Cerenthea solo thing (character animation getting there) (Patreon)

I've attached the viewport stuff so far of this. Pretty close to having the character animation done and then move onto fluids!

It's been a nice way of understanding the NLA, how I should be using it, that kind of thing... one very neat aspect about the NLA is that I realized I could make a lot of individual single-use motions (or parts of a motion) it's own action and move it around to see where it works best (vs. animating it on a single long action strip and not having much freedom to see how it looks at different parts or being too cautious about having a bunch of animation layers when using the animation layers add-on).

I'd like to do a little video or two about how to use the NLA for animations that have looping in them like this. There's resources for learning the NLA but a lot of them I think don't really show how it can be used for something like this (sm_t in other words). (and also the next fluid tutorial part is coming soon, haven't had a good chance to record more talking for it but should be able to tomorrow!)

Like for example, here I split an action in two (where she thrusts her hips) and had the first part of the split set to "hold forward" so the last frame of that strip stayed until it hit another strip on that track. Then, I animated on top of that to smooth out the hold of the hip thrusting strip. And I put p_ssy twitch strips around it as well as light hip thrust strips to get this nice climax kind of thing going on. And the rest of the hip thrust strip plays to return her back to the pose she was in before.

Here's what the strips look like:

Man the NLA really is super powerful, I'm a believer in the NLA now... I'm having a hard time deciding what should be part of a main layer of animation vs. what can be it's own action that can be put in a strip on a track. Another kick @ss thing the NLA can do is easily change the time scale (so you have a strip play slower or faster and you can lower the influence of a strip so it blends in more with the strips beneath it, the same action can be used to get some excellent variety... it's so powerful)

I've also recorded some sounds specifically for this, I want to have some super visceral squishing/squelching/gulping for that toy going in and out and like, how slick and messy with lube that toy would be... haven't processed them yet though but will soon.

Anyway, I encourage you to check out the animatic so far! I apologize for this tangent of an animation but it's been a good testing grounds for using the NLA which will help out a lot in the future I think.