Loving Prayer (WIP Scene)

Although my new lineup of Dragonkin character models is not yet entirely finished (I'm struggling with rigging still), while moving over my old work to the new engine I started working on a new environment/scene. To show it off, I turned it into a cutscene, for which a friend of mine made a sweet little animation loop.

A Loving Prayer to the Dragoness

Though it's still very WIP, here I'm making an altar dedicated to Allmother.

Allmother is the Dragon Goddess of life and pleasures. She is the central figure in Dragotheria universe, with her followers reaching to the furthest corners of Astral Planes. I can't wait to be able to worldbuild more of her story… but that will have to wait.

For now, there is just a lonely Dragonkin praying to her, but this place surely needs to be more populated in the future!

Also, I recently met Keena (Furaffinity, Discord: Keena#4181) in Second Life, she is an animator who makes all sorts of things for SL. She generously made a quick, sweet little animation loop for my Dragonkin guy! And all that while I haven't even finished the control rig for my characters (it's a big pain to animate without one). I then took that animation loop and added a few fancy camera cuts, using that opportunity to learn Unreal Movie-making toolset a bit more, for reasons…

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YOU CAN VIEW THE ANIMATION ON MY TWITTER
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I want to make more videos like this, but Twitter is not a good platform - bad quality and I want them to be only for your eyes (Patron-exclusive).
But I just don't know where else to upload such videos so they could be viewed without downloading! Maybe you know of a place for that? If you do, please leave a comment!

Unreal Engine 5 is MOIST AND DELICIOUS

The scene is very much work-in-progress still, but here is a closer look on some details from it so far.

NANITE ROCKS

While I could use hyper-detailed realistic megascan assets to create the scene, I chose not to. I'm going for a smoother stylized look for both characters and environments. I want even the rocks look cozy and sexy - all to augment the main theme of my universe.

PAINTERLY SHADER

I got inspired by Puss in Boots: The Last Wish movie and decided to recreate its painterly look - this brings a cool new visual aesthetic and simplifies my texturing work even more! And of course, it's not just a simple texture - it's all procedurally generated using the shaders I write.

IN-ENGINE MODELING

I can't express how much of new positive changes this new engine brings. After starting working on a new scene, I realized that I just feel myself free again - a feeling long forgotten since my young days of making maps for Unreal Tournament 2004, Serious Sam, Half-Life 2 and Team Fortress 2. Graphics was much simpler back then, but the editors offered a lot of freedom to create because of that simplicity. Now, with Nanite technology, it brings it back - no thinking about polygon count, no UV maps, no baking textures… you just sculpt whatever you imagine! It is such an amazing feeling!

And most importantly, I can model directly in-engine now. This bridge took me like 15 minutes to sculpt, no import or export needed! Now I just want to spend more time making more objects like this, to fill this scene (and the world) with the products of my imagination... I'll get to it soon...

ALLMOTHER STATUE

I made this sculpt of Allmother for a paintover back in 2018, and now I just imported it into the engine. While I haven't finished this statue of her yet, I still can't get over having an ability to import any raw ZBrush sculpt into the engine - and it looks so gorgeous without ANY textures (it's just white)! Though there is more work on the statue needed (the pedestal is just blocked out with cubes).

ESSENCE MILKING

I still have to dip my paws (and beak) deep into fluid simulations in Unreal Engine 5 - that will be a big undertaking, but I'm always filled to the brim with exciting ideas for the lore of Dragotheria.

Astral is not a place that does not support living beings, it is a place of spirits and souls, echoes and memories of material realities. Or, rather, so it was before the Great Dragons made Astral their new home - their mysterious powers have converted this ethereal place into something tangible, infusing it with their Essence. Now, their brood, the Dragonkin, carry this ancient powerful seed within them. With its limitless applications, producing it is a sacred rite for many Allmother followers…

What's next for this scene?

I plan to add waterfalls, water bodies, and lots of vegetation to the scene, It's not going to stay just an arid desert (although that should stay outside of this canyon) - It is a scene of a lush oasis… The Mischievous Oasis!

I will also need to continue to work on the background scenery to make it look like on my old concept art.

New Body Plans

An update for the modular character rig that I've been working on for the past few months. Aside from a lot of maintenance and boring (but much needed) changes, I introduced a couple of new core Dragonkin types - the Eastern Dragon (longograde) and Lizard-like (sprawlograde).

Back to Second Life

Another small news, I've been getting back to SL and I intend to resume making things for it again in the near future. It soon will get a major update - new rendering engine changes (physically-based lighting and materials) making this old social platform looking modern - which I'm very excited for!

To remember how it's done, I purchased a BRDMRT Griffin avatar and made him a juicy cloaca - took me a couple days, but I had a lot of fun with it - streaming my modeling process on our Discord server. 

People keep messaging me asking if I could list it on the SL store… Perhaps I should!

I'm holding out for a game till the end of the night

Pretty pictures and animation videos is not the reason why I'm making this scene in Unreal. I still want to make a game for everyone to download and enjoy. Though, as you are well aware, trying to get there has been my worst nightmare for many years now. But… I may soon have a solution to that. I have analyzed my mistakes and realized my strengths. I also think that doing a few side-projects helped me feel my way again.

I'm now laying a new course for all of us to go forward as a community of Dragon-lovers. It might not uphold all my past naïve, unexperienced promises, but I'm sure it will put us on a much better, exciting direction. This post (and a few previous ones) are alike to milestones on this path.

First, and most importantly, I had to figure out a process of creating lots of appealing characters quickly. I think I succeeded: these new characters now take me a few days to make, while the old ones took me a couple of months to sculpt, and they even weren't as customizable.

Next step will be for me to focus on worldbuilding and creation of environments again - the goal of my projects is to immerse people in my beloved Dragon world… But how can one artist create it all? Every day I keep thinking how to get our project to the level where continuous development will be possible, like I always wanted it to be, no more waiting years for a build. Even if it's an unfinished place to just wander around in - it should be ready for a playable build.

I need to have an ability to populate my world over time with content: things to read, new lewd animations, characters, places to explore. Even If the game is lacking in content initially, I think it will be good enough if you could at least already just find a lewd illustrated in-game book that introduces various Dragon deities - each based around a special kink… And maybe you can even go to their altars to leave them an offering - your own, gently milked Essence?

With lots of Dragon Love,
   - SalirethS.