I can't believe I actually hit this goal tonight.
Like I thought this would take a 2nd day!
Maybe I CAN animate this by the end of the month.
Although Makoto vid would need to get there too.
Boy. I got work to do. But it's excellent that i'm hitting where I plan to!
Remastered Edit:
1. Fixed her neck!
2. So when I worked on this speedrun, I wondered what exactly I was missing as Tae's general skin looked kinda lifeless to me.
I saw a post by EXTRATHICC on Twitter with quite a bit of colorful skin tone in the 3d anime face and asked how he did it.
(https://twitter.com/extrthic/status/1580961206701289472)
He said he usually used 2 subtle lights with different brightness and color to achieve it. (Blender cycles aside, they're very careful with their lighting)
Then it clicked for me. I've been using diagetic light that mostly makes sense cinematically with the environment, but NOT to specifically color Tae. Maybe I forgot because it was a speedrun, but now it's cemented in my head as VERY important to making a character feel more alive!
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Tae decided to test a curious serum that appeared at her door. She's shocked yet VERY interested in studying these results!
But where did this serum even come from?
This speedrun took 5 hours.
Hopefully I can reduce that time by like an hour or so for the next render!
And as you can see here, i'm not gonna be holding back the lewding as much.
And now the tricky part. Make a short video for her by the end of this month to release on Patreon.
2022-10-09 18:04:42 +0000 UTC View PostThe Mega Monthly Poll has had some interesting twists and turns!
I've counted the current results from voters so far!
Halfway results:
Shantae- 25
Selvaria- 36
Jack-O- 48
Sandstorm- 2
MM Poll closes end of Saturday!
Your vote here will count TWICE!
The first Monthly Mega Poll is here!
This poll lasts a week.
1st place gets a short video.
All unchosen characters move on to next month.
Last place will be removed from the selection.
The first Monthly Mega Poll is here!
This poll lasts a week.
1st place gets a short video.
All unchosen characters move on to next month.
Last place will be removed from the selection.
Despite a bunch of weird parenting issues with that motorcycle, I was able to get the blocking for the last part done!
Lately I've been far less reliant on motivation to keep me going with a project. Inspiration is great for starting a project, but not finishing them. So I'm focused now on discipline by setting a goal I need to reach and do what I can to get there.
A few 5 hours and now a 7 hour stream later, I think I've restored that aggressiveness I used to have!
I want to finish this animation by Halloween. Because that's a perfect release date for Patreon!
Next month is around the corner for switching it up here. So this Blender WiP still deserves to be on all tiers like the previous ones since it's the same project.
As we can see, my retrowave coloring is out in force tonight.
So Part 4's environment is gonna be a bit crazy, but also split up in levels rather than as 1 whole connected thing. I'm testing if this can make the city feel huge without it actually being that way.
It will also involve a big ass chase scene where Makoto will act as the truck from Sonic Adventure 2! That's gonna be scary af yet awesome! Who's she chasing and why? Yet to build the room for that!
These images are using part 2 as placeholder animation to test scaling.
By the end of this i'm gonna know building destruction inside and out!
The ending to this was a massive teacher on learning RBD Labs.
I hit quite a few roadblocks, but I got through it and now I think I have MUCH more of a handle on destruction stuff in Blender.
What has surprised me though is that Unreal Engine 5's framerate tanks when the destruction plays. It hasn't done that before. I did turn off casting shadows and I think that solved a lot of it. Still wonder what that was.
Anyways, this preview has Part 3 mostly done! I just need to go back and fix up some extra rooms and physics to be pushed around. But i'd like to start part 4 and get this project closed quicker.
2022-09-14 22:21:38 +0000 UTC View PostI am moving away from long-form videos to be able to spend more time on my animated show, Reus Vanguard.
https://twitter.com/Stratoluxurious
So instead I'll be releasing weekly renders and a monthly short video with a character that will be chosen by a new addition to my Patreon, the Monthly Mega Poll.
So, shorter videos focusing directly on the action, but the character gets chosen by you, the patrons!
There will also be new tiers to accommodate the new quantity of releases, the 1$ tier will be turned into a tip jar and the new 3$ tier will give you access to vote in the Monthly Mega Poll.
Here's the new list of tier benefits:
1$ - Tip Jar, Images & Updates
3$ - Blender WIPs + 1 Vote in Monthly Mega Poll
5$ - Blender + UE5 WIPs + 1 Vote in Monthly Mega Poll
15$ - WIPs + Early Access + 2 Votes in Monthly Mega Poll
30$ - WIPs + Name in Video + Early Access + 3 Votes in Monthly Mega Poll
Tiers are getting renamed to match these.
