Progress Report 6/16/2023 (Patreon)

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

• Attempted to give the model a 2D look using shaders and outlines
• Rigged the jewelry
• Rigged the clothes
• RFM: Gave the giantess legs that move and rotate with the feet
• RFM: Gave the legs a pseudo-animation with tweens so the knee leads just behind the foot

There were lots of slow-moving parts this time around, so not a lot of bullet points. Let's begin with the shader, shall we?

I spent days trying to get a nice 2D look on our cat girl. I followed tutorials, used a bunch of different techniques...

And you know what? I came pretty close! With front lighting she looks fantastic! She could use some highlights shadows, but all in all it's a good first attempt!

Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, the illusion is broken the moment the light source changes direction. I messed with normals, I created proxy meshes to transfer their normal data, and tried a variety of fixes for the odd shadows, but to no avail. To make matters worse, I had to fight Blender tooth-and-nail most of the way; it crashed several times (mostly when I was trying to do something as simple as undo), it exploded the model for no reason, and just generally gave me a hard time.

But this... this was the anvil that broke the camel's back. This is what the normals (shading) on the face looked like after applying a proxy mesh that I worked on for hours. I started getting anxious about wasting time and getting nowhere, so I stopped working on the shader here.

But honestly, I'm still proud of how close I came! This attempt was a bust, but I feel like I can make this style work someday. It just wasn't in the cards this time. :)

Feeling a bit defeated, I moved back to the smooth-shaded model and did some rigging. I finished the jewelry and clothes, and even found a method to rig the clothes automatically using the body's existing weights! It just took a few button presses! I'll definitely be keeping that one in my back pocket for future clothes!

There's still a bit of rigging left on our cat girl, but I needed a break from 3D stuff after getting my butt kicked so hard this week.

Fortunately, that's where Run From Me comes in!

In light of my frustration with the 3D side of things, I spent some time on the 2D side and focused my energy on something I've been dreading since I got the feet working: the legs.

I think I did a pretty good job with them, all things considered! There are definitely spots where they look strange, but it definitely beats floating ghost feet! Unless you're into that. No judgements here -- I can dig it.

Anyways, getting the legs to work went infinitely better than the 3D shader. It was tricky figuring out the math and formulas to get the legs to look the way they do (and I have a "Development Fun" post coming up to demonstrate this), but it was really fun trying to solve it, like a puzzle! Plus, you know, it actually works in the end.

Bah, enough complaining. 3D stuff is hard, we all know this. I'm gonna go eat a 3D burrito from a taco-shaped bell and continue work on-... Actually, I should stop trying to predict what I'm gonna work on each week. I'm not good at it. ^^;  In any case, I'll have more progress on *something* next week! I'll see you guys then!