Sunday Progress Report (Patreon)

What's been going on this week? Dynamics, Animation blocking, Adding fluid sim to Staying In Eating Out Part 2 (and watching little red and blue bar graphs)

Last weeks side activity was working on getting the tails swishy and implementing the joint based dynamics. Like many of you I've been a bit distracted by the news this week but despite that I've been trying to get work done. When not (and sometimes during) looking at maps and vote tallies, I've been running some very methodical simulation testing. Dialing in the numbers for tails and ears. 

This is a different joint based dynamics solution to the one shown off in the past it's a purely hysteresis angle based rather than hair/particle which both makes it a lot quicker to simulate and modify, it also is a lot more forgiving with animation fed in and can selectively be used it to simulate all or part of an ear/tail/etc.. (e.g. just the tip for a bit of overlap on existing animation, or the majority to help block in basic movement). going forward all characters will have more life to them with the changes this brings. :D 

Staying In Eating Out Part 3 is being blocked out and will continue to be worked on over the next few weeks I'll do what I did for part 2 and look to start rendering overnight as soon as parts are done but I would like to get a decent handle on the length and scope via blocking before diving into the pre render polish pass. I've included some very early animation tests from the first two camera angles. About those dynamics changes mentioned above well as you can see this version of dynamics is so quick to use I've started implementing it even at the blockout stage, and I think the previews speak for themselves. ^_^ 

Thanks to user "N O" asking for it I've included a Yeen load and a rather messy fox as an alt cut for Staying In Eating Out Part 2. The shader has been updated again to make the fluid more shiny. Let me know what you think. ^_^

(I've had some ideas around the wetting effect applied to the fur to make it a bit more precise but that came about two thirds of the way though rendering and needs some time to be experimented with.)

The Executive Producers decided that this weeks side activity is rebuilding Aaron, The little otter that started it all. I've learned so much in the slightly over a year since finishing him (man this has been a long year) I'll be improving the sculpt so details on his paws look better, posing and rigging him in a neutral pose (currently his tail is bent and fingers curled that makes animating him far more annoying than needed) and replacing a lot of memory intensive blendshapes with proper weight painting and a deformer stack, and lots of other improvements that will mean animating will be easier. 

Also due to all the support here I'm investing in some new HW, Still looking for a Nvidia 3080FE but I did manage to snag a AMD 5950x (best workhorse CPU other than a threadripper). Should be getting that by the end of the month and over the next few weeks I'll be looking to get everything else needed (PSU, RAM, SSDs case etc..) When the new rig is done it will mean faster simulations, faster rendering (when I finally find a 3080) allowing the extra time to be put towards fur detail and lighting, faster character rig performance and in general less of my work time spent sitting around waiting for things to be calculated. Thank you all <3

Whew that was a long one, congratulations on anyone that read the whole thing. Please let me know if you have any comments I do like hearing from you ^_^