Makoto vid will still be worked on, but obviously it's gotten pretty damn long so it will be the last of the long ones for awhile.
2022-09-13 16:55:01 +0000 UTC View Post
MAN this shot. I gotta try this again in the future when I learn more about doing these destruction simulations!
Hopefully with less fps sinking!
And maybe plan ahead better where the invisible wall doesn't hold onto any floor chunks. Surprisingly looks meh, but it's ok for now. Gotta keep moving forward.
Edit: WOW I was tired! Part 3, I meant part 3!
I apparently didn't keep track of my mom's birthday today, but I snuck a bunch of animation work for Makoto vid part 3.
(Will have to rectify relation tomorrow with her)
It's close to done animation wise, but still stuff to do here and there. So here's a Blender preview of everything part 3 has to offer before Part 4 begins!
I wanted this to really focus on close quarters again because it really is a blast to do cramped scenarios. And then ending this part with a multi-room side view that will have destruction and lighting flowing all around. Man, I really must hate myself to try this shot with how much destruction is involved, but it's fine! It's a really sick shot!
Also a first try for some NPC's after a long time. Some fun with them and they didn't take too long to implement like Diane vid did thanks to duplicating Maruki.
As for skin color, everyone will have that corrupted look on them. Just not atm in Blender.
Alright. This part took a long time due to my diet but I believe i've solved everything as this is like the 2nd week in a row where I can't sleep because of too much energy and it rocks! Let's get started!
Starting off! We have Makoto ducking under a door unused to her size. I always imagined the part being longer but it's all good. It leads into a Spielberg-like shot where the camera zooms towards the character's face as the audience wonders what they're looking at.
Right after we show the corrupt bunny she must face, Makoto goes into a standoff position. (I seem to love those) Great moment for a butt shot here cuz DAYUM.
It leads right into a Makoto reference pose right into Sean Connery's James Bond shooting style. Taken right from From Russia with Love. LOVED that game!
Ah damn. Need to fix the motion blur again. But this is absolutely a Matrix moment where the character sorta splits apart as she dodges bullets.
Annnnd I got challenged by a buddy to somehow fit Ginyu Force poses. SOMEHOW I got it done!
The recombining is so interestingly grotesque yet cool!
Annd I forgot to rotate the tire for the animation. That's ok, next pass along with effects. Originally i wanted to have FIVE SHADOWS in this hallway with a whole fight scene, but that's when I discovered my energy failing. Despite completely altering the original idea, this has a lot more variety for Makoto to interact with in her toolset. Still, one day.
A viewer in my chat suggested for the bunny girl to split into 3 smaller bunny girls and this greatly helped me with Makoto's growth smash scenes.
The hand reaches towards the screen with my inspiration being a video I saw on 3d animations needing more depth towards the screen like Arcane. REALLY effective and will use the technique in the future!
You can really feel her hugeness by how much screen space she takes up. I usually try to showcase everything but sometimes the character not fitting in the screen makes them feel huge.
SMASHING!
I actually fully animated the bunny on the top right of the screen swinging over to naturally land on Makoto's boot. Did I need to? No. Surprisingly could've taken a shortcut there. I'm wondering if I should drop 360 VR so that I can be a bit more free with my approach for animations and VR gets an expanded view like 180 degree Ms. Marvel. I should do that.
So this shot is interesting despite seemingly doing absolutely nothing. It's a static-ish shot from a regular person's perspective in height. This way we don't always see Makoto's size from the ground or smaller to extend it, but instead that she's actually too damn big un-exaggerated. As if you just walked into the room to see this.
SMASHING! Loved adding some environment details like crushing the vents and shaking the lamp to show her power.
Alright! End of the part so what's next for part 3?
Well a few rooms being vertically cleaved as Makoto bursts ever upward!
2022-07-31 09:27:05 +0000 UTC View Post
I've been dealing with low energy issues all year so this part was being done like 1-2 hours at a time each stream. Which totally sucked!
Found out it was my fasting diet and not the myriad of other irl issues.
So NOW I can get back to enjoying working on stuff for more than 2 hours at a time! (Even tonight i've been going from 7pm to... well it's 2am, can't sleep, and I FEEL GREAT!!!!)
Let's start with the vibe of this video. It's gonna be VERY different than all of my previous with setting place within the Metaverse in Persona 5. On top of that, I wanted to mix in Daredevil, Sifu, and The Batman. The reason it's a bit lower contrast is to make sure the darks are bright. Admittedly it requires some tweaking but also more environmental color instead of just blacks and red.
