Sunday Progress Report (Patreon)

Hello :D it's Sunday, time to let you all know what I've been up to this week.

Small note to anyone new, WIP animation can look rough, things clipping, movement missing etc. (it's the same if you see any WIP of any cg animation.) Everything needs to go through this stage to eventually be good 

I've done some very early WIP blocking on the fox giving the otter some nice licks :P I'm planning on finishing that up this week and getting it rendered by next Sunday. (and there is a 4k still in the attachments :)

Also included is a second (far rougher) feasibility test of the fox shoving his whole muzzle in.(Thinking of keeping this as an alt take and not putting it in the full animation as some may not like how extreme it is.) 

Big thing achieved this week is the full solution to a problem I've been dealing with since I started, Slow rigs 

Animation rigs are the system used for driving characters, the speed of the animation rig determines how fast everything else can be done. The Staying In Eating Out viewport playback was in the single digits. this made working a chore and reviewing at full speed required a viewport capture (playblast)

Recently I completely reworked the body rig, and because I wanted to get some animations done, I kept the face rigs(and they slowed everything down when used), now they've been completely redone. Results, 35FPS for Single characters 24FP for two together incl facial animation ^_^  

The new rig has the full expressive range of the old one (and I added some niceties I was missing before) they are also designed similarly to the body rigs. Modular, fully rebuildable (for quick fixing and iteration) and very flexible.

What do I mean by flexible? take a look at 'WIP_face_rig_demo_alt_fox' image in the attachments where I was playing with the new rig and seeing how I could reshape the face. No sculpting involved, this is purely manipulation of the new rig.(it's not perfect and the fur breaks a bit) Once all characters are on this new system I might go and mock up some alt designs, touch up with a bit of sculpt work, fix the fur and change up the color schemes then well look at that, a new character :D 

Again, this coming week I'll work more on the lick loop and I'm aiming to have it rendered and posted next week. I'll also be doing a bit of work to see if I can get the new body and face rig rolled out to another character, maybe the yeen then I can get to finishing off his new updated groom.