So, about that Wednesday thing...
Added 2021-04-20 21:48:30 +0000 UTCI seem to remember going "wednesday evenings seems to be the perfect time to release an animation, people are online to see it!".
Yeah, turns out that is pretty much the opposite of reality. It's kind of disappointing that this one is probably the lowest rated one so far. Fuck. Never mind, guess there's a lesson to learn there. Somewhere.
In other news, Scotland is now less lockdowned, I've been out over the weekend doing stuff that you can't do indoors. About time. I've also started work on the next episode. So far I've blocked out about 90 seconds. I'm going to try a new method this time, and block out the whole episode before animating anything properly, down to the speech. Literally blocking it out, with actual cuboids standing in for characters.
The idea is that I can work out things like camera movements and how the characters interact with the scenes and each other before spending all my time animating. It also means I can use the rough edit as a way to properly edit it so I only have to animate and render what I need.
The next stumbling block is that there's no way to avoid the fact that I need to make more characters. Some of these guys are going to be major characters, so they need to be good. I'd also like to build them in a way that means I can easily convert them into a more anatomically correct model so I have options for them.
Also, to take a little rest from The Wilderness, I started playing with a short animation based on a model I downloaded. After the wolf debacle a few episodes back, I want to try and learn more natural movement, so I threw together a simple 1000 frame loop animation, and because I STILL haven't learned my lesson, this quick loop has now taken 3 days because I decided to do a fluid sim. Good job, me. It's been annoying me how good other animators are at fluids, so trying to up my game. Which seems to be code for "slightly tweak the fluidsim settings for a week solid trying to get it to look either natural, realistic or at least not just detonate on impact with the ground.
Till next week!
Comments
I remember reading an analysis on Reddit that Monday and Friday mornings are the best for their upvotes, though never seen a similar analysis for evening posting, much less NSFW-specific. Not sure what evening most people would be looking to get off, probably Sunday or Monday? Might be worth asking the e621 admins what days get the highest traffic, heh. The other parts have had time for people to find them and fave/vote, and it's definitely done better than the earliest episodes. The new workflow sounds promising, more akin to what I imagine happens in big studios. Cutting down on extraneous animation/rendering is always helpful! Unfortunately there's probably not many ways to shorten the time it takes to model/rig new characters, but at least you've had significant practice with the new version of Kyn recently, heh. Exploding fluid sounds like a fun artistic render, but tends to be neither natural or realistic, haha! Natural movement is a good goal, though definitely not simply to attain. Your conversational movements and lip flaps are pretty much there in my eyes! The fluid sim is always going to come up against a curve of complexity and render time, unfortunately. A better engine and/or more accurate rules are more desirable, but one tends to pay for it down the line. Anywho, sounds like good work to me. Enjoy the lighter lockdowns, those trails are waiting to be ridden!
Dargon
2021-04-21 02:10:44 +0000 UTC
