Update

You were interested in some plans and ideas.

It's difficult to write about this without spoiling anything, but what I can say for sure is that, I am working on a scene with a much longer and more complex format than my videos so far. And for this and for the scenes after this I am trying to build a work process in general - along with the development of all relevant technical tools - that enables the following:

- I'd like the performance of the characters to be much more varied than before, but at the same time, I don't want the scene to be too dense or rushed. Therefore, such sections should be much longer.

- I definitely want it to be more immersive, which required the improvement of a million different things. Dynamic simulations, hands, brows, lashes, dynamic wrinkles, speech, but improving the overall functioning of the face (videos about the"facialGUI"-node).

- Since you guys wrote earlier that the viewer can set A-B loop playback anyway, I happily discarded the "loop" format with all its restrictions. It's much freer for me too, and it has many advantages. Instead, there will be a much longer, continuous scene, like in live-action videos.

- With such an increase in length, only the character animation itself would turn into a technical hell. This is why mocap development was necessary (anielSzal/MCP), which has yielded surprisingly encouraging results so far. From here on, one of my main goals is that, the person known from the game really shines through the animated character - by that I mean, the voice and inflections match perfectly with the original. The VA test was so promising that that alone became a huge motivation for me. Although mocap is an indispensable help in bringing the animation up to the level of the voice, classic character-animation that still holds everything together. Furthermore, it's mostly the lovemaking part itself, where mocap is only worth using partially. Classic character animation in general and last year's "figure8" node with their abstract beauty, can still surpass natural movement in many aspect. So these 3 have to complement each other along all the way.

If all these ideas succeed, the point where that long-promised "intimacy" can finally be created is about now I think.

Development consists predominantly of failures, so the few successes you see are actually the tip of a dark iceberg. Being used to this, I don't like to outline a bigger prospect that opens up from small successes, or to formulate too big things in advance, rather to show something only when it's already working - and that's why I can seem tight-lipped when it comes to sharing any thoughts.

Although another "now what" moment can come at any time, the good news is that, in principle, all development is ticked off my list, and the production itself is progressing nicely again - personally, I've had enough of technical developments for a long time and I just want to animate. Besides, I have to buy the constantly expiring render-engine license for each of my machines if I want to render such long scenes. From then on, it's a pressure to produce frames/scenes and not get bogged down in further development. However... it is almost certain that I still have to come up with an idea to somehow put active markers on the soles.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you guys for your support and the curiosity that brought you here (hope you see progress in it), and to answer all the questions about whether I'm doing all this alone - Yes, still all alone.

Although it's worth noting that an old friend of mine, "Abassiadran" (don't ask me what that pan name is) helped me out by playing Panam's theme for one of my recent videos perfectly for the first take. The guy is brilliant, seeing his efficiency gave me great impetus. He can do various adaptations for any theme, performing it in real-time, it's crazy. I would recommend him to many video makers who are looking for background music that evokes the theme of well-known video games or movies.