Is this gonna still be like a usual giantess video or is it gonna feature more combat?
Oh this is gonna be right up there for giantess stuff, but it's built on VENGEANCE! Part 2 extremely picks up the size as this first part was a taste to get used to different things. But I also want this to not be something 100% domination like a usual vid. So i'm adding instances where it's earned and Makoto needs a breather and all that. Grounding aspects.
And yet I cannot escape my nature for comedy. These doors will never open correctly! Also Persona 4 reference that helps with the lighting.
Seeing this was the first sign of maybe I should cut the motion blur setting in half. Anyways, the scarf is actually pretty massive here and custom animated to flick just right, but the camera pans up a bit late. Might fix that later. Wanted a cool landing pose after a flip kick. The needle on her arm is meant to be a growth drug thing. I'm still putting the story together but growth drugs and serums being crafted in the Metaverse are a huge part of it.
It's quite tricky to find a good shot where you can see the character's scale before and after their growth. I still feel like this is a bit far but not that bad either.
I knew I needed to start adding BE and AE at some point for my videos. I'm still a classic body kind of person but the little amount that i'm adding are gonna have a huge focus so it's not missable and disappointing.
I may not be an ass man, but this scene makes it easy to reconsider. Also latex pull snap is always great!
I did research into Makoto's fighting stance a bit. This scene takes into account how she transitions into it and everything. I don't think she actually practices Akido.
The first genuinely creepy entrance. No emotions or anything and intimidatingly tall. Ah shadows. Well I tried looking for normal civilians but Noooo. People only created 1 bone with a few poses for them. So I opted to "corrupt" side characters by muting their everything and giving glowing red material for the eyes. WORKS GREAT!
Another reminder to make sure Makoto looks at the camera instead of to the right of it.
Wanted that Terminator effect with the eyes turning on in the background.
It's kinda freeing to animate something creepy. It's like anything you do works. Even Makoto is clutching her chest out of gutted response. Forgetting her new assets are there.
There's not too much noticeable jiggle in this part but I hope next part becomes much more obvious.
This side shot is interesting. I had to hide the wall and rooms that used to be there in order to get it. Actually might've been THE hardest shot to do since it also includes that damn first broken bottle. NOTHING WOULD WORK for a whole day while trying to do destruction on that thing. And when it DID work, the bottle would just fall straight down most of the time. I think I got it though as the next one wasn't bad at all.
This over-motion blurred shit right here that i'll fix later. This shit took a whole day to animate. If the character would simply parent her neck to Makoto's arm it could've gone faster, but no. Bugs. So I had to manually animate their positioning with each other each moment. There were a lot of double shots this time and I think entering this might be the most jarring one. But despite that I was READY. 2 cameras in a master sequence is the way to go! Having everything in the animation be able to be cut and moved around the timeline made double shots a breeze. And the 2 camera setup completely removed the motion blur 1st frame issue as I swapped whenever there was a cut.
But the palette destruction turned out pretty nice as well as the manual scarf animation. The palette, if I remember, was imported, then mesh was duplicated and saved all transforms once unparented from the empty placing it there. Then parent it back into the original position. Then pray RBD Labs would stop teleporting it away or making it disappear when adding destruction to it. Then it worked and I was able to add a single bone for all the pieces to parent to.
After some study, i've learned that I cannot kick up bottles. Also, there's a sphere collider in front of the shadow's body for the physics to collide into. Because the broken bottle destroyed the original's animation, I re-used another bottle and parented it to the object in UE5. Then a swap of hide and unhide to make it look right.
This is the glitchiest kick i've ever dealt with. It was during this moment I learned I need to put the ik at the ball of the foot for faster animating and DON'T parent anything ik INSIDE edit mode. Use the ik constraint modifiers. They're far more stable.
The scarf was also somewhat manually animated here. Gravity collider did this cool shit where the scarf spun as she did her kick and I kept it and polished it. It kinda vortexed up and away so manual animation for awhile here.
I was thinking of Dark Souls here with the slow lumbering camera and the ominous movements of the boss. Would love to do more like this. Also this entire video had a plan that went right out the window multiple times AS I was animating it. Next time i'm storyboard every damn step. But since I can't draw with that much detail, i'm gonna... i'll figure something out. I finished this part because of taking pictures in Sifu as my storyboard.
