(SA1-1) A bit of progress

Old spam-like WIPs from 2022 returns. :)

TA1

This is an unfinished block-out of test animation I do on my laptop. It has a lot of problems which I will fix later. I also added a splined version so you can see how good it already looks. Oh, and I forgot to change the low-poly model to a high-poly one, that's why she doesn't have fur, nipples, etc.

I don't know what codename to pick for animations from a secondary branch. For now, I'll name them TA# - Test animation #. Maybe later I'll rename them to LP# or SA#. Why not A#? - Projects from the secondary branch are much simpler and easier to do. A# animations are usually a lot bigger and more complex than what I can do on a laptop.

This animation will tell what to expect from a secondary branch. In the future, I will upgrade my laptop to a better one, so if something bad happens, I will still be able to create big projects like on the main branch.

Laptop tests

So, from what I have tested everything works fine EXCEPT animation and rendering. Obviously, rendering doesn't work well because of a lack of discrete GPU. But the animation part is a weird one. 25 fps max in the empty scene is weird to say the least. To fix It, l need to work in a small viewport window. Now I have 70-80 fps in an empty scene, looking at my workstation that's about 2,5x slower. But it's okay, considering what l was working with before, I can imagine what l can do with it.

And then I tested all the models I have… 

Original model - 7-9 fps max
Thick model - 15 fps max
Babyface - 17 fps max

Considering that l animate at 24 fps, only thick and babyface models are more or less usable. Sadly original model is way too unoptimized to work with. I'll try to find a way to work with it, but it will take some time.

For the test animation, I picked a simple scene. Hoodwink on a table pushing herself on a human wand somewhere in a tavern. It is a simple looped short animation.

After some time spent animating TA1, I found out that the best way to animate on a laptop is using the animation technique where you create a block-out first, then spline it and polish it. Very ineffective for short animations but using a better technique is not possible here. At least the resulting animation will look great. Making a blockout at 12-15 fps is possible but you lose in accuracy this way.

I feel like low fps will become an issue when I start polishing the animation.