll find a box version of Mana Khemia for PS2 and add it to the collection, but that’s it. I’m not buying new Atelier games anymore. This is the largest sum of money we ever put into a game series, and that's it. I’d like to add that all those games we bought new, not long after release, with no discounts, usually overpriced. Two of them are Collector’s Editions (we couldn’t find the other games like this). When buying those, I always thought I was expressing my gratitude to the developer in the only way that’s possible for me - giving them money. I’ve never bothered to buy a lot of other good games, I usually wait till they are discounted, or even free on PS Plus. But the Atelier series was special for me. Not anymore. Now I’m very, very disappointed. I’m feeling down for a week now.

Here’s what happened:

It’s an Atelier Sophie game on Steam. It’s available already. And it costs about 9 dollars in my country. Not even full 9, just 8 and a half. I payed 60 bucks more for a PS4 version, and it happened only 4 months ago. I haven’t even finished this game yet. The game itself was released about half a year ago, so I wouldn’t be finished with it even if I bought the game a little earlier – for I play them slow. I was ultimately cheated. I don’t think I can find enough words to describe how I actually feel.

What I’m sure of is that I’m not buying console Atelier games anymore. PS4 architecture is a PC architecture basically, so it’s easy to port games. It’s a known fact, yet you don’t expect a niche console exclusive with a 20-year history to suddenly go multiplatform. This release renders my Atelier collection worthless. This release renders my feeling towards the series worthless, too. My dedication meant nothing. I’m not getting my next present, and it feels so sad. I look at the Atelier Sophie PS4 box and I feel scammed.

The next game in the series - Atelier Firis - will be multiplatform on initial release. It will happen this year.  I will not buy it then. I want to stress, that I would definitely pay the full price if it was still a console exclusive, it’s not questionable. The Steam version will cost very little in my county - about $10 or so. It’s always like this, here, even for the new games if they are niche. I’m still not buying. I’ll wait for Steam sales next year, when it’s $3 or so, then maybe - just maybe - I’ll buy it. So here’s what Gust getting from me instead of a full price, wich I would’ve payed if they hadn’t gone multiplatform. And, like most games on Steam, I don't think I'll even play it. I spent months on other Atelier games, playing with purpose and a goal, but this game will probably just sit there, abandoned, never explored. I actually think it's a most tragic fate for any game – being cheep and never played by people.

I’m not the only person who is devastated by this. The series have a solid fan base. People do not randomly buy new Atelier games from the shelves. There’s a chance that a random person had bought Rorona (because there were not a lot games like this on PS3) or Escha&Logy (because this good game received much media praise), but that’s it. All the other games were bought by fans who didn’t want a discount and would continue buying every Atelier game no matter how bad it was (Shallie was bad, it still got sales). They don’t look for reviews, a new Atelier game is just a must-have. I mean, it was a must-have, but not anymore. It was collector’s stuff, now it’s something that will rot in Steam back shelves.

While I’m at it, I want to congratulate Valve on steadily winning the console war. But they couldn’t do it without the help of greedy corporations who lost the sense of the market, and clueless game developers who forgot who their audience is.

I already made a similar post about Zero Time Dilemma in my blog dedicated to Zero Escape series. Back then the sure console exclusive went multiplatform on its third and final installment at initial release. I was planning no buy the PS Vita version at the very start (because it was a conclusion of a story with a lot of plot twists and I had to know everything before I stumbled upon unforgivable spoilers). But a month before release I realized that the game 1) wouldn't be available in a box in my region for a long time after release, so I would have to buy a digital version; and 2) would also be on Steam, and very cheap in my country. I didn't want to play the hendheld oriented game on PC. I didn't need the price cut for a box. But it's just stupid to buy something digital at a regular price when you can get it 5-10 times cheaper, also digital. So I made a decision.

But that time it was at least fair: I was informed from the start that the game went multiplatform and that it can be bought cheap. I was disappointed (I still am), but I didn't feel scammed. Now this time I feel cheated - they took my money, and then made a huge price cut shortly after.

I had several strange answers to my previous post, and I had to block people who didn’t get the point and told me I was making a problem out of nothing. Well, it’s not nothing. It’s a pattern:

1) Developers decide (or publisher insist) on going multiplatform. As a result they lose profits and their dedicated fan base leaves them. => 2) Big games leave handhelds for the tabletop. As a result the handhelds have small games (or overpriced big ones, compared to PC) and have to compete against the mobile branch - the challenge they can't win. => 3) Players have to chose a PC instead of console or even instead of handheld. Who wouldn't chose a crazy price cut? As a result they have to play games uncomfortably sitting instead of lying down or taking it to transport, or reorganize their rooms to fit the new gaming reality. It's bothersome and can't fully grab the player's attention. => 4) Games lose value, they are bought on sales and never played. The old game fan base turns inactive, the new fan base is never created (you can't create a fan base if they don't play your cheap games). As a result there is no community for the games, no fan base, no fandoms. => 5) The industry changes. It's hard to attach the sense of value to a game. Low budget niche games tend to fall into the same category as indie and retro, even the ones that have a long history behind them. As a result the series get closed, the developers turn to something of the same budget level - the mobile.

So in the end it's just PC + Mobile. I'm not overreacting. Some can tell me that the book industry suffered huge changes several years ago. Few fiction books are printed in good quality, they cost a lot, and everybody just reads digital copies. Everything changes. But the game industry is not quite the same. A book author doesn't stop writing just because the format changed. The content of their books is still the same, they don't have to change their writing to adjust to the new platform. But the games change. A game takes a lot of effort and a team of several people to make. Game series often get closed even if all of their authors love them and want to make them. Publishers decide to close games if they are not profitable enough. Sometimes they have a rather unique view on what is profitable and what isn't. The game series can make stable profits - twice or more the development cost, but the publisher would look at most successful big PC games (AAA ones) and mobile games (often gacha-based) and think, “Why aren't we making this? It's clearly more profitable that way. Oh wait, we don't have enough money for a AAA game and its marketing, so we have only one choice.” So an old console series seizes to exist, and we have another mobile casino instead of it.

I don't like this kind of future. Everybody loses.