Something I learned about cinematic camerawork lately is that they cut to make the story and reactions make sense. Not missing ANYTHING. There's a huge difference between animating in Blender without a camera to get the timing right. Because it makes me focus on VR so they can see everything wherever they choose to look. Cinematic camerawork is the exact opposite of this method. You're shown exactly where you NEED to look every single time without missing a thing. I still love wide shot fighting though. But that's choreographed for that. This part definitely had me scrambling for what kind of fighting style I want to go for. I think I love how Kingsmen does it. Everything is clearly shown and we're brought through the action. Maybe a mix of Jackie Chan and Kingsmen is what i'll go for.
Here's a new shot that doesn't get too much time to focus on it because I didn't plan camerawork in Blender. Having the monster hand looming closer and closer as the camera goes with it is wicked cool!
I'm currently looking into Fluidninja and particle fx so I can get the fire effects for this part. Usual Persona stuff.
Unlike the other Personas, Makoto's doesn't fly!
Makoto goes through like 5 different faces in one moment so I wanted to spotlight 3 of them.
Now this right here is making me second-guess and want to figure out what the hell i'm gonna do with facial lighting. I just don't like how the light hits here. It might be easier to solve if I use one of those cel shader lights to customize this exact moment to soften the face lighting.
This is both hit and miss to me. I LOVE the idea, but what is she gonna do with those elongated claws? Scan her? Giver her a papercut with the broken outline?
Now this you can probably guess i'm practicing my Kill La Kill expressions. Nailed it.
Oh yeah, the railing. So this first broken railing actually went pretty ok with RBD Labs! No idea why! It just worked pretty well and I could carefully place the glue of how things separated.
BUT FUCK THIS SECOND RAILING. Disappearing piece of shit motherfu-. No idea why it wouldn't work right, but I switched to fracture iterator and the difference is massive in how it gets destroyed. Nothing is connected. Felt like UE Chaos. So what I did here to make it look fine was really slow down the camera for a moment and then burst the speed as Makoto hits the railing! Looks totally fine! Also the rolling wood down the steps is actually pretty damn sweet!
I was gonna have him struggling again, but I felt tired and he just got squished so maybe them both just sinking down the couch would suffice. Looks great though! Especially with that bit of red lighting! I love the depth of Makoto being up the stairs on the right too. Should have more depth-focused shots like this in the future.
2022-06-01 03:46:02 +0000 UTC View Post
WHEW!
I know there aren't any particles or FluidNinja at this time but these final weeks were battling for destruction effects in Blender.
They look fantastic every time but sometimes the setup doesn't make sense. Like a bottle will break perfectly, but the railing will crash it or disappear when using RBD Labs. But despite workflow adjustments to the new stuff, it's powerful new stuff. Although I do have fallbacks like Fracture iterator for the last railing when RBD Labs just doesn't want to work anymore.
Other workflow changes happened because of footwork. So next time I won't move feet from a heel ik but from the ball of the foot that previous ik parents to. It's like 60% faster for nearly everything. Idk why i never thought to do it before. Also the ik and pole targets shouldn't parent to anything and should use 'child of' modifiers. This will be important for limited animation usage. Even the hip isn't parented to the root directly anymore! That also uses the modifier. This adds a lot more control for swapping to fk and baking the animations into limited 'on two's' animation.
And then when I was trying to render this shit. Level instances are new powerful way for UE5 to group objects... But hiding the wall for the camera seemed to always stop working the moment rendering happened. Had to convert it into a blueprint and animating the lights individually. Still powerful but not for whole areas in scenes.
As for approach changes, storyboard and have an overall idea that's strong so I don't change ideas in the middle of making the damn thing. That was time consuming for the wall jump, as awesome as it was.
Overall, 1 week plans that have me try new things can turn into 1 month of unexpected things to get used to. The fact I haven't started yet on FluidNinja and particles makes me think that will be 1 month of learning as well because of how... different it is. Or it might click faster than I think.
I didn't expect to learn all this from a small video part about optimizing workflow, but here I am.
2022-05-28 22:12:44 +0000 UTC View Post
3 bloody days of trying to figure this out, but finally the results are looking like what I wanted. RBD Labs usage will get more advanced through each part and it ALREADY does what Chaos can't here. Which is how the wood twists off rather than just BLUAGHHHHS off the rail because of a proper constraints system.
2022-05-18 08:01:11 +0000 UTC View Post
10/31/22: Still a Jack-O Soundless to finish
I've been working on the Unreal Engine porting of the environment and destruction and Jack-O's hair all weekend. My god she has a lot of hair.
