Hello, dear supporters!

As another year comes to a close, I want to express my deep gratitude to everyone who has been with me. Let’s take a moment to reflect on the significant events of this year.

It’s been a challenging year, both personally and globally. There’s no need to go into detail about the global challenges; you’re all well aware of them. As for me, the year started off terribly. First, “Beauty and the Thug” was permanently banned from Steam, and my attempts to contact support were fruitless. Those of you who have been following me since early 2023 know how much effort I put into this project. Then, not long after, I faced serious issues in my personal life: a government agency opened two cases against me, each with the potential to devastate my life and my family’s. Everyone advised me to hire a good lawyer. I could manage to borrow enough money to hire an attorney for one case, but covering legal fees for two cases was beyond my means.

The Better Deal

The ban on Steam was a significant setback for my project. It meant that it would never generate substantial revenue, and my dream of making a living through 3D Art seemed unattainable. I also tried applying to GOG, but they declined my game, influenced by the Steam ban, without even reviewing it.

In response, I decided to start a new project that would be 100% Steam-friendly. Here, my friend Nev played a crucial role. He came up with the general idea and wrote the story. We then collaborated on his script, resulting in a well-developed scenario with detailed plotlines leading to various endings. This part of the work is complete. Of course, I still come up with minor changes as I work on the visuals (like Desmond drinking water from a four-gallon tank as if it were a mug) and even more ideas when working on hot scenes, but that’s just part of the normal creative process.

Three months ago, I released the initial version of “The Better Deal” to my Patreon and Subscribestar supporters. A few days ago, I completed the first sex scene with the main character, Riley. By this point, I had created 360 new renders and 20 animations for the upcoming update, surpassing a total of 1,000 renders. So, I’m entering the new year on the cusp when all the most interesting things in this visual novel are beginning to unfold.

Additionally, Nev has revamped my website, zegamez.com, adding a lot of content related to “The Better Deal.” Be sure to check it out!

Lawsuit

It so happened that the initial release of “The Better Deal” coincided with the time I resolved my legal issues. My dad once told me, “If you want to do something really well, do it yourself.” In the past, I didn’t heed his advice, opting instead to hire experienced professionals for tasks I could have managed on my own, which I often regretted. But this time, I followed his words. Rather than seeking affordable services from the local law relief organizations or law students, I dedicated dozens, perhaps even hundreds, of hours to learning the basics of the judicial process, gathering evidence, persuading potential witnesses to support me in court, and drafting my statements.

Two weeks before the trial, both the prosecutors and I were required to present all evidence and a list of witnesses to the opposing party. I complied, and the very next day, they “voluntarily” closed both of my cases. In this way, I won without spending a single penny!

Beauty and the Thug

This year, I started with a crucial scene in Hunter’s route. It was the moment where Lisa falls in love with Hunter. I drew inspiration from my own life. Many years ago, my girlfriend, who would later become my wife, and I had a similar experience in the Ukrainian Crimea. Unlike the story, the wine we had was cheap (but still enjoyable); instead of oysters, there were mussels that I had collected myself from the Black Sea and grilled over a campfire; there was no beach patrol; we had been in love long before that night, and sex wasn’t on the sand but in a comfortable bed under an air conditioner.

But everything else – being alone on the seashore, the gentle breeze, a conversation revealing things you thought you’d never share, a starry night with a full moon, and the feeling that the entire night belonged to us, filled with love and freedom – that I did experience.

On the technical side, while working on this scene, I ventured into creating custom body morphs for the first time. It was a time-consuming and meticulous task, but it significantly enhanced the quality of my renders. Now, it has become a routine part of my process, with almost every scene featuring some custom morphs. It’s not as time-intensive as it was initially, and I’ve even developed a DAZ script to automate this process.

Today, I completed the scene in the doctor’s office. So, in the upcoming year, I’ll be starting with Amy’s route. This scene marks the beginning of romantic relations with Amy and is also a key moment in the lesbian storyline.

New Approaches and Techniques

At the start of the year, I began using longer animations, around 30-50 seconds, instead of a series of short cine loops. The creation process is quite laborious, involving AI postprocessing of each frame, but the result is much more cohesive animations.

However, a month ago, I developed a new approach for visuals. Initially, it involved two-frame animations. These were quicker to create than long animations and added dynamism to my scenes. Yet, using just two frames often resulted in abrupt transitions. So, I started using interpolation software (specifically DAIN) to generate intermediate frames for smoother transitions. Unfortunately, this method didn’t always work well, so now I render six frames instead of two before interpolating them. This approach has significantly improved the quality, and it’s become a routine part of my process. For instance, in the last scene of “The Better Deal,” I used 16 short animations (plus four long ones), and in the new Gynecologist scene of “Beauty and the Thug,” I created thirteen short animations. I hope you’ll appreciate them. Showing how the doctor slowly opens the speculum is much more engaging than just one or two static renders, don’t you think?

