Neko vid part 1: Big Rigs

6/26/18: Big Rigs

LOTS of rigging had to be done today, but it was well worth it. I had to delete all of the keyframes for the hair and tail though.

I cleaned up my workspace further so that the untouched bones of her hair are hidden and the tail is in its own separate layer box thingy.

The double IK joints came out so damn fantastic that I'm able to provide far more expression in Neko's tail. All without any glitchiness to watch out for now! I finished the stream applying this new setup to her hair and it shows high promise for better control.

I had such flexibility that I added a comedic tail bap on Rin's head! Now I know development has been slow, but all of these rigging fixes are worth it for how long this video will be. I don't want to redo 3+ minutes of video for hair. That dope sheet is looking pretty complex at this point and I'm just getting started. Speaking of, I'm worried about framerate in Blender. I'm getting 14 fps or so in this scene. Must be all of the imported objects... but nah. Other creators make massive houses in Blender on Pcs matching mine. I have to find the performance leak. Not too high a priority right now since I'm used to MMM's low framerate editing and Blender has stupidly fantastic keyframe editing tools just incase it comes out too fast in UE4.

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6/25/18: Reactions and Standing up

I feel like Neko IA has so many little things to pay attention to that I have to take longer than expected even for a small part like this.

I have Rin do a double-take while Neko IA goes into a sort-of innocent cat posture as she turns to see Rin. The getup animation sucked to work on for Rin because her hands aren't setup like the feet where the IK joints can point where the feet face. This is yet another problem that took a bunch of extra time to fix. On top of that:

It looks like going back and fixing these rigging issues might be in my best interest. Setup their hands to have tips for the IK to point it at, then fix Neko's hair and tail for multiple IK joints. Maybe 2 IK each. Now that I think about it, if I set up those to be like the feet as well... I could have a lot more control over how they move since I can exactly point where I want the tips to face.

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6/21/18: Height Swap

The animation just got good.

Here we see the result of the first size changes.

It looks like they completely swapped heights. That wasn't planned, but the animation looks so smooth for both that I'm rolling with it. I decided to focus on changes their size 1 at a time. It amplifies their changes and allows you to focus on 1 person at a time. Good stream. Next one should be about getting all of the objects into UE4 so I don't have to worry about them. Or probably just continue animating without them for a little while.

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6/20/18: Duel

I don't know about you guys, but if I ever lock eyes with someone and we're both about to pull something out of a bag, it turns into a western duel!
It's a personal addition that I think adds a ton of personality to the relationship between the two girls. (Don't want them flat as boards only doing gts content like a robot)

Huzzah! Treats for the feast!

Both have begun to chow down on their snacks! The more I look at the dope sheet, the more I realize how complicated my animations have gotten. I'm just glad that the swapping of treats part was handled beautifully in Blender. Looks absolutely natural compared to having to freeze the video and edit it in Hitfilm Express. This also means that it can be VR accessable too. I can't wait to learn techniques for that!

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6/19/18: Treats

So by now, you may notice that I don't have the bags in yet. They're... weird. There's like 3 layers of the same bag within one.

It's interesting animating 2 characters at once. You can only take a few steps before moving on to the other character again. I'm up to them sharing their treats right now.

So here we can see the bags in Blender.

And now the items inside! Here we have Neko's gift, the shrink juice for Rin.

And now the grow treat from Rin. (There's multiple of each, btw) This is the exact same treat from Movie Night! So that's a nice extra... treat.

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6/18/18: Moving Forward

Rin gives a hello to an annoyed Neko IA.

Rin takes a moment to look at the television for some lore and time placement. (This is after Pool Remix and we see some aftermath on the TV as well as how the bubblegum appears to work) This will be the only cut for the youtube version of showing the tv before cutting back to the main two. I'm trying to keep this all in 1 shot for VR compatibility.

Neko IA takes her moment grab her own treat bag while Rin isn't looking. (Trying to reach quickly in a comedic fashion)
I'm halfway done with her reaching at this point, but it looks great!

6/15/19: Patchwork and Continuing Animation

Not much to show for this Friday since I was dedicating a lot of time to fixing the leg judders in both models. Unfortunately, patching both models this day took a long time due to having to redo most of the animation I had.
I did get a little bit further onwards to just after the surprise reaction but it's only about 1 second and I might alter it when I get back to it.
The main thing to take away about this week is that the bug is gone and nothing like that will ever stop me again.
(Except if I ever attempt to try to get the hair physics to work on their own again. The joints between each physics capsule don't extend as the capsules change size, so the physics shrivel up the bigger the girl gets)


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6/14/18: The Bug is Solved!

Unfortunately, it requires reanimating quite a few things. (Good thing I didn't progress any further)
It must be treated like a virus or corruption.
I have to make brand new IK bones whenever I import an mmd model into Blender now.
I must delete the keyframes on Rin's right foot completely (I tested using her left) with zero traces of the original IK bones. Then do all this for Neko IA as well. No other ways around this.

And yes. This virus bug DID in fact jump over to my fresh bones last time because I forgot to delete the old keyframes first. Scary.

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Remind me to turn off compression for better video and screenshot quality in UE4.

I'm surprised that nearly everything has worked out! The models import into UE4 with their textures, being set in the exact place from Blender, and mostly everything is perfect.

Except for 1 major bug. A judder that happens in the legs at random times. I know it has something to do with hip rotation and the way the export process happens because it only shows up in UE4. If I can get past it, I don't even care if I have to animate hair myself. That's nowhere near as frustrating.

This actually looks great before I've even touched specific lighting and post processing! I have a feeling that I can make that couch sink in by using soft bodies, but I'm going to experiment bringing the environment back from Blender later. That couch is gonna get screwed up.