But i'm nearly done. Once I get the hair done for the last part, I can start exporting and doing everything camerawork and materials on her in Unreal. Then it's time to render. I plan on getting all that done today.
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10/27/22: Ergonomic Mouse/Compression Gloves
With this combo I feel like my mouse hand can make it through a stream actually feeling comfortable for a change!
I need to get the animation done, physics, AND the destruction then get everything to Unreal Engine. Tomorrow would be camerawork, lighting, rendering.
Then final day is sound... I could get sound/VR done next week and just release soundless due to these irl delays. We'll see.
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10/25/22: Mouse Hand Returns for animating
Man that new ergonomic mouse comes tomorrow and I can't wait! But for now I shall take tons of breaks this streams as my right hand is more ok now.
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10/23/22: Jack-O animating continued.
I know I lost my dad a few days ago, but i've gone through so much emotional exhaustion of deaths in my family that I just want to work.
Focusing on lollipop and second part of this animation.
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10/17/22: Jack-O animating start
My right mouse hand is suffering potentially from carpal tunnel despite doing everything right for posture and position. It needs a break.
So I flipped my room around to use a stylus in my lefty hand to work. Also lots of voice attack for shortcuts.
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10/1422: Jack-O render
Starting to think I might need to work weekends for Makoto vid.
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10/11/22: Jack-O rigging and blocking.
Maybe I should put the name of what I was doing in these bookmark titles because that would be insightful context.
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10/10/22: This time i'm working on a side-render for Patreon and getting to the short video for Jack-O.
I'm gonna time myself on these. I wanna make sure I can get to at least blocking out the Jack-O short animation today within a small amount of time. But that's if things go well.
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10/7/2022: Let's finish off this main animation so we can get it all to UE5!
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10/5/22: I've got a few hold poses to animate which is kind of... a weakness of sorts for me. I like being active more than small adjustments but i'll give it my best!
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10/4/22: I hope to finish all the animation conversion by the end of this week so that the rest of the month is based on the side stuff like Destruction, editing, music and sound.
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9/3022: Just found Patreon post pinning so I can keep track of these bookmark livestream things right on top!
Well today WAS gonna be fighting with getting the car rig into UE5 but I solved it right before I streamed so now it's just getting some animation stuff into UE5.
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9/29/22: Apparently i've been doing this for 5 years... Man... Wow... I don't want to think about that.
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9/28/22: Man, this year is going fast. But after some practice in Part 2 with blocking turned to animation, it should go- nope, i'm not gonna jynx it. Let's just have a good time animating today
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9/26/22: Alright, time to finish off this blocking for the ending.
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9/21/22: Let's be aggressive today with an early start! Yesterday I was learning a bunch to figure out car rigging and found a plugin that fits me!
RIGACAR - (FREE)
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9/19/22: Long day, but let's see how discipline works out. I'm gonna try to finish the room scene tonight.
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9/17/22: It's Saturday, but I want to work!
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9/16/22: Beginning part 2 after figuring out some scenes and swapping some characters and ideas. (Also it looks like I skipped a week but that was all finishing destruction for part 3 and I can't stream due to cpu getting sucked up by OBS)
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9/8/22: After finding a workaround for the horrible RBD Labs bug I got, now it's time to move on forward and start using that destruction in the scene.
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9/7/22: Been one hell of a week in terms of background progress, but now it's time to truly face RBD Labs and know what i'm doing with it!
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9/2/22: Feeling good this consistently for animating can't be healthy.
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9/1/22: "Chief. What are you doing with that PC at 11pm?"
"Streaming, Sir"
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8/31/22: Hot damn do I feel good tonight! Let's GO!
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8/22: I've cut down my schedule to just 2 big things now. Usual gts videos and the big project. Will be more consistent streaming moving forward.
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8/19: So I have all this energy and took like a week away, wtf right? So I naturally took up doing more things all at once and found my limit there. I've returned after cutting out most of those things so I can just focus on Patreon stuff and my big series still going on in the background. (Thankfully i'm not building a whole ass city for 2 years anymore and figured out a new approach)
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I've been doing some work in the background to fill in the environment that wasn't there while I was busy with other stuff. Should help get this part off the ground faster.
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There I go again. Near the end of the month to post part 2.
Thankfully i've been working on it in the background here and there as I was learning to actually recharge my energy and yet was also busy for the past 2 weeks.
So what's left today is animating the extra bunny girls. Then that's it for part 2. Sure I should add effects, but that's a bit later.
