CGMan

End of Year Ramblings

So the stereoscopic version of "Yumi Grows More" is down to less than 100 rendering hours to go.  It's such a pisser this would have been done long ago if I had noticed that the skirt data was lost in the hard drive crash.  Sigh.  But now I have to put that aside as it is time to render Yumi damaging a car.  I really hope you like this one.  It's the most complex animation I've done yet for Patreon.  You'll see what I mean when it's done.

I'm so glad this year is ...

Animation Progress Report!

Cloth simulations are done!  Huzzah!  And I have to say... Sometimes I even impress myself! ;)

Animation Progress Report

Glass simulations are complete!

Remaining steps: Cloth sim and final lighting and any background dressing.

Yumi's hair and skin are finalized!

Look at me kicking arse!  Note in the image above the hair is not rendered, only the shadow of the hair.

Animation Progress Report!!

I have wonderful, funderful, joyous news..  I could use some after hearing about the loss of our Princess. :(

Yumi's skin is complete!  What remains are sims for hair, cloth and glass.

Tech Success!!

Hope everyone had a festive holiday!

Yessss!  I had some trouble getting the new rigging technique to work for a day or so.  Thanks to some help from a brilliant friend, I have got it working perfectly now!  See the attached sample.  What you see is Yumi's back sliding over the surface of her ribcage.  Before when things stretched like this it would do so in a straight line, making things flat.  But now it's gonna look much more organic.  This is also the key...

Animation Progress Report!

Here's an update on my checklist to completion:

Primary Character animation... DONE!

Car Damage... DONE! (not including glass)

Camera animation... DONE!

Secondary character Animation (eyes, jaw, etc)... DONE!

Muscle Growth & Flexing... DONE!

Remaining tasks:

Hair Sim

Rig pectoral and back with new improved system

Transfer all character animation data to final skin

Breast Sim

Cloth Sim

Glass shatter Sim<...

Animation Progress Report!

Primary Character animation... DONE! (including hands & fingers)

Car Damage... DONE! (not including glass)

Camera animation... DONE! (Including stereoscopics and shaking)

Remaining tasks:

Secondary character Animation (eyes, jaw, etc)

Muscle Growth

Hair Sim

Rig pectoral and back with new improved system

Transfer all character animation data to final skin

Breast Sim

Cloth Sim

Glass shatter Sim

Lighting

Render...

Animation Progress Report

Hey all,

Just letting you know I'm still banging on the animation.  I am creating the car body damage as I finish cleaning up the remainder of the character animation because they are quite interdependent.  I am thinking this phase will be done tomorrow... or perhaps the day after (I hope).  Then comes breaking glass sims which shouldn't take long.. then hair sim... then a bit of clothing and then it is render time.

I'd really love to show you the progress I am making, it ...

Animation Progress Report (and a test)!

Hey all!

I've been banging this animation.  Hard.  The main character animation will probably be done in 1 or 2 days.  Then comes all the breakage effects.

Meanwhile.. I did some experiments with some different techniques..  Attached is a little test I made.  Could result in some interesting new ways of rigging.  The "balls" don't have to be balls.. they can be any shape.  Those of you who remember I tried rigging this way in the past with middling resu...

Animation Report

I am transferring & cleaning up the motion capture rig over to Yumi's rig part-by-part.  It's exciting to see her come alive..  Again. :)

Motion Capture Success

2nd time was the charm.  Motion capture recorded and the first clean-up pass is complete.  Here's a little preview.

So this is annoying...

I recorded two motion-capture scenes today.  One for the next Yumi animation, another for a friend.  The one for my friend exported perfectly but the one for me did not work.  I think the same exact thing happened last time!  Seems this new technology is not without flaws.  Oh well.  I will record the scene again first thing tomorrow.  The device beeps loudly when you use it and I don't want to wake anyone up.

FYI... The Car is done.

This sentence is redundant.

Car Progress

I am hoping to have the car finished by the end of the day today.  Here's a look at it in it's current state.  Mostly done.

Ordered a new hard drive

I just ordered a new hard drive to replace my dead drive.  Also a new SATA cable...  And... A light for my bicycle.  They will not be here until the 6th.  On the bright side, this was probably the best time of year to have to buy a new hard drive.. Prices are probably discounted for the shopping season.

I just wanted to thank you all.  I would give you all hugs if I could.  None of this would be possible without your awesome help!!!!!!!  Thank you so very muc...

Yumi Grows More censored preview posted to YouTube

The subject pretty well covers it. :)

CGMan Release #37 - Meet Naomi

The beautiful, pectoriffic, dirty-blonde Naomi makes her debut in this animation.  Please bear with me as I finish up the animation.

Some of you have it..

It's in the wee hours of the morning here..  I finally got it all done and some of you have the animation in your email.  I'm pretty fried.  I need to get some rest then I will send it out to the rest of you right after I get some rest.  Sorry for the extra delay. :(

Model being prepped for Yumi's next animation

The model looks nice already, but it needs changes for what will happen to it.. And it has no interior; that's a problem.

News

Looks like the animation will be done rendering in ~35 hours.

I posted a little teaser featuring Naomi's buff body on DA.

I really, really like how Naomi looks.  Yumi was really good too, but I think this is far and away my best work.  What do you think, would you like me to make the next animation Naomi's first animation?  The one Patreon charged as "Yumi Causes Damage" (or something like that)  Or do you still want to see Yumi break something?

Some more tweaks

Because...

Naomi retopologized

Me likey!

More tweaking of Naomi

Hand enhanced

Hey,

Just finished re-rigging Yumi's hand for future animations (and for future characters).  This was using my new weight painting system..  It is overall better but the most noticable improvement is the rigging for the padding where the palm meets the fingers.  This looks much more natural.

On the 30th I will be posting a (in advance) a new animation called "Meet Naomi."  where I will be introducing a new animated character, a massive gal who is just 18 years...

(Sigh) You guys are gonna be mad.

Early today the main render pass was completed.  And the hair render pass was about 12 hours from being complete.

A lot happened since then.  My hard drive died.  It was the drive holding all of the rendered frames as well as other files for the project.  As my drive gasped it's last breaths I managed to salvage nearly half of the main render pass, the hair pass, and the other important files for the project.

But this set me way back on rendering.  Now I gotta re...

So... Wow...

I just discovered a new breakthrough with rigging.. You may remember I was stuck trying various methods for getting muscles to slide over the suface of, say, the ribcage.  To be fair I didn't "discover" it.. Someone told me about a feature of a plugin I purchased a year ago that I never knew about!  All this time and the solution was right before me.

The solution I came up with in the animation that is rendering now is a fakey cheat.  It worked pretty well on the chest (better t...

Render Progress

Hey everyone!  We've just passed the 2/3rds completion mark on the first render pass.  It's looking sooooo good!  I'm looking forward to seeing her with hair once the 2nd pass is done. :P

I'll keep you all posted!  Thanks for being patient!!!!!!!

Render Progress!

We are within arm's length of hitting the halfway point of the first render pass.  I told you it was a biggun! :D

Ugh!

Windows update during the night while I was sleeping.  Rebooted my computer.  I hate it when that happens!  >:(