Just a Little Ramble (Pixiv Fanbox)

This is a sort of follow-up ramble to my previous ramble, but also just a general update. Since posting that ramble, I managed to somehow develop an ear infection. Fun. Nothing serious, and it is already getting better, but still very annoying due to a lack of proper sleep. I've always had tinnitus since I was a kid, to the point I don't even know what silence sounds like because silence to me is the ringing noise you get when an explosion goes off in a FPS game. But when the ear is blocked, it's extra loud. Hard to fall asleep when your ear is screaming in your, well, ear. And then the pressure is constantly waking me up when I do fall asleep, which then repeats the process.

Regardless, I'm not here for sympathy, just figured I'd mentioned it because the upcoming post might be late... ish. Also gonna follow up a bit on something that kind of struck me while reading comments from the last ramble. Effort can be... subjective. What one person can die trying to accomplish another person can do without breaking a sweat. Early on, I did struggle to animate and do certain things that I now do without even thinking about them. So, in a respect, I did put a lot of effort in to get this far, but nowadays it's kind of become second nature that I don't really put effort into animating anymore. It's a bit "by-the-books" for me, and unless I'm trying to do something I've never done before, I don't really have to expend much effort to animate. Unless I wanted to become a professional animator who actually uses things like the Graph Editor and what not, which I don't. But that's less "effort" and more just "tedium". Even when I started out, I always felt animating was more tedious than difficult. There are ways to make things less tedious, but it will always be a tedious process.

I would say that the most effort I put into my stuff is getting the girls to look good. Just as real life people will look best with certain lighting and from certain angles, so do 3D models. I'll use Rinoa as an example, since that was fairly recent and when I was rigging the model I was like... "man, she looks weird." This is what Rinoa looks like by default.

Kinda creepy, right? Even with a little bit of lighting, things don't improve terribly.

Even with some reflections in the eyes, some lighting to cast shadows, shading, etc, it's still kinda freaky. Wouldn't want to use this as a default face. But, with a little bit of posing, giving the face actual emotions beside a blank stare and you get something passable.

I would recommend, if you're wanting to start out with animation or just posing models for pictures, to focus first on lighting/shading/expressions to maximize the character to look good. The default expression is usually just as unnatural as a T-Pose. Another character that stands out to me is Aerith. Without proper shading and lighting, she looks like this.

Then, with a little bit of lighting and some proper shading...

Getting there. She honestly don't look too bad with this focal length and lighting, but depending on the angle she can look very strange if the face is left alone. But still, with some personality and a little bit of love put into it and you get...

Wait, no, sorry, wrong picture.

There we go. Very minimal posing, minimal facial movement, but overall she's looking a lot more like Aerith as opposed to the blank, wide-eyed stare of her default expression.

And yes, this whole post was just a lead up to that. I felt a little bit like trolling.