AEfter Ragnarok
Thursday streaming results
Friday, 13 January 2017 @ 10:36am
The problem with doing 3d or animation or 3d animation (for me at least) is that the works in progress shots can be exceedingly boring. I spent pretty much the entire streaming day yesterday finishing up the tail end of the rig test anim, and am currently letting it finish up a timing render which didn’t finish overnight because I forgot to turn Avi’s particles off. Oops.
I’m aware the feathers are being awkward, they will get folded down in the detail run (I need to figure out how to do feather controllers, or if there’s just a better way to rig them, they’re doing my head in). These are from the end of the test, where the three of them have a quick conversation while turning away from the camera (because I wanted to end with the My 3 pose) which then pans around to be in front of them (I do also need some panning practice).
Sunday and Monday streaming
Monday, 9 January 2017 @ 6:21pm
I’m usually streaming on Picarto on Sundays after 12 and Thursdays from 9am-3pm AWST, though lion dance season is coming up which may throw the Sunday streaming a bit. I did a random ~4hr stream today as the in-laws have a busy week this week and decided to come today rather than not coming at all because they’re awesome like that, working on an Ingress wallpaper:
Yesterday I switched up between working on the Zul’jinn concept:
New Year WIPs
Thursday, 5 January 2017 @ 11:45pm
Stuff I was working on as the year ticked over (because we apparently don’t do parties anymore).
Still working on the rig test animation, just about at the end of the blocking phase and then I go back through with the detail phase (there should only be one but there will probably be 2-3 and me trying and probably failing to stop myself). The unofficial title of the above is “YOU IDIOT”. All will become clear when I get the render out XD D is average Dragonkin height (2m tall) but I think I made Avi and Base a little bit small, should have made them 1.7m instead of 1.6.
AER roadmap goals thingi
Saturday, 31 December 2016 @ 2:39pm
Because they’re apparently useful to have and I haven’t done one forever (seeing as I’ve spent so much time redoing things). Let’s try a 5 year plan.
2017 character concept art for all characters in the first and second blocks come up with a name for the arc the first and second block are in (yes it’s been over a decade and it still doesn’t have a name). Episode names optional. build all of the things for the first ep make intro, outtro and trailers start writing second block continue writing Aidan’s blog possibly start writing script for Seamus’ storyline (comic) make AER website 2018 build all the things for the second ep see if I can interest people enough to be voice actors and run auditions -record and animate first ep character concept art for every other character I know about. Yes, all of them. keep working on second block continue with Aidan’s storyline, start Seamus’ if haven’t already 2019 with luck my build list should be a lot smaller now so should be able to build out everything else is the second block finished yet? run auditions for new parts or unreprised roles record and animate as many eps as possible to my ridiculous standards and assuming I have the hang of things by now start writing out C’inokh and Ter’wyn’s stories, decide whether they’re comic or animation 2020 build/modify all the things for second block if possible build all the things for Seamus’ comic if possible start work on second block 2021 have we finished animating and released the entirety of the first block yet? can we start producing the second block now? I suspect there might be a third block The 2018 part of the plan involving finding voice actors actually terrifies me because that involves trying to find people who might be interested. I’m actually seriously bad at the marketing side of things as I prefer people to be interested if they find it interesting and feel like even resharing from Patreon and announcing Picarto streams is “too pushy” even though I have been told I’m probably actually not pushing it enough. Everything else is stuff I would be doing anyway. Trying to work out how to get sound into the video is similarly terrifying because I’ve never done it before.
Protective
Thursday, 29 December 2016 @ 5:28pm
Lord Tsa’run, general, Inquisitor and bodyguard to High Prince Zul’jinn.
Another draw it again, the painfully cringeworthy original was done in 2003 and available for Patreons to laugh at. Redone as a sketch because it was supposed to be quick, but this way of colouring takes a while and is quite enjoyable. At this rate though AU$10 might be a bit of a bargain XD Anyway I probably just wanted to draw these two characters interacting in the original drawing so I have exactly no idea what’s going on here. Drew Tsa’run in the full military uniform and Zul’jinn in more formal gear to show development or something.
Andrew, Megan, Magellan and Andromeda
Saturday, 24 December 2016 @ 12:43pm
The twins!
