August Update

Hey, it's update time. I want to give you guys a quick update on the current projects. The main thing for this month is re-focusing. Basically, I'm juggling too many things and I'm trying to simplify.

I started by working on a set of posters with Miranda and the krogan model in order to really use the model myself. I made a list of all the things that the krogan still needs fixing. The set itself was also on the edge of my VRAM use, so it was difficult to manage in Cycles. Most issues for the Krogan are simple, but there's enough it'll take a while to fix. The Miranda posters would be nice, but a good part of that project was just to hone in on the fixes needed for the Krogan. I'm still going to try to finish them, but I think they stand to be a lower priority.

I also worked on some more poses for animation ideas. I ran into some pretty severe performance issues, but they ultimately were worked out. I suppose it's a fairly technical explanation, but simply put there's an addon at work with lots of extra features which put a huge amount of strain on the CPU, and deleting most of those features will relieve the stress. This has saved a particular animation idea by boosting the FPS by about 3x. Those performance issues though still bogged down the process enough that I wanted to shift to an active animation.

I still haven't received any audio for the last batch of animation drafts. I understand the circumstances for such delays, but it also shows exactly why I have to work on these animations so far in advance. Without repeating characters so soon, that really limited the options to work with.

What am I working on then? The key focus for the month now is one animation + commission posters. I've split the last few days on these projects, and so far it seems reasonable.

I decided to take on a slightly more ambitious loop with Ada Wong. Most loops I've planned are around 5 seconds long, but this one is the longest at about 18 seconds. There are enough commissions requests to easily keep me busy for the rest of the month, and so far they all fall into the Dragon Age, Mass Effect, or Resident Evil franchises.

I will focus on the animation + commissions until the animation is complete. Then, any time left in the month with the animation done will then be devoted to other projects like the krogan model, posters, or animation poses/drafts.