To Be A King - Volume 1 News

[h3]Character work continues! [/h3]

I got some breakthroughs on hair and eyebrows, so I'm hurriedly going through the characters to get all of them done. I also discovered some issues with my sub-surface scattering settings on the skin thanks to a new feature I found with lighting in Unreal Engine. Everyone is getting fixed there now so they don't weirdly glow under brighter lighting.

I purchased new assets on the Unreal Engine marketplace to fill out a few areas, and the environment you see in the video is done, as far as its basic setup. I need to finish up the lighting and interior, but that should be a reasonably quick process.

Cronut is the star of this video as he finally got fully converted. I learned a few new tricks to get him looking decent, but he is now ready for animations, once I finish up his control rig.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Apart from all that, I'm continuing to refine things and optimize my assets. Since I'm rendering everything out myself on my own hardware, it isn't essential. But the optimization helps reduce potential issues later and helps me get more comfortable with Unreal Engine's vast reporting options.

Clothing is a bit behind as I'm waiting for an update for the plugin I use to convert my characters. That should be out within the next couple of days, and, in the meantime, I'm watching some tutorials on clothing and cloth physics in Unreal Engine. I've got plenty to keep me busy, so while clothing is going to be a big piece, it allows me to shift my focus to other items on the to-do list.

You'll be seeing more early animations, once clothing is figured out. Now I must get back to all the things in development that need my attention. I'll try to keep these videos and development updates coming around once a week for the foreseeable future.

Have a great weekend and don't forget to join our Discord, we are hosting a small event featuring Cronut!

Cheers!

[h3]I'm hard at work on something new![/h3]

With the characters getting their last touches (so many last touches), I'm moving forward with setting up the first scene for Chapter 11 in Unreal Engine. That will be a bit before I can show it off since the first scene will certainly be the longest to setup with the most issues. Now let's talk about To Be A King's future, without getting spoilery.

[h3]New Lands to Survey[/h3]
Due to Daz Studio's limitations, I planned to keep things centered in Caudium. That limitation, along with the animation issues in Daz, are what really pushed me to move to Unreal Engine. Imagine the General and his traveling companions looking out over a vast landscape. Impossible in Daz (without some SERIOUS faking of it). Easily possible in Unreal Engine.

You'll be visiting Egypt, Gaul, Estrid's homeland, and likely a few other locales over the next few volumes. If all goes well, we will even join the General during his sailing across the Mediterranean on a custom war ship.

Here is a video showing a little bit more about the Unreal 5 development!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h3]More Characters To Meet[/h3]
I don't want this to turn into 101 To Be A King characters, but we have many left to meet. Possibly some more late-game love interests. My original plan with the harem was for most players to do a "gotta catch 'em all" type playthrough. Well, based on how you all feel about the different personalities, I know that isn't likely for most players. That means I'm less concerned about adding in a few more options, as you'll probably only have a handful in a given playthrough.

The General also needs a few more military commanders, and we are going to meet those men over the next two chapters. My goal with these new characters is to ensure they enhance the story and don't remove precious time from your favorites (Kaylan, Aelinia, Flora, etc.). The switch to Unreal Engine is going to make that easier to maintain. Within a few releases, I'm expecting even larger chapters, though your actual playthrough time probably won't increase a great deal. Just more options. Speaking of…

[h3]Unique Story Choices[/h3]
When you are doing 1000+ renders per release, and can only set up and render those out so quickly, it is important to keep the story a bit more concise. Put up some guardrails, and make sure you don't enable a dozen choices for one scenario. I haven't been the best at that, but I have cut out a ton that either wasn't possible or would add way too much development time. Trust me.

That changes with this render engine transition. Once I get my bearings in Unreal Engine, I'll be able to let you, the player, direct more of the story. Things like alternate scenarios with a change in a character can be done in minutes, instead of many more hours of setup and rendering. Clothing and hairstyle choices will likely also be included, assuming I don't find significant issues when I test that. I still need to make sure I don't have a story with more branches than a 100-year-old oak, but I'd like to offer you all the opportunity to do things like visit the tavern, pay a visit to Goddess Anna, and maybe see if your favorite princess is available for a quickie. I have many ideas, but they will need to go through some testing with my beta team before I can say yay or nay. Nothing about this is going to make the game free to roam. Just some more choices are presented where you can choose where to go next. Maybe even get risky with your choices to see what happens…Let me stop here before I spoil anything. Goddess Anna would be pissed!

