Orville Progress (Patreon)

I know, I know. A whole month and this is all the progress I have to show?

Well its complicated. Easiest thing to explain is that I haven't been working on this every day. But moreover, the times I do work on it, I'm only able to get so far before my brain overheats xD

Seemingly little things like knees have become these SAW like puzzles where I'm trying to figure out the proper edge flow to keep everything looking right.

The end results look simple and elegant. But getting there requires some galaxy-brain levels of edge flow tinkering each time.

The worst part is, this is basically uncharted waters for me. Yes I did 3D model, rig, and animate a decade ago. And yes I have a college degree touting this. But a lot of that is bundled up in theory vs execution. These were things that were taught as being "industry standard" right before the industry (and everyone in VR chat) moved away from these things. Because to my personal chagrin, if you throw enough polygons at anything you can normally get away with a lot of sloppiness.

I look at the PS2/GCN era as being the pinnacle of elegance in 3D modeling, because back then you didn't have high polycounts or shaders to pick up the slack. You weren't sculpting and retopolgizing. No, all there was were the polygons and you.

But hooooly shit is this way harder than I remember it. I'm rusty sure, but back in the day I could just zone out and do this thing for hours. Now, going down a few edge loops is beating my ass xD