Some new developments, and an extra
Added 2021-09-14 18:32:31 +0000 UTCI have been looking at the feedback gotten so far, and one thing that seems to be a common complaint is robotic movements of the characters. So I've taken a step toward fixing that. I can't guarantee it'll be immediate or even any good, but I feel it's worth the attempt.
I've bought an XBox One Kinect and PC link cable.
In theory, when hooked up to the XBox SDK, I should be able to get motion tracking data out of it, and then in to Blender using a few tricks to force the data to comply. That can then be fed into the character rigs and give me better character movement.
Again, dunno if that will actually work, but it's got to be something to try without going and shelling out €1500 for a mocap suit.
It's about this point that I start considering getting rid of the text speech and just bite the bullet and see if I can find people to voice everyone. One of the neat things I found is a way to take a video of someone speaking and convert it into more tracking data to actually animate faces better. Failing that, rigging and setting up actions better means I could set up face shapes for all the phonemes and build speech that way, but it feels like an all-or-nothing situation. All of them together would be great, while the parts on their own would be cool, but kind of incomplete.
Work is well underway on the next episode. I've got 1 character left to fur, texture, clothe and rig, and 3 other characters to properly rig, and 4 sets to build. One of those sets is 95% done, just adding detailing to it, the second set is laid out and getting more stuff added. 3rd set is roughed out but needs a load of details (but got ideas for them!), and the final set is completely unstarted. I have however been making the sets in the order they will appear, so progress shouldn't be too bad.
Finally, the extra!
Script for Episodes 12/13: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1d1AxqcaR4QopMOhE4oOPBn8tnOsYxxST/view?usp=sharing
The two episodes were originally written as one. In fact, the episode continued on for another 100 lines, but it had to get broken up cos of the length and complexity. I'm going to start releasing the original scripts after the episode it's for goes out, but obviously I couldn't until now cos of how many episodes it spanned.
I'll also be looking at making a few changes to this Patreon over the next few weeks. I'm going to look at introducing tiers. They'll still all have the same benefits, but they will have different Titles for episode credits. Everything will still be free, and I will leave the tier everyone is currently in alone. This would mean that if you would like to go into a named tier, you would have to subscribe to the one you are after, but if you're not bothered, nothing will change for you.
Second change, I'm going to set up that Discord I was on the fence about. Nothing fancy, just a place to hang out or chat if anyone wants to. Maybe something specifically for feedback or discussion. Simple stuff, cos I don't feel we're big enough to go the full Discord route yet.
Finally, I am looking into stopping being homeless. This ties in to work, but also for the motion capture stuff, which is kind of hard to do in a van. A bonus of this is that I'll potentially look at setting up a resin 3d printer and see if I can throw together some sculpts of characters people like for printing. Merch!
Comments
Believe me, the rain is still coming. There's even a reason for it. The size of the collector coming into the atmosphere is a large enough mass to seriously alter local weather systems. Just through sheer size, it would have compressed a portion of the atmosphere creating an area of high pressure, resulting in wind, rain and lightning. I'm not sure on the science for it, but I think the blast shockwave is faster than the weather coming in, so that's up next. I'm not expecting the kinect to be a perfect solution, but I am hoping it will help me a bit to get some more natural motion. Bad data can usually be worked around, hopefully. From what I've heard, the hand, elbow and knee data is pretty much trash anyway. For now, the kinect is more of a toy than a serious tool, which hopefully I can find more useful with a change in living conditions.
Methodia Rascal
2021-09-15 18:08:11 +0000 UTCOooh, interesting that you had originally wanted to go with rain for the ending scene. Could be a technical challenge to get it to look good, but I could see it adding to that "welp, everything's screwed" feeling. And sneak peak at Berg's name! Having worked with a Kinect in the past (gathering pose data rather than trying to mocap), you'd definitely need a bit of distance that isn't possible in a van. Perhaps setting it inside and capturing out of one of the doors? Also, be warned that the tracking isn't 100% continuous. Sometimes limbs would snap to weird places, particularly when entering or exiting its field of view. Voiced characters and/or face shapes are good goals, but I'd be wary of trying to do that and the mocap at the same time. Both are going to be time-intensive and hitting both would risk spreading you pretty thin. 4 new characters is going to be hard as it is, and herding voice actors is no small feat! Neat to hear about the Discord and Patreon tiers, will have to remember to re-up when the time comes. Best of luck in your housing search; if the UK's prices are anything like the US, affordable could be hard to find, blegh.
Dargon
2021-09-15 16:32:52 +0000 UTC
