Progress Report 4/28/2023 (Patreon)

Hello again, everyone! Here's what I got done this week:

• Added a "One-Piece" category to the customizer (eat your heart out, Luffy)
• PERMANENTLY fixed an issue in which the color pickers would inexplicably move around, forcing me to fix them one-by-one
• Added locked states for each grid button in the customizer
• Added black boxes with question marks over grid buttons if they're locked
• Implemented saving and loading of each outfit item's locked state
• Added tooltips when hovering over locked outfit item buttons that will give hints on how to unlock them
• Updated the 3D model's mouth to have much more detail
• Began the first draft of 3D Adventures Parts 17

So, starting off with the customizer that we all know and love, I added a category called "One-Piece". No, it will not feature straw hats. It will, however, feature clothing that come as one piece, like dresses, bunny suits, sukumizu swimsuits... you know, articles of clothing that for some reason have no other collective name other than one shared with an incredibly popular anime. I anticipate a lot of One Piece jokes when Run From Me eventually launches.

In other news, the haunting of the color pickers has finally been kicked under the carpet once and for all. These things have been drifting around in the buttons menu for as long as they've existed, and to this day I still have no explanation. I just glued them down with a line of code telling them "Hey, stop moving around", and I haven't had any problems yet.

*Yet*.

Lastly for the customizer, I added a feature to label customization items as locked or unlocked, and giving them a question mark box accordingly. I also added a little tooltip that pops up when mousing over them that will give a brief hint on how to unlock them. It's not the most elegant system, but this menu has already become so bloated that I'm afraid to add any more moving parts. ^^;

At long last, this marks the end of the giantess customizer! Everything is in place and functioning as intended; now it's just a matter of filling it with the visual goodies later on! :D

Moving on to the 3D stuff, I gave my base female model, Slagathor, a shiny new mouth. Observe:

Here we have the original, plain mouth. The cheeks are puffed out, the throat is non-existent, and the gums, teeth, and tongue are all separate, floating objects.

NOW BEHOLD! This new mouth boasts much more realism (while still retaining its stylized origins) with the addition of a uvula and a more shapely tongue!

Not only that; the gums and tongue are connected to the mouth bag! This means there are no more weird floaty bits that break immersion! Well, except for the teeth; those are still separated. The topology between the teeth and gums didn't quite match up, plus it's actually a good thing to have the teeth separate so that I can move them around in animations. That sounds weird, I know, but it's actually useful being able to move and rotate the teeth to make mouth movements more readable.

Anyways, here's a gif of the throat opening and closing. It can still use some work, but as a base it'll do very nicely!

Other than that, I got about halfway through writing 3D Adventures Part 17, and... it's a long one. @_@  I do need to get the journals written sooner rather than later, though. A lot of the information has already left my brain, and writing them will help jog my memory with the whole process as I get into rigging the face.

Anyhoo, that about sums it up for this report! I hope the progress this week has put a smile on your face!

While this festers in your nightmares, I'm gonna go fester inside of a Taco Bell! I'll see you guys again next week!