Next Month / update / w.i.p (Patreon)

Hi everyone! Originally I planned to post the Salsa mod before this post, but if you're on my discord, you'll know that there was a blackout and I lost some data. Thankfully I didn't lose much for the mod part, just the final touches of my Salsa animation that I will have to redo. 

Back to the topic on what's to come next month. For February, I'll be taking a break on couple dancing and focus on walk cycles and interactions.

1. Going back to basics

The graduation cap for all animation artists, be it movie or game animators, is the walk cycle. I must sheepishly say that I never gave it much attention until this week and realised how much growth opportunity there is and how much it'll improve my future animations. 

Hence, I'd like to take February to put some elbow grease into it. I'll be doing everyday moments like walking, sitting, and social interactions. I've been super inspired to make a social interaction mod for awhile now and two in particular from Sims 2 has stuck to my head and I can't shake them off. (Thanks Sara and P. Dyre. You're responsible for the sticky idea! XD )

 Here's the walkcycle I tried to make. I know it's not great but I quote the gurus, catwalk is one of the hardest walk cycles to animate. So I'll get better!

(Queen Naomi <3)

2. 3D modelling

No animator is complete without 3D modelling skills and I'll be coming out and saying it, I've been working on mine for awhile now. Here is a tiny something I've created to complement my walkstyle focus. 

You can tell where I'm going with this. This idea was proposed by Toni Campbell (Thank you!) and I love it! Back in The Sims 1 Superstar expansion pack, my sim had a breakdown after a string of bad modelling choices. After the designer yelled at her for the 3rd time, she was so upset that she refused to model, dropped to her knees and cried for a good sim hour. (I was so terrible at the game.) Now I can finally redeem myself. XD

I can't promise that this will be ready in February, neither can I promise that it'll have the same complexity as Sims 1. I work better with small, bite-sized goals so my aim right now is to simply make it functional and routable by sims. Situations and events can come later. 

This is quite different to what I was doing before but I made this choice because I want to bring my animation craft to the next level. If this is not your cup of tea, I understand! Which is why I wanted to get this out early before the turn of the month so you can be better informed with your decision to support me. I will be very appreciative if you do! <3

Thanks for reading and have a good day! I'm going back to animating now. 👋

P.s - If you're an animator and would like to add your walk cycle to this mod, do reach out. :)