Magellan and Andromeda were identical twins and very close to each other. Magellan was a bit of a wild child, Andromeda was much more sensible and down-to-earth. They were kind of background characters before so not that well developed, even though Andromeda was going steady with one of my main characters.
Andrew and Megan are not identical twins (in fact people who think that all twins are identical are usually surprised to find out they’re twins). Andrew occasionally flies into berserker rages like he’s about to do here (so don’t piss him off) and does have a bit of a short fuse; he is otherwise generally easygoing and amiable. Megan is a lot more calm and level headed which comes in handy in her line of work (she does covert ops, information gathering and diplomacy runs). Usually has at least one of her twin brother and her long-term boyfriend and less regularly her favourite girlfriend along or at least somewhere in the area as bodyguards.
Happy silly season!
Monday, 19 December 2016 @ 9:50am
“Doesn’t that make your teeth rot?”
“It’s worse when you’re with ’em!” Andrew snickered.
Zara passed Andrew another box of decorations from the bowels of the shed, surreptitiously observing Dakarai and Megan being cute at each other on the other side of the garden. The bright orangey yellows of the Christmas bush caught her eye. Around this time of year, especially among the people that celebrated Christmas, there seemed to be a tradition of kissing under mistletoe. The whys were lost in the annals of time (unless one cared to look of course). Andrew’s ears perked up as Zara’s trademark cheeky grin suddenly crossed her face.
Its gonna be okay
Thursday, 15 December 2016 @ 6:50pm
“No matter what you’ve been through, here you are, no matter if you think you’re falling apart, it’s gonna be okay!” ~The Piano Guys: Okay
Families are supposed to stick together, no matter what. If you can’t rely on your own blood, who can you rely on? Unfortunately some people are not cut out for parenthood. Andrew was always a difficult, headstrong, stubborn and short-tempered child, unlike his sweet-natured sister. He grew into a difficult, headstrong, stubborn and still short-fused-but-slightly-better-at-controlling-it teenager, who constantly butted heads with his parents, especially his father. A schoolyard incident got out of hand when Andrew perceived a threat to Megan and reacted violently, hospitalising his sister’s antagonist. There was police involved. While the twins had always had an inkling that their father had never liked Andrew, and were correct in thinking that he would be furious over the incident, neither of them expected that he would disown Andrew on the spot.
Are we getting sick of the greys yet?
Thursday, 1 December 2016 @ 8:23am
The Dragonkin build was relatively easier than the Avian one; the wing fingers were a little bit fiddly but there were only five of them as opposed to a million feathers and all one object as opposed to a million XD
The tail rig was an almighty pain. Firstly, the pitchipoy script couldn’t seem to recognise the bones if I did the tail the easy way (one big bone subdivided down into a million little ones). Or if they were extruded one from another. Long winded duplicate, move along Y a bit and then connect worked (but took ages). Then I tried using bone hooks which I’ve done before but I kept stuffing something or other up and the spline would end up either moving or stretching a long way and I couldn’t seem to find the right combination of settings to make it stop sucking. Then I found this other method that uses bone envelopes which did the job I was trying to do and was a lot easier to set up (one armature modifier vs a million hook modifiers). Except that I’d made the tail too short so I made it longer. Then realised I need the end of the tail to remain stiff as in the time period I’m writing in pretty much all the Dragonkin have weaponised tails (I don’t think they all did in their early generations, but I’ll deal with that if I ever have to make a Dragonkin with a plain tail). Apparently pitchipoy didn’t like me modifying the bone chain so I had to do it again. Ergh.
Dakarai and Trajectory
Saturday, 29 October 2016 @ 3:24pm
Two characters also likely to get caught up in firefights but not so much on roofs and quite likely because they were following their favourite girls around (or one of their favourite girls in Dak’s case). Their appearances stayed reasonably similar though I made Dak’s hair a bit more sensible (I like long dreds so Traj had perhaps impractically long dreds given his profession) but they have undergone complete personality swaps. Traj was almost cripplingly shy around girls and a right arsehole to guys and was a bit tragic as he was madly in love with his best friend but she ended up with someone else. Dak on the other hand is confident, polyamorous and basically an arsehole because he spends a large chunk of the current block being racist.