New tech! New topology! New art! (Pixiv Fanbox)

I wanted to let you guys know about some of the interesting and ambitious stuff from last month that I glossed over in my update post.

I'll start off with something easy to demonstrate. In fact, you've already been acquainted! In poster #3 of the last set, I used an early version of a new foot model I've been working on. Let's look at the raw improvement first:

~ Hot damn, and this is just the beta! ~

This is a huge uplift for older models like Sunny. It's also going to be really convenient for image sets where the whole character doesn't need to be visible. It's a lot of work cramming girls into those boxes you know…

I made this asset really versatile, so I can use it for all kinds of different characters without it looking recycled. It has tons of options for changing the shape to make it look unique. All I have to do is correct the skin color, and *boom*. Here's a little clip with all the current options, and I'm still adding more:

vfeet

The last part of that clip, where the soles change color, is the next topic. Those bright patches are placeholders for areas that will wrinkle. A while back, I did a writeup on wrinkle-maps. It's a really awesome technique to make skin behave more realistically. In January, I came up with a solution to enable animating this effect in SFM.

On an artistic level, it works great, but the manner in which I have to apply it is far from ideal. Basically, I'm manually fading in a layer of "wrinkle" over the existing texture. It looks good, but only in certain lighting conditions. And it's extra work!

Recently I've uncovered some well-kept secrets in the Source engine, and I'm using them for their intended purpose: to make better porn!

~ A face only a mother could love ~

Valve's native solution for this is very poorly documented and hard to implement. I'm not gonna let that stop me anymore! My experience and confidence making custom models and porting to SFM has grown enough that I'm finally able to grasp how this works.

The above-mentioned foot model is the first place I'm testing this feature, but my goal is to improve character faces and use it for abdominal deforms in the future.

This technique is a whole lot more versatile! Here's a feature breakdown, old vs new:

~ I didn't have time to put together a good visual for this, sorry! ~

There are some drawbacks, of course. It takes longer to add "proper" wrinkle maps to a character. The old approach can be applied to any model with some texture edits, but the new approach requires I decompile the model itself and alter it on a structural basis. Also, proper wrinkles use three times as much texture memory (!!). Since SFM is so memory-starved, this will have to be turned off for group shots (but should be fine in most scenes).

Additionally, I have to make the "art" for these stretched and compressed states by hand, so there's a considerable amount of work to make it look good too. BUT… once it's in place, it'll just work.

Anyway that's it for now. This post was scheduled in advance, so I'll be able to respond in a few days.

Thanks for the support as always, and I'll see you guys soon!