Update
Added 2018-12-14 21:24:30 +0000 UTCHey guys, I appreciate all the feedback and support from last week, and I've put a lot of thought into it. I've still been busy and likely will be for the rest of the year due to the holidays.
I guess I'll start by talking about the movie. What I have done is go through loads of Mass Effect props to re-make some more Omega style builds. I've got a lot of suitable props selected and some ideas... though I haven't really translated it into much. It seems I've hit in inspirational low for the movie, which seems all too easy when Mass Effect is as irrelevant as it is these days. Nonetheless, I want to create a better plan for the movie. Part of me wants to bulk out the movie with more story, animations, and keep all scenes for variety, and part of me wants to strip down the movie to the top 5 most favorite scenes so I can just finish it.
The other update is on Blender 2.8. The beta was recently released and I've tried it very briefly. The real time rendering engine Eevee hasn't impressed me too much, but I've not had much time messing around with it. It looks decent but the shadows have been fairly glitchy. That said, it wasn't ever meant to replace the realism that Cycles provides. It can certainly do the job of much faster render times. With some effort and optimization, it may be a reasonable for animations.
More importantly though, the UI is so much better. They've defaulted to left-click select. For anyone who hasn't used Blender before, it used to be right-click, and you had to go through menus to change it. That in and of itself isn't so bad, except that Blender had a habit of terrible hotkeys and UI. The next big one is spacebar. Pretty much any program ever has spacebar as play. Old blender was like alt + a. It was pretty awkward and it also wasn't an easy hotkey to change. What time I spent messing around animating in Blender was made so frustrating by fucking up simple hotkeys. There's also layers, called collections. Before, layers were just boxes with no labels. Now, collections are pretty much equivalent to SFM's group system with labels and icons.
There's more to play around with and adjust to, but initial impressions of 2.8 are fairly good. Usability just seems so much better.
I think that I've been stressing out about my projects much more than I should. You guys have been really supportive, and I've set my own expectations much higher. I'm going to try to relax a bit more with the busy holidays. Plan out the movie better. Play around with Blender 2.8 more. As a bonus, I'd like to get some sort of SFM loop done too just so I can do some animation.
Comments
With relevance, I think it's more of an inspiration thing. I get that the franchise is still popular, but if discussion and art for the game is getting more scarce, it's harder to maintain such interest. I think it just comes with the highs and lows of creation. To partial releases, this is what I've been considering just so I can get work out there without taking so long for the whole thing. It's also partially why I considered changing locations around. It could make more sense for a different location for each mini-release. That said, I think I do prefer keeping it all on Omega, and that seems to be the popular opinion. Really though, the idea of different locations started because the scenebuild, I just didn't realize how to word it at the time. Mainly, the scenebuild is more inspired from the Citadel than Omega, and it was fairly barebones to get to posing and animating faster. It was also meant for a much shorter movie. Once I started considering early scenes to full release quality, I realized that it was not up to par. It's also part of the inspiration thing. It's harder to be excited about animating if the scene doesn't have an exciting atmosphere. So much of the scene that I'm looking at while I'm animating is boring, and I think that's draining. So that's more or less what I want to do the next couple weeks. Take stock of the Omega build, figure out other animations I want to do, and get a balanaced schedule. There will probably be some sort of partial release/teaser, but that will absolutely have to be finished quality.
BlueLight
2018-12-15 16:57:18 +0000 UTCBy plan, I mostly mean a balanced schedule to work on it and other stuff. The main thing I want to remake/improve is the scenebuild because it was more or less a placeholder.
BlueLight
2018-12-15 16:28:22 +0000 UTCNow I wanted to say something before but life got really busy so I never had chance to respond but I finally have a moment to add my 2 cents. First of saying Mass Effect is irrelevant I would say is in accurate. Yes it's not maybe the "it" thing anymore for the 3D porn scene but it's still very popular. It is one of those series people will always like to see porn of. Take example Dead or Alive has not had a main release for a long time yet people liked to make porn of those characters. Same goes for Soul Caliber, Zelda, Tomb Raider or hell even looks at Samus she has not had a big game in a long ass time and yet she is one of the most popular porn characters. I am aware that of these games had new release recently but I am talking about when those periods in between. So no Mass Effect is not on the same level as it was when SFM porn was just becoming a think but I would not say it's irrelevant. Really Overwatch is the new "it" game for porn but sooner or later something will take it it's place but people will love it so much that they will always want porn of it. Also I think as an artist you should do things that you like or work on franchises that you like. I could say a lot more on this topic and if you want to get into it let me know but for now I think I said the main things I wanted to get across. Now I am not to familiar with all your earlier work from what I have seen, this Omega film is a big step up and I can see why it might be overwhelming since you also did not plan for it being so long. I think one idea but not be bad is doing 3-4 scene and then releasing that as a part 1 and part 2 and so on. This way you can take a break in between, relax a bit, work on some loops or Blender and mostly importantly not burn out which I am seeing way too much recently. Plus when it's all done you can cut it all together as one big film. Normally I would be happy to wait for the full thing since I am used to it because of other SFM artist and I get it takes time but releasing in parts might get new supporters which you yourself have said has not really grown as much. So basically, release the film in parts, keep the film intact the way it is and release some loops or a hsort that is like 30 seconds long in between for content and maybe get some new supporters. Now the last thing. There was talk about changing location which I would be okay with but I do like this whole Omega setting. Now you are talking about maybe adding more story which again I don't mind either since I actually do like story with my porn XD.......however I also find this can be dangerous because you as an artist will grow and learn new things and so you will improve all the time. This can lead to changes all the time or adding new things all the time which could end up delaying the film more and more. Now again I am not against the idea of adding more story or anything but I would also say just take those things you have learned and add it to the next project/film/short just not to end up being stuck on this one project forever. I believe I wanted to add something else but I can't remember so I will end it here for now and if I remember it later I shall bring it up. Having said all that, the film looks fantastic so far and you do really good work and if you need to take break once in a while please take it. If you have any question or want to talk about something jsut let me know :)
Supreme Overlord Llama
2018-12-15 02:57:16 +0000 UTCThe Miranda movie is already well planned out with the script, voice acting and posing, I don't know why you wanna mess with that right now
Derples
2018-12-14 23:38:18 +0000 UTC