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"Back to it all refreshed". Wow, what a bozo underneath me. Pretending to be refreshed after not analyzing what the problem actually is. Today, I believe forgetting my current diet to prepare my brain with enough charged energy to work is gonna be the way forward. Not... doing nothing feeling like nothing.
Can't use energy that's not there!
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Man, sorry. Busy irl weeks lately so it's time to get back to this now refreshed!
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May as well get the camerawork out of the way as this scene is still wip. I've been going through a lot of doubts in myself lately, but it seems that happens to even the best of directors as they work on every project. (I've been watching Steven Spielberg interviews lately)
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A bit of a first time for me using the blocking method. Let's truly see if everything timing wise is as hoped and animating at any point I want to is truly possible with it!
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Who knew cutting down a complex idea could actually be beneficial to being more creative with ONE enemy to make them more memorable?
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I'll talk about the changes once I block out the new part 2 version so you can see the differences. But overall, I got too ambitious going the wrong way and focusing too much on combat in a hallway. I know that's not what we're here to see and I don't want there to be 3 minutes of bullshit before getting to the growth and more epic parts. So part 2 is getting completely changed for the better.
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First thing, i'm going back to the camera settings that allowed the stream picture above. I just like that way more.
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Ok, got held up by customizing the scarf animation. Now let's keep it moving
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Backup link!
https://piczel.tv/watch/AZmaybe9
"Oh, it's just gonna be a week", I said.
"Destruction is gonna be easy to relearn in Blender", I said.
"The fighting animation is gonna be the easy part", I said.
"Coming up with a method to work with limited animation should be easier in Blender", I said.
"Finding the spots you lose speed at should be easy to recognize", I said.
All this has me thinking though that at least making this into parts helps feel like there's finality to finishing the part. The next scene can have all the improvements rather than the next animation. Will part 2 be faster despite ramping up in different areas? Maybe yes and no. It's at least just a hallway and the new ik position will make footwork vastly easier. Let's just get past this part first.
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Man did researching RBD Labs for 3 days straight absolute whoop me. Hopefully I can figure out to work on something today.
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Second Half storyboarded with pictures from Sifu. Let's Goooooo!
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So I intially was like, "YEAH, let's do this like old times! Just me and animating! Whoo!"
But now I realize what slows me down. My ambition keeps indecisively one-upping itself AS I animate without a solid plan. So without a storyboard, i give myself too much room to think. Especially for a fight scene.
Now i'm back to storyboarding the 2nd half after completely ignoring my original idea going into this because flipping over the tall shadow and flipping it back sounded "COOL". It took an entire day to animate that and that's where I found that I misstepped on this.
Shitty storyboards are here to stay!
I should learn to draw.
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A cool idea I want to go for here is to build and release this in shorts episodically.
Which means i'm gonna work on and finish the first part of this video and release the silent version. Then work on the next part and finish it for silent release.
Instead of the video being completely connected in a full motion like Beidou where everything must be done at the same time for completion, it'll be separated by scenes like a movie and put together later on with sound and VR. What this should do is get content out vastly quicker for Patreon in 30 second to 1 minute bites that are connected.
I still get to do the quick videos I want to try while still working on the long videos in a ways.
2022-04-12 00:27:33 +0000 UTC View Post
Youtube is taking awhile to process this, but VR was about downloading it anyways.
This is 360 Monoscopic vr and I tested it working in DeoVR. (Which crashes a lot now, yikes. Maybe I should get that desktop vr thing on Steam)
VR: https://mega.nz/file/DT4yAQjJ
Key: N4_7BBzmFsUt3vVlpdnt9M_a-13BeBwuGK-Ut939cCE
First Person: https://mega.nz/file/zfIWSZZa
Key: nC0Nv7_T6stqcm1-bO8wEtWkVzYYYusLaS_jEigSLjY
Main: https://mega.nz/file/aS4wBKAT
Key: jqb9rbkomJ_ATZAFA83z0eATJLw5ZvoUawUbJsL6pWQ
2022-03-31 05:43:07 +0000 UTC View Post
With this finished, now I gotta get to work on the VR version!
Idk about you guys, but I don't think i've seen enough first person gts videos near anything like this! I gotta start adding consistent side characters and crowds in the future because those streets are looking empty. All in good time. I'll figure it out.
2022-03-25 23:56:17 +0000 UTC View Post
It's done. Just woah, what!?
The main video is... DONE!?
So the timer can start and I gotta get to work on finishing the other versions!
First Person and VR!
I also finally found a technique for grabbing all patron names in the relationship manager. Just scroll select directly from there! The CSV download text thing is too much of a mess to use!