[h2]Work continues both on the rest of Volume 2 and the conversion to Unreal 5[/h2]

I'm very pleased with the improvements that Unreal Engine is providing, especially the excellent physics that enables some very realistic details in animations.

One quick reminder, as I know this is a bit confusing. I am moving to Unreal Engine to produce the artwork for the game, but my game engine is not changing. That means that saves, UI, etc. will be the same with Volume 2. It also means that you won't need to worry about GPU or CPU upgrades, as far as my game is concerned.

[h2]Characters on Unreal 5[/h2]

It has been an adventure to get all the characters converted and looking their best, but the improvements in rendering speed and animation setups make all the extra trouble worth it.

The ladies have updated skin textures with some subtle quality improvements, and most of them have their final hair settings with a physics setup.

The next installment of To Be A King will provide that realistic jiggle in "key" areas.

[h2]Sounds and Music[/h2]

Apart from the graphics change, the music and sound effects have been undergoing their own overhaul. I've been working with a composer to get new music and polish some of the existing themes. These music & sound effects updates will be in Volume 2, and they will also come to Volume 1 as a patch later this year.

[h2]More Cronut![/h2]

Cronut fans will be pleased to know that he got an extensive overhaul during his conversion, and he can now independently move his hands, arms, legs, feet, & head. Before he was limited to full-body movements and just his eyes. Expect to see him holding a few more things in future releases.
(hopefully he doesn't acquire any weapons).

[h2]Final Considerations[/h2]

I know you all are ready for a Volume 2 release, and it is truly a shame that Goddess Anna has not given me the ability to get more done in a day. Volume 2 is still on track for a release this year with many hours of content, and it will now be fully animated, as well, when it is finished.

There may be some other surprises included with Volume 2, but too soon to announce those.

I'll keep you all updated here every few weeks as I work towards finishing and overhauling Volume 2. New adventures await, and I'm looking forward to you all seeing the fruits of all this work I've been doing.

Until next time, be well, Kings!

[h2]Good day, afternoon and evening Kings![/h2]

Happy Spring Sale! The Steam celebration is here to welcome more Kings to be!
I am giving you 15% off To Be a King, so you can get the damsels 100% undressed and impressed! There are enough ladies and wine for everyone.



Additionally, I also crafted badges, trading cards, backgrounds and emoticons for the game. From today you will be able to collect, as well as trade the cards you get from the game, to style your very own To Be a King badge!
Here, have a look at the first three:


This will also translate into new Discord stickers, so if by any chance you haven't joined To Be a King's community server, through Steam's store page or the previous news post, feel free to do it here.

And last but not least: here is another sneak peek on the Unreal engine visuals progress for To Be a King Volume 2:

Tweaked shaders, more detailed skin and other things I am working on as we speak. Just to be very clear you will not need to run the game on Unreal Engine 5, it will still run on RenPy as previously mentioned in last week's news.

Thank you for your continuous support,
ITRoy

[h2]Greetings Kings,[/h2]

Thank you for your continuous support for the To Be a Kings series! All of the development is possible because of my supporters, many hours working on the title as well as Cronut leaving me some hop and malt beverages.

Our store page has recently been updated with baubles for gifs and flavour for text. If you have not checked it out yet, make sure to click here and have a glance at it. Perhaps you can even slide it to a friend who might enjoy the Roman time period, fine women and wine.

In case you have not been following up with updates through my community Discord as well as Twitter, slowly but surely I have been porting all the To Be a King’s character in to Unreal Engine 5 for the next volume.

Here is a little sneak peek:


Also no one has to worry about the system requirements for the game because it will still be running on Renpy, so all the hard labour will be done by my PC and not burden yours.

Sincerely,
ITRoy