Hardware and Software Updating 

Rendering extra frames on top of my usual routine would have been quite challenging with my graphics card, the GeForce RTX 3090. I upgraded to it more than a year ago, replacing my old GeForce RTX 2080 Super, and it was a game-changer. But this Christmas, Santa brought me the GeForce 4090 Suprim Liquid X. It’s not just the most powerful graphics card available at the moment; it also features liquid cooling! Here’s this beauty:

My old GeForce RTX 3090 reaches a temperature of 83°C in about 5 minutes of rendering on the factory preset, and the fans start working like crazy, producing a lot of noise. But my new graphics card doesn’t produce any noise. I haven’t found a way to make it hotter than 70°C, even after moderate overclocking! Thus, it not only works 1.5 times faster than the previous graphics card; due to being so silent, I now have the option to leave my PC rendering overnight, which is a huge boost for my work speed!

One crucial new thing I’ve included in my workflow is copying game files to the cloud drive iDrive. It’s not cheap, but now my files are safe. The iDrive utility automatically copies my files on a daily basis, so it’s quite reliable. I’ve also incorporated various AI features into my workflow, from Premium Chat GPT to Adobe FireFly and the music generator SoundDraw. All of them cost some money, but with your support, I can invest in them.

Investing in Self-Development

Besides hardware and software, I’ve also invested a bit in self-development. I took an Advanced DAZ Studio Course, but it turned out to be not very useful for me. I didn’t pick up anything new from it. However, I did find a new aspect of DAZ to explore: DAZ scripting. This interest sparked when I was searching for a script to speed up routine tasks in DAZ. When I couldn’t find one, I decided to try writing it myself with ChatGPT’s help. I thought it would be simple, but ChatGPT couldn’t generate any correct code in such a unique programming language. It did, however, point me in the right direction. After hours of trial and error, ChatGPT, Google, and I finally put together the script, and it worked! That’s when I took a course on the basics of DAZ Scripting. Since then, I’ve created more than a dozen of my own scripts.

In addition, I’ve been getting into Blender, another 3D rendering application. It’s far more powerful than DAZ Studio, though creating scenes takes a lot longer. I’ve already used it to create custom body morphs and export them to DAZ. Recently, I’ve also started using it to design various elements for DAZ environments. I enrolled in an advanced Blender course at P2 Design Academy and have watched the first few lessons. My goal is to create animations in Blender and then import them into DAZ - Blender is a superior tool for animation. Let’s see how it goes.

Becoming a DAZ-published artist

After making a few simple scripts, I began tackling more complex ones. Eventually, I developed a product that I wanted to sell in the DAZ Store. Becoming a published artist is a complex process, especially when it comes to selling scripts or utilities. A team of developers from DAZ needs to test your product before deciding if it’s valuable. Just before Christmas, I got the exciting news that my product was approved for sale in their store! It feels like another small step towards my dream of making a living from 3D Art.

In the end, I want to extend a heartfelt thanks to everyone who has supported my work.

Nev, your assistance has been invaluable, and please, don’t ever check your lifetime support of me on Patreon – the amount is just mind-blowing!

I couldn’t have managed the Android ports without Wills747. His efficiency always amazes me. When I offered to thank him financially, he humbly declined, asking me to just keep doing what I do. That really moved me.

A big shoutout to those who proofread and translated my game. Recently, two new guys offered to translate my game into German and French, and that’s awesome!

I also want to mention the guy who started translating my game into classical Portuguese (not Brazilian) but has since gone silent. I hope it’s for a good reason. Last I heard, he found the right woman and even shared my game with her. They played ‘Beauty and the Thug’ together, and well, let’s just say it made her a bit horny. While I’m thrilled to hear it, I wouldn’t suggest you guys try this at home. I don’t think that every girl would appreciate it ))

My gratitude extends to all the fan content creators and promoters of my game. Have you read about “Lisa’s Skiing Holiday”? You definitely should!

And, of course, a huge thanks to everyone who stayed with me this year. I hope we continue this journey together.

This year began terribly for me but ended up far better than I could have imagined:

• The Steam ban led to “The Better Deal,” a project I’m truly proud of.
• A legal battle with a government agency taught me a lot, boosting my self-esteem and my family’s respect for me (though my wife never stopped believing in me).
• I mastered DAZ Scripting enough to create a sellable product and became a Published DAZ Artist.
• I upgraded my hardware and software and developed new techniques that significantly improved my product quality.
• I learned heaps and am brimming with ideas.

Life can be a strange alchemist, turning even shit into gold. I wish you all the best! Happy New Year!

Your zegamez