2022-03-25 04:46:11 +0000 UTC View Post
Now everything is put together! I can get to doing sound using the correct frame-rate and timing with the double-shots added in.
The next time I go back to render will add screenshake, fix 1-frame blur transitions, 4k, and add in the high tier patron names!
Fun fact, the heel growth shot required the destruction to be removed because it completely blocked the camera! (So that's gonna be a 3rd render in the final)
2022-03-08 21:41:53 +0000 UTC View Post
Today didn't go as planned at all so I took some time to do a bit of camerawork for the double-shots of Beidou. There's quite a few!
The under-the-heel growth shot is recently inspired by my hangouts in Neos VR. (Way better than VRChat in terms of size fun) And MAN does it work wonders here! Didn't even plan on it lining up but it did anyways! Clearly this shot was meant to happen!
2022-03-06 04:29:12 +0000 UTC View Post
I never thought I'd see the day to get to this point. Many failures, burnout, questionable and inconsistent Chaos destruction physics/research, new rebuilding buildings techniques, creating a wire cutting technique that totally shouldn't be used for the future since it's too complex, working on a massive project in the background, extending this vid to have a beginning, and some of the worst irl months i've had of recent.
Despite all of that against me, I arrive all the same.
I still have secondary shots, then vr and first person, as well as add to the vid some more, but this soundless version is a pillar of completeness!
It's all much easier from here on out.
2022-02-23 00:46:23 +0000 UTC View Post
Now with the entire added beginning!
Still gotta get to facial expressions, but yeah. Definitely more to go back and polish.
But I worked pretty hard to get this out before the month was over.
After 8 hours of straight work, I am very tired.
Edit: Part where she stops and kinda raises her hands will involve her getting stopped by wire lanterns before growing to break through. As that's a whole 'nother process for just 1 wire set, I left it out for now.
2022-01-29 11:38:10 +0000 UTC View Post
With the recent beginning extension, i've added a few more clumsy interactions.
Some stuff inspired by Bowsette and others like that one Gts jeans commercial where she walks through the wires.
MAN, I should learn to draw with a dedicated focus. Maybe later.
2022-01-18 01:59:30 +0000 UTC View Post
I blame Markopolo13056 for planting the seed in my head of Beidou getting thrown out of a bar with the beer. And then I was thinking of how she could interact with things as she grows and here we are. Thankfully all of the destruction is tied to the cache so it's VERY easy to move the timing of them since they start from 1 event keyframe each.
I could also have her tank getting hit by a car and just kicking it back. Since I haven't animated much else yet and am a bit intimidated to remake another more complex building, i'd say the stars have aligned for this.
And the very reason i'm extending this backwards is because I get to animate this 'thrown out of window instant getup' gag from Scary Movie 3: https://youtu.be/HRYYMLzLN-c?t=95
2022-01-13 03:37:59 +0000 UTC View Post
I wanted to post this as an update I worked on over the weekend.
I kept trying to get the box collision to do destruction but they just don't apply any damage to crack anything. So the best solution is to use a field to blow up the area THEN collision boxes will KINDA work. I've figured it's best not to rely on collision boxes for destruction too much. Like the building destruction that happens is actually the sphere fields following the arm and crushing through the building.
Anyways, the road. Had to completely redo the road here and might have to do the sidewalk too. The road was redone with a brush geometry box then instead of having the material be this awkward mesh that wouldn't destroy as well and just float there, the road decals are now actually decals. Which surprisingly require their own material setup but it's not too much work. It also required a few more things to set up UV editing so that I could scale and move the texture around inside the decal since it was a trim of all the road decals.
As for destruction, I had to go back and relearn clustering. I was just doing something wrong with getting it all to crack correctly. What I found out was that "Cluster Group Index" is the level where your object begins destruction once that level is hit. So if you have a level 4 small destruction, the whole thing doesn't start destroying until that gets hit. And then max cluster just cuts off levels higher than it. With that in mind AND that damage threshold STILL counts and the destruction doesn't suddenly jump to level 4 and fall to pieces, then it started to really click.
This is why the road only destroying in pieces in the area I specify with that blue sphere field is so important. THE ENTIRE road is destructible! It took a bit of finagling numbers but I got something super performative out of it that doesn't suddenly destroy everything all at once.
In terms of speed, I feel like the current building destruction is fine except building number 2. I moved that building forward but it snaps back to an older location the moment the destruction happens in the top half.
But yeah, really liking the road destruction! I need to add smaller rock particles and smoke to everything still but i'm forgetting the process again since Niagara is totally not my specialty.
