Monthly Update and Rewards (Patreon)

Hey everyone! It's the 5th, so it's time for my rewards! Where are they?

I hate to have to do this again, but I have to ask for patience. I was all set to deliver on time this month, until I was hit with a series of issues this weekend regarding the scene with straps and rendering. I'm currently facing two separate hard crash issues. I think I'll be able to fix them, but I have to go clean out a broken reference, which might take a few evenings. I should have everything working later this week, and deliver some time this coming weekend. My apologies for this delay. As usual, please let me know if you find this unacceptable, and I will organise a refund.

However, while I am having issues with the deliveries, doesn't mean I can't post my monthly report!

Dragon Growth Animation:

-I finished off Renee's rig. I did her body last month; however I did have to make her facial rig, as well as fix up a few bugs that showed up once I started animating with her. I'm relieved to say, that she is now online ^^. Except her textures. Which I talk about soon.

-I animated a new shot, which lasts for 10.75 seconds. This is the shot which is causing me grief right now, but once it is done, it should hopefully look pretty sweet. As usual, the straps were a nightmare to add (which isn't quite over until the displacement map renders). I'll talk more about this when the rewards are sent out.

-I bit the bullet and fixed up a number of issues with Andre's model. I managed to find a way to preserve morph targets while changing geometry (I talk about this at the end), so I have moved his head/body mesh border down from the top of his head, to the top of his neck, which is far more rational (and hidden). This will eliminate most of the neck glitches that used to be seen. I was also able to delete some errors in his geometry which had long bugged me and left some odd smoothing solutions in the renders. I also UV unwrapped him, because...

-I'm commissioning an artist to make proper textures for Renee and Andre for this animation. I'll be rendering out each new shot, but I will re-render them again once I have the final textures.

Rub For More Wishes:

-I reopened communication with the rock-star artist which I mentioned last update, and he's agreed to make Andre for a price that could come close to setting records in the fandom :p. (This will be a different, higher detailed and more realistic Andre model to what I am commissioning in the dragon growth animation.) I gathered a reference pack and cleaned up the base andre mesh and sent it off to him, as well as had a productive conversation over the phone to discuss what I wanted and what he could offer. He has said that he would look at giving some rough mockups done soon, and that he might end up making it all in a ~3 week stretch working full time on it. So it's possible that it might even be done by next update; but he's gone quiet the last couple of weeks again. Which is fine; he's got his own affairs to manage, but it does mean that I might not know what is happening until it is happening lol. I'm very excited about this; watch this space XD.

-I started writing the script out, but stopped after realising that I have gotten too excited with it, and it has grown too big. I want to go all out on this one; but I think I need to keep it a contained 'all-out'. Have amazing graphics and animations and effects, but keep everything else simple. I had scripted an intro which describes what is happening, but I think I might just go for simple tropes in order to cut to the chase earlier. I am weary of biting off too much like I have with the dragon growth remake, and I do recall a twitter poll I did a year or so ago where the result was overwhelming against investing much time into backstory. So I will tweak it significantly over the next month, and hopefully I will have a script to show soon.

-My search for finding background assets to purchase is still slow; it's frustrating but hopefully it will be worth it when I finally find the right one. I have my list of possible assets, but I am very concerned about how low their texture sheets are. Its possible that I could outsource upressing to general 3D markets, but doing so seems kind of pointless as I don't know how good a job one of their artists will do, which means I don't really know what I'm buying in the first place. I'll be pouring all of my patreon funds into commissioning character artists over the next couple of months, so I will take my time with this. I'd like your feedback though; what sort of tone did you guys want with this animation? Should this occur in a bright, colourful, high fantasy keep? Or a darker, danky dungeon?

Others:

- The second character commissioner I contacted has just tonight delivered a brand new character, a female rabbit XD. I do have to say, she looks stunning, and hopefully you guys agree when you see her. I'm very excited by the quality of this delivery, and I hope that I can get more characters off him in the coming... however long he wants to take commissions for :p. He's the artist I mentioned earlier who is willing to do the character textures for the dragon growth animation; and I'm very keen on seeing what he can come up with for Andre ^^. The rabbit character herself will remain in my library unrigged until I finish my anthgrow rig updates, which I currently have scheduled in August when I'll have some full time hours to spend on my patreon.

- I've recently opened communication with a potential third character commissioner, who I hope to make some beefier, burlier characters. We are talking about making a drake or two, and in the future a character like a werewolf which may or may not have actual fur applied to it, as opposed to just a texture. I'm excited by this development; I think their style, while noticeably different to my own, will make for some really awesome and erotic models perfect for the growing ^^. We've discussed terms and pricing, and we have broad agreements, but there might be a bit of a lead in delay as they are hoping to update their hardware before taking on anything too intensive (and I do want intense :p)

- I've made a very tiny start on pokemon gro 2. (basically tweaked the rig to allow the charmeleon to scale, and blocked out the first three seconds of action). This will be the small, third project which I mentioned I might do from time to time. This will be a very slow burn as the other projects are my focus; this is basically the animation which I will do when I get home from work too exhausted to do anything difficult on the real projects. Pokemon gro is very cheap and easy for me to do, so it has its place.

-I successfully did a base test for a muscle growth mesh, using assets I purchased off turbosquid. (this is how I discovered I could make the changes to Andre) I managed to work out that it was possible to preserve morph targets using the history; you just have to copy the mesh in morph targets into new meshes once you are done to clear that history. So it's entirely possible for me to model a horse furry character around a stock asset which still has underlying morphs! The bad news though is that I discovered that the horse head I was working on over a year ago has gone missing; which I have been kicking myself over all month as I never lose work like that. I'll show this test off in the videos, but don't get too excited... it was just a test, there's no action or even a head :p.