Mystery Stunner

Here:

https://youtu.be/PumcZ6Vm7jo 

Patrons have been able to download the video for three weeks now, but here it is for the rest of you all:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/13BtiOJgfLjCmDy38Y56ugz_ci_gQae2B 

Since I need to focus on the new longer video project, I'm posting the video I first posted here on Patreon back on November 15 to Youtube pretty much as-is as a "first draft." I hope people aren't too hard on the video, since it is repetitive and has noticeable flaws, despite taking weeks of work in the October early November! Adapting an animation created originally for a different character rig is tricky. I do have a much better animation now, but would take awhile to render out, and then another week would be gone.

Maybe I shouldn't have spent so much time writing the description of the video but I wanted to finally acknowledge all the other artists that help with every video I make, indirectly. I use so many resources from the Daz & Poser community I spent like 4 hours tracking down each resource I used for this one video! But if I were someone that spent a week making one of the hairs or dresses or environments in this video, I'd want at least a mention.

Here's the Youtube description of the video including all the acknowledgements and links:

---

The Making of "Mystery Dancer" & acknowledgements

Her dance debuted on Youtube 8 years ago to the day:
https://youtu.be/YSeM5g8hMdg 

The animation has problems but am releasing this early as a first draft.

After I heard the lyrics to the song ("Rumors" by Neffex, http://neffexmusic.com) I realized she needs "long hair and a jacket"! And I want her dancing in places that make a little more sense, like a club with colored lights moving over her.  Also, there's other characters referred to in the song, like former boyfriends and girlfriends-- I imagine them looking at her with crossed arms & envy off to the side. Also, more outfits. More camera angles. Easy to say, weeks to do!

And yes, the animation loops, since it takes so long to render out the frames. To run the length of the song takes about 10 loops. Rendering for VR means two 4K renders, 60 per second. Using loops saves 90% of the time.

About rendering: each frame is ray-traced by Nvidia iRay, and takes about 1 minute to render. She is rendered first, along with the ground & her shadow. Then the same camera & light sources are used to render out the nine backgrounds. Then, the two are composited together via ffmpeg's overlay filter. FFmpeg is used for all audiovisual processing, including motion interpolation.

So... not from a game engine. But as of yesterday I do have her imported into Unity using their HDRP Lit Shaders, thanks to the Theorem Games tutorial at https://youtu.be/jVB5b4Kllik. She looks good! For this kind of animation, with her clothes not super detailed, Unity or Unreal might make more sense. Not for everything SkinRays does of course.

Support the original artists! Any missing, all apologies. Please contact SkinRays or leave comment.

Music

By: Neffex
Song: Rumors http://neffexmusic.com
Video link: https://youtu.be/kXptPzKNMq4

Dress is "Saturday Afternoon" by SublimelyVexed:
https://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/vendor/3DSublimeProductions 

Dress has been weighted for "dForce", a physics engine. It took about as long to run the physics through the animation as it did to render out the frames! The dress works great, is so sexy, and settles onto her sleek form quickly and beautifully. Looping it is a challenge, and there are glitches there that needs to be fixed.

Shoes are "I Love High Heels" by HongZhuang:
https://www.daz3d.com/hongzhuang 

Hair is "Kavindra Hair" by EmmaAndJordi:
https://www.daz3d.com/emmaandjordi 

Eyebrows from "Elena HD" by 3DSublimeProductions & Vex:
https://www.daz3d.com/3dsublimeproductions
https://www.daz3d.com/vex 

The head morph is an original by SkinRays. Unreleased.

Body morphs are a combination, with thanks to the following artists:
Hameleon  https://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/vendor/hameleon
Fred Winkler Art https://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/vendor/FWArt
Lyoness https://www.daz3d.com/lyoness
Sabby https://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/vendor/Sabby
Zev0 https://www.daz3d.com/zev0 

Skin adapted from "Lakhi" by Daz3d team & Jessaii:
https://www.daz3d.com/jessaii 

Camera is a freebie from Daz forums thanks to zaz777:
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/156181/stereoscopic-camera-rig-for-iray-using-offaxis-projection 

About the camera: I've just used the standard iRay camera up to now without off-axis adjustment so it isn't strictly necessary for VR180. But, if it helps reduce eye strain for some people I figure I should use it from now on. I don't notice any difference myself.

The environments behind her are thanks to:
Charles https://www.daz3d.com/charles
Dark Edge Design https://www.daz3d.com/darkedgedesign
Daz Originals https://www.daz3d.com/daz-originals
Moonscape Graphics https://www.daz3d.com/moonscape-graphics
Predatron https://www.daz3d.com/predatron
Tesla3D Corp https://www.daz3d.com/tesla3dcorp 

The original animation is "Midnight Moves" by SKAmotion:
https://skamotion.com 

More about the animation: Turns out the debut video for this animation on YouTube was 8 years ago to the day! [Ed: was posted to Youtube Dec 6, 2019]
https://youtu.be/YSeM5g8hMdg 

The original animation was for the Victoria 4 figure (2008), at 25fps. SkinRays adapted the animation frame by frame for the Victoria 8 figure (2017), at 60fps. The adaptation is not perfect as you can tell. There's a better adaptation in the works. It is taking forever and it has been too long between posts, so am releasing it now, as a first draft.

Every video should have links to original artists! It took half a day looking up all the resources that go into this video alone. Will do it going forward. Older videos will be updated eventually.