This will end my art career (Spoilers/WIPs) (Patreon)

Hello friends!

So, let's sit down and chat together, because I'm struggling. I love doing this size art, I think I do pretty okay at it, and I think our little unaware niche still needs more attention to it, but I have some hard decisions to make.

I've been saying for over a year now I wanted to move away from Daz, at least for animation. It's a really great beginners tool, but I'm a rapidly pushing Daz beyond what it's really capable of, and I'm limited in what I can do because of it. There's so much better software out there, and I know, because I own it. Despite this, I've been pushing forward and sticking with Daz because I get such amazing results with so much ease, partially because that's what it's intended to do, but also because I've been using it for years now. So, here's a problem I have with Daz, illustrated by the GIF above. Spoilers for the animation I'm working on.

This little dude is on a cherry, about to be eaten, but he falls off of the cherry and lands on the cute girl's tongue. Simple right? 

Wait, hold on...

As we watch, not only does he land on the tongue, but he falls straight through it and disappears. It's not shown, but he reappears a few frames later, lifting out of the surface of the tongue and continues whatever is about to happen next. So, the problem is that he's only programmed to land on the tongue, then stop. The extra movement is because of a thing I've complained about before called interpolation, and the way Daz handles it. The only other option I have is to change his interpolation to 'linear', which means he will fall straight down unrealistically, instead of slowly gaining momentum as he falls. Imagine those old cartoons where a character stops in mid air and, then suddenly falls at maximum velocity. Changing the interpolation for the tiny dude would cause that. It looks bad, and is distracting in such a good looking scene. And yes, this scene looks good. The second screenshot is the first frame of the same scene, only in a rendered view (rendered for like 30 seconds, not a finished product obviously). 

So my option is to try to keyframe the whole thing one frame at a time, which never looks good, and takes *forever*, or just change the plan for this scene, which I've already done. Him falling onto her tongue was a workaround for a different problem in Daz...the fact that that cherry is stuck to her finger permanently unless I change scenes. In programs such as iClone, these problems are resolved in literally two clicks or less. Instead of rendering this scene tonight, I'm going to spend my free time reworking this scene to figure out how to get it to happen at all...

So, I could just start using these other programs, and eventually get a higher quality, more consistent product to give to you. The problem is... that's going to take time. At one point I thought I could slowly work the other software programs into my workflow until I was just as good with them, but judging by the extremely slow progress I've been making lately, that's not going to happen. I'm going to have to spend some dedicated time making content outside of Daz, and it's just not going to be very good for a while.

I've always been honest with you guys, so here I am. I do still rely on this income every month, and I'm worried about what's about to happen. You deserve the best I can do, and thought my bill collectors tell me to suck it up and stay the course, my heart says to take a serious chance and drastically drop my pricing or even suspend my page until I can make progress. By even talking about this, I'm worried I'm taking a huge risk to my ability to make ends meet next month. This isn't me trying to guilt trip you, but if things get too rough, I'll have to stop doing this entirely and grab part time job in retail. At the end of the year I'm moving into a cheaper place, so that'll help, but in the meantime... 😬

So what am I gonna do? I dunno. I still plan on dropping this animation for y'all next month. It won't be very long, and I think it'll be worth it, but after that? *shrug*. It'll be the wild west for a while, so I hope y'all like horses. 

Thank you all so much for the support you've given thus far. My page isn't going anywhere yet, but if your current tier of subscription is any kind of financial burden or you see this as a transactional relationship (you give me money, I give you a specific amount of content), I would highly encourage you to reconsider your current pledge before the end of the month. I'd rather you wait until I push through this time of growth. For those of who you have stuck around and support my work, I see you, I hope that's obvious by the way I implement your ideas where possible. Thank you, thank you, and thank you again.

-U.E.