End of Year Ramblings

So the stereoscopic version of "Yumi Grows More" is down to less than 100 rendering hours to go.  It's such a pisser this would have been done long ago if I had noticed that the skirt data was lost in the hard drive crash.  Sigh.  But now I have to put that aside as it is time to render Yumi damaging a car.  I really hope you like this one.  It's the most complex animation I've done yet for Patreon.  You'll see what I mean when it's done.

I'm so glad this year is over.  It's been so emotional for me hearing about the deaths of all of the talented artists that I have loved over the years.  But hopefully the murder-spree of 2016 is over and we can look forward to a new calendar.  I think it's cool that we are entering this new year as I develop a new character.  And not just a new character, but one that is built from the ground up to take advantage of the latest technology that I learned working on the past couple of animations.

You may have noticed in past animations that I tend to avoid having the character touch herself.  This is because any time skin makes contact with skin it's a big deal.  Lots of careful planning must go into it and extra steps are added to the animation process.  There is another software plug-in I have my eye on that will make this much easier.  She could squeeze or rub her pecs and it's no big thang.  But it costs $100.  Since I am going into "starving artist" mode for a pair of months to catch up on these animations, buying this plug-in will have to wait.

Meanwhile just seeing the results of the new rigging techniques I have in mind will be amazing enough to behold.  Naomi will be my first character with truly shrink-wrapped skin over her body.  This means the "teaser" body image I posted to DeviantArt a while ago is not going to be used.  I will be modeling her from the inside-out.  Muscle groups (and a bit of fat/bone) that the skin will wrap over.  I can't wait to see all of this come together.

One disadvantage to this technique is the loss of the "ZBrush" look.  I can no longer use displacement mapping to add shredded/ripped details to her skin.  The muscles slide under the skin and displacement maps are mapped directly to the skin.  So this character will look a bit softer.  Maybe like Cornelia Brandt.  But much bigger. :)

The advantage of this tech is that rigging will be easier and less problematic because I do not have to deal so much with joint deformation morphs.  With Yumi I needed to create alternate shapes to compensate for unslightly deformations when a bone rotates this way and that.  With this new technique the muscles stretch to follow the bones and the skin follows the muscles.  This should greatly speed up the process and result in more natural-looking shapes as bones rotate.

But then again having to model each individual muscle group will add more time...  So it's give and take. :)

Anyway I have rambled on long enough.  I need to model a few simple props for the background of the final Yumi animation so that the stereoscopic effect will be the best it can be..  Then it is time to render!

Happy New Year everyone!  And thanks for your support over 2016!  It is leading to even more amazing things!!!

CGMan