2022-01-10 19:32:48 +0000 UTC View PostI kinda wanted to give a 'have to work on this' update as well as a sort of 'troubles i'm solving' with the video so you guys get more of an idea of where i'm at.
First, gotta redo all of these roads with a mesh that doesn't do this thing.
Good news is that i'm sort of figuring out a way for meshes to respond to Chaos. This would be immensely useful in the future but I still kinda don't know how it works. It requires convex collision mostly but then the settings are WEIRD. No solvers and no clusters? Like how does any of it hold together for long term?
There's this white thing on all of Beidou's clothing ends. It'd be fine if it wasn't constantly flickering. I might have to redo some of her meshing or figure out what exactly is z-fighting here. I mean I know it's overlapping mesh textures but whhyyyyyy was it set up like this?
The great news is that the wire cutting workflow has gotten much easier. Still a lot of steps for my taste though, but i'm writing them down here anyways.
. Rig armature 1 way up through the line
. Extend bones down for hanging lanterns.
. Cut mesh and bones at cut area then separate them into own objects/arm
(This avoids the bones adding weights to the wrong side of the cut)
. Apply envelope transform on each mesh to each bone area
. Recombine MESH FIRST then bones
. Then do Gravity Collider and put a weight on the opposite side's box to pin it up
. Then edit the Gravity Collider to rip apart vertices at the cut area THEN make an edge connecting both sides.
(This duplicates the mesh weights on the vertex groups though so gotta edit those to be for each side rather than act as the same vertex messing up where the bones look)
. Have the 2nd side bone copy location of that new duplicated vertex so it actually moves instead of floating in the air
. FINALLY mess with the tension and dampen settings for it to look like it cuts. Might need to move the bones near the cut area so they look together again.
Is this all better than using soft bodies then duplicating a mesh to be pre-cut and swapping them out right when the cut happens and then setting the cache simulation to start right when it happens on the new meshes? Idk, but that sounds like it's a bitch to deal with in other ways too. (Like export compatibility to UE4)
Now for something that's easy and works well. The dirt ground under the road is actually all 1 landscape that's RIGHT underneath the road layer. This is Great! I can make super deep holes or impacts if I want using the landscape tools! This is much better than thinking about how the hell do I destroy the ground in the first place.
Now here's one in I THINK I can solve that. The building got moved forward lately yet the cache still moves it back when the destruction happens. That's just re-destruction at this point.
What I do want to start implementing is manual animation along with the destruction so that these levels fall. This seems to be what TONS of games do like Motorstorm: Apocalypse and Marvels Avengers' bridge scene.
Need to add stuff getting crushed down here and cars backing away. But what I DO know is that tree on the left is getting crushed.
Here's where i'm in uncharted territory. I want this to look damn good but it's just the building pieces that get destroyed. One thing i've learned lately is that most building destruction scenes in movies feature ZERO furniture on the big shot. So I wonder if I just add inside structure if that will be all i'm missing.
For destruction methods, i'm still experimenting. Anchors on each floor? Disbale fields? A BUNCH of force arrows? I know Neko vid had like... 8 arrows of force pointing outwards from the building. It's all so damn ambiguous as to what will work perfect for this or that. But at least i've reached a point where the questions are more detailed instead of like, "Wtf am I doing".
Here is where I REALLY started to learn that a lot goes into the effort for quality destruction in movies. Rebuilding this building on the left was a smart move but as you see the edges of all the destruction look kinda crap. That must be something Houdini handles extremely nicely for its cuts. Also, my cuts were based on optimization rather than building accuracy to save performance. But I DO have cache managers so maybe... maybe I should make the building destruction happen in its own level and then bring that level back into the main one? That would save a ton of editing performance with 1 hide button as well as being able to cache everything that happens in its own space.
Right now, ALL of the destruction and assets are on the same map. I might have to change that for the future if I do more than 3 buildings like I plan to. This easily tanks performance. Especially with raytracing on, damn. I'm impressed I got this far with destruction when that sucker is on!
Either way, i'll have to fill in the inside with pre-destroyed assets so that looks good too. Thankfully I bought a kit that's ALLL about that.
MAN is all this destruction interaction a LOT of work! It's been a lot of discovering workflows, optimizing, failed attempts, making a new workflow for Gravity Collider cutting wires and such, but I think you can see where this is headed! Still got lots to do and more B-side camerawork to extend the video. Wanted to get this out before Christmas.
2021-12-24 20:21:55 +0000 UTC View Post