Hello, Everyone! In the spirit of keeping you all closely connected to our journey, we're shifting to bi-weekly development updates. This approach will allow us to share more detailed insights into our progress, challenges, and plans for the future. Recent Setbacks The past couple of weeks have been particularly challenging for our team. We've encountered significant technical difficulties that have impacted our development schedule. Here's what happened:

• Render PC Failure: Our dedicated render PC, which was working through a long queue of animations, unexpectedly crashed and is no longer bootable. Further inspection revealed that both the motherboard and CPU are damaged beyond repair. Attempting to restart it even resulted in smoke, a clear sign of serious hardware failure. Unfortunately, this incident has set us back by a month or two, as it not only corrupted the M.2 drive but also the save files from our server.
• Main Rig Issues: Our main workstation, equipped with high-end specs for development tasks, has been experiencing frequent crashes, particularly with Daz Studio. Despite exhaustive troubleshooting efforts, including reinstalling Windows and disabling all overclocks, we've been unable to resolve these issues. The coincidence of both PCs failing nearly simultaneously has been a tough pill to swallow, leaving us operating with severely limited resources.

Adapting to Circumstances With these setbacks, our team is now working on a single Dev PC and some old laptops with our server, which significantly limits our capability, especially in rendering and animations. We're currently exploring ways to fund the necessary replacements and repairs to get back to full operational capacity. Exciting Future Plans: Transitioning to Unreal Engine 5 Despite these hurdles, we're excited to announce a major upcoming shift in our development process. We're planning to transition from Ren'Py to Unreal Engine 5. This change promises to elevate "Bancroft Academy" to new heights, offering an even more engaging and immersive gaming experience. While this transition is expected to happen next year or the year after, we've already made progress in learning the basics and beginning the process of importing and rigging our characters for Unreal. Moving Forward Though the past two weeks have been fraught with challenges, we remain committed to our vision for "Bancroft Academy." Our journey is filled with ups and downs, but with each obstacle, we learn, adapt, and grow stronger as a team. We appreciate your support and understanding as we navigate these challenges and work towards bringing our shared vision to life. We'll be back with more updates in two weeks. In the meantime, thank you for your continued support and patience. Your encouragement means the world to us, especially during times like these. Stay tuned, and as always, stay safe! Warm regards, The Bancroft Academy Dev Team

[ 2024-02-03 01:11:23 CET ] [ Original post ]