Hibiki Saiba In A Hot Tub (Raycast Test) (Still) (Patreon)

Just gonna copy and paste what I put on the Discord for this one.

Work is still progressing fairly slowly on the Kick animation but I do have a neat thing to share.  

Since this laptop is stronger than my last and definitely has a different graphics card and all that, it made me wonder and today I finally tested it out. I'm pleased to say I can now finally make use of Raycast!   

Basically what that means is I now have what seems to be the most advanced means of simulating lighting that MMD is capable of. When done to the right specs, the lighting of the picture looks more realistic and striking than what's there by default and it can really make a model look gooood.  

Now, I won't be using this in the CYD fight, 'cause for starters, that'd be really damn weird if it suddenly changed to a much more detailed lighting mid-fight. Moreover, while this laptop of capable of using it, it is HEAVY. And while exporting animations normally is actually very quick for me now, just exporting a picture seems a lot more intensive with Raycast.   

I'll still be experimenting a bit before I rule out using it with videos entirely, short clips atleast might use it in the future, but right now, it's not planned. That said, you can expect the still images I post to look substantially better than they used to.

As an example, I want to share the first picture I made using this new lighting. But first, for comparison's sake, here's a version of it without it. Enjoy Hibiki Saiba in a hot tub:

That one uses pretty much the same kind of setup I'd use normally. Still looks pretty nice I'd say.

But here's that same picture with Raycast...

The difference is, uh... pretty stark, right? I was even able to give it a subtly foggy look, befitting a steamy tub scene. Makes it pretty exciting to do more with stills~!

Click the links below for full-res versions of these images:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WsfbhuEvserVYoKHc0N2ftUv6KvJamJV/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1APg9tBiFv8APWYnFGy8Ff2WRGWl-hiif/view?usp=sharing