June ProgBlog #2

I was actually intending to do this on Friday, but I was also setting up some new backup drives (my original drive was appropriated) and needed to copy the old backup from my computer (where it's currently taking up a HELL of a lot of space!) and I found out the hard way that I can't use 3d Coat and have big copy operations going at the same time because it makes my computer run out of memory.

Above is ram and swap usage with 3dC open.  Think it might have something to do with the 16k uv map I'm using.  I have 32Gb of ram.  I should probably get more.

So anyway I finally finished retopo (faster than the previous retopo) though I'm not sure how well the outer wing membranes are going to deform, hoping everything will be okay with the subd modifier cranked up.  We're apparently at 36216 polys so Blender should theoretically have an easier time with it.  Meantime as it turns out I don't hate uv mapping as much as I have previously, maybe because 3dC does it reasonably well and has very useful previews, and I kind of understand how it works now.

Now a problem I had was not being able to figure out how to get my baked maps back on there (I'm reasonably certain I baked the last batch of textures because I was experimenting with something else) but because of how I did this retopo I need to redo the displacement maps anyway so fine whatever I'll start again with a new paint object, at least 3dC kindly remembers my layers which makes things a lot easier!

Major issue here, because my ram usage is so high using the fill bucket crashes 3dC.  Good thing I'm used to painting everything by hand (which I do in Krita even though gmic filters and fill bucket would drop flats a lot quicker) even if it takes longer.

It's slightly laggy but we'll get there.  Due to 3d withdrawals I'll probably be further neglecting my poor request queuers and selfishly doing my own thing til I'm recentred again.  Sorry! :S

I still haven't managed to start the @symphonyofechoes header but I'm going to start laying it out in the hope that will trigger the rest of it to appear.

I ran some sketches past @f3nix for their avatar, and of the three the idea of the tinkerer was favoured so I'll see what I can do with that (it's going to involve many gears and trinkets and I will probably have a great time up to the point where I'm shading XD).

I probably won't make the zoom lenses that excessive either, I got slightly carried away with the sketch.

Also actually finished @bengy's upgoats a few days ago and could probably start on the other three upgoat orders, as per usual it's the name that's holding me up.

I found out I could draw while the big copy operation was in progress, and also that I've done nothing but sketchies all year (aaargh!) so decided to illustrate a scene out of the scripts.  The initial drawing is a Patreon-only post, but I'll post updates on that over the next few progblogs.