6/4/19: Part 2 Progress (Patreon)

6/4/19: Part 2 Progress

Patreon has a knack of going down right when I'm in the middle of making these huge posts.

Let's get started with the notes. When loading up part 2 of the project, I worried that my experimentation in the past with ik bones might mess up the import of the animation into the final models in UE4. SURPRISINGLY, just because the bone structure was named the same, UE4 instead re-targeted the already-imported model bones to that one of part 2. Which means everything imported perfectly! I was also worried about Neko's IK bones that were used in this part but deleted in the previous one. Nope, all good. Ik bones won't be shown in UE4, but the constraint was recorded into the movements of the bones connected to the ik anyways. In other words, that worked flawlessly too. What this means going forward is that I don't need to mess with editing the model all over again. (as I feared going from part to part) I can just focus on animation fixing!

For the bags, I was trying to parent them to an empty axis point so it's origin can be attached to zero for UE4 to recognize and not have the items fly everywhere. It's best to do this at frame zero when no constraints are on, because for some reason when they're on, it adjust the bag to the wrong position. As if the origin became the parent instead of the model it was attached to. Weird. After creating a new mix from shape keys set to zero to fix the glitchy bag mess, it was time to get it flawlessly into UE4. I only missed UV-Unwrap fixing the bag. I'll go back for that later.

A lot of shots are being adjusted to be even sexier with animation and slower so it can be taken in. This one above was actually slowed down so the foot loom could last a second rather than a frame. It turns out that to accomplish this in UE4, you split an animation layer in the sequencer and then adjust the play rate for that part. But what about the established camerawork? I just figured that out today. The background of the sequencer layer keyframes is always green and extends infinitely in both directions. It turns out that, once you turn on autosize by right clicking the background for the layer, the background will fit to match the keyframes from first to last. Another tricky thing about it is that you can now edit that background as if it was an animation layer. So splitting and stretching the part by holding ctrl to match the newly adjusted play rate of your animation works PERFECT. The only thing to be mindful of is to make splits on top of a full stack of keyframes. Not doing that messes up the gradual interpolation between keyframes when time suddenly changes. (Jolts or judders in camerawork for example)

Check it out, I turned the anime shader off. "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!!!"

Speaking of lighting, I set the lighting build quality to medium. It has the least harshest shadows and keeps the lighting light for the rest of the house without looking unfinished.

The subdivided model that took an hour to import into UE4 absolutely shows why it was so worth it in this shot. The toes are actually smooth rather than harsh blocky objects!

Same goes for the subdivided fingers. Honestly, this shot was super hard to light correctly, but it's so much easier now that I don't have to deal with face lights left and right. I still would like a bit more splashes of color around the edges. might add unnecessary light to pull that off.

Now on to the part that was never released! Rin has fallen off of the rapidly growing Neko and is making a run for the treat bag.

Epic slowmotion jump. Thanks to the help of the new technique of stretching keyframes, this wasn't a bother at all to add!

This ending looks more unfinished the more I look at it, but the basics of it are done. This part might require more animation fixes than part 3!

All Neko sees is one of her treats running away!

RUN, RIN, RUN!