Progress Report 7/21/2023 (Patreon)

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

3D Modeling:

• Rigged the model's hair using a lattice method
• Rigged the model's hair using a bone method

Run From Me:

• Added an additional frame to the lower leg's animation
• Smoothed the legs' animations so they "pop" far less
• Gave the giantess a more shapely pelvic region

Not my most productive week... There's just something about rigging that takes the wind out of my sails.

In order to rig the hair, I started off with a lattice method, as seen in this tutorial. It took some time to troubleshoot why it wasn't working for me at first (naturally), but eventually I got it working.

Disregarding the hair's clipping into the face, the motion of the hair is smooth and reacts very nicely with the head's movement! It works very well with subtle movements like this.

However...

(Ignore the elongated tail; it's not rigged yet...)

In the event that the model jolts forward, say... in an animation in which she pounces at the camera, for instance (hint hint), it behaves... oddly. Instead of following the head, the lattice physics decided to show off its sick front flips.

This wouldn't be a problem if I could control the lattice manually, but alas, that's not how this works. You can't animate the lattice by hand and make adjustments on the fly, at least not as far as I could find.

Feeling defeated -- a feeling I'm starting to associate with rigging -- I moved on to Method #2.

I was really hoping I wouldn't have to resort to Method #2...

But such is life! I added bones to the hair following this tutorial, opting for a simpler, chunkier setup. Adding a bone to every single hair strand on a hair style this messy would have driven me insane.

Fortunately, with the help of a podcast, I managed to get all the weight painting done in a little over an hour. It was simple, but very tedious. Still, I'll take this over trying to make joints bend properly from every angle. @_@

So right now, the subtle motions don't do much. There is movement, but there will need to be a lot of number tweaking to make this look like the lattice method did.

However...

For the sake of her first animation, this will do just fine! The hair follows the head without any extra... parkour... and -- by far the best part about rigging the hair with bones -- I can control them at will.

See the bangs? notice how they don't clip through the face? That's because I turned off the physics for those particular bones. If I wanted to, I could toggle the physics off and on mid-animation, and even more notably, I can modify the position of each hair bone as I see fit. This method makes up for its tedium by offering LOTS of freedom!

DIMENSIONAL SWITCH!

Let's talk about Run From Me now.

With how much time and energy the 3D stuff took, I didn't get nearly as much done here as I was hoping. However, I did manage to make the leg animation look much better!

Before this, the legs would sorta "pop" from one position to another when their sprites changed to accommodate extreme angles. With a little bit of sprite work and a lot of programming, that popping is now gone! It's more of a polish thing, but it was bothering me. ^^;

Lastly, and probably least, I've updated the pelvis on the giantess's base customizer sprite!

I feel this adds more volume to the torso in the pose, plus it'll make shorts and pants look far better. Also, this opens up the possibility for yet another category in the customizer. More on that in the future. :)

Phew! That was a lot for just five bullet points... These posts are starting to take a while to write. Not that I mind -- they're fun to make! I'm gonna head off on a journey of self-discovery and Taco Bell. I'll fill you in on my enlightenment as soon as my burrito fills me with its enlightenment. I'll see you guys again next week!