XXXIV September 2022 Progress Update! (Patreon)

Hey everyone!

It's been a while since we made an update post for XXXIV!  

Through June and July I was heavily occupied with getting the environment pipeline for Pure Onyx up and moving again, now with emphasis on integrating 2D painting into the workflow.  With things progressing well there, I've put effort in making sure XXXIV's goals match our strengths.

In August I further refined the direction I want to take XXXIV, and decided that to make it special over the long term it's worth going the extra step to have more elements from the girls' respective worlds present in the scenes.  Over time the benefits here will become apparent -- because the girls and the males / creatures / other participants we add are cross-compatible ^_-, no matter their source.  

This gives XXXIV a novel and unique attribute over most existing Rule 34 content.  If a 2D artist does a scene with Tifa and Shinra soldiers, that's all there is to it.  If we do it, we can relatively easily swap Tifa out (Pure Onyx style) with every other girl you've voted on :D.  This is an angle I feel is worth exploring, and one fitting for the Rule 34 fan culture.

As such, I've decided to focus on the 3D + animation aspect, as adding 2D art to the mix will stretch our PO painting team too thin.  I also felt having divergent visual styles between 2D/3D would lead to confusion over what XXXIV is, even after we start rolling out content for it regularly.

Now with that out of the way, it's time to check out what we are up to!      

Tifa + Soldiers Scene Concepts

As part of our goal to further incorporate the girls' respective sources, we've begun work on a series of Tifa scenes involving, well, Shinra soldiers :D.  I think adding content that strikes as familiar to our potential audience will serve as a stronger introduction to XXXIV than "Girl A with tentacles, Girl B with tentacles" etc. (don't worry, there will still be tentacles).

Xxoom has sketched out a bunch of concepts for the scenes, and Gifdoozer has already begun posing while we wait for the soldier character to make it through the pipeline.

Shinra Soldier Sculpt!

Like I mentioned above, we intend to create some males and creatures from the girls' respective worlds.  Kame has therefore completed a fantastic Shinra soldier sculpt in our style over the course of the past month!  He's to be used for the upcoming Tifa scenes :D.  

Olga Low Poly!

Now onto our progress with Olga!

TK has nearly finished with Olga's low poly and rigging!  He began focusing on her in the later part of last month after he finished some reworks/improvements on Onyx and the Splicer Brute.

We'll be doing materials and textures for her soon, and Kame will likely be starting on the other participants in her upcoming scenes as well :D.  Ideally we'll be able to work on Olga and Tifa's scenes simultaneously, though we're a bit ahead on Tifa's currently.

Environment Blockouts

XXXIV's animated content will primarily be in full 3D, and due to this, another area we are beginning to focus on is real-time 3D environments.  

One of the first we are looking at is Olga's throne room (scene from the anime shown at the bottom). The plan for Olga's first scenes is to recreate a variation of the popular scene from the anime, but with the orcs.  

If we become effective at creating the stylized 3D environments, it may eventually lead to us adding them for PO's cinematic mode :D (could do one per stage or something). 

These background environments are something we will be developing over time, and will probably lag behind our characters and animations a bit. 

Malise Cel Shading Preview

Lastly, since Malise fits into both XXXIV and Pure Onyx, I wanted to show off some recent progress we've made on her as well!  

Early this month we did the first cel shading material tests for her.  I'm very excited for how well she's turning out!  Keep in mind that, aside from skin and eyes, she has no textures here -- so lines (especially on her suit) and shading look incomplete.  Colors are also prone to change. 

One observation we made is that since she will most often be viewed from a single side in Pure Onyx, we wanted to make sure her face is visible.  As a result, we actually decided to mirror her geometry (flip her horizontally).  Funnily enough, the result is a closer design to her original MATM design, as we actually flipped the side her hair part was on during the first redesign.