Going forward in 2020.

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year everyone! The new year has crept up on us so quickly. Kind of surprised its 2020 already.  I hope you guys will celebrate the new year with optimism! More will come in 2020 for Colonel's Avatars, just you wait, I have some pretty big plans and announcements coming up. A lot has happened though, in 2019. Reflecting back on 2019, it was actually a really important year for me.

Reflecting on 2019 | A Personal Note

I've learned a lot of things, be it personal or technical, I believe it has changed me for the better. I haven't talked about my personal life too much, but I don't mind opening up about it if people ask. 

Just a "little" personal note over here for those who want to know a bit more about me.

I ended up withdrawing from University and leaving my job in late 2018 due to mental health issues. Due to my schedule freeing up, I was able to focus on VRChat and avatar creation a lot more than I usually did. Through VRChat, I have met a lot of people, and it has helped with a lot of the anxieties I've had. Tackling new experiences every day, I've made a lot of mistakes but I feel like I am still learning. Interacting and talking to people has really been an eye-opener to me. I can definitely say with confidence, it has changed me for the better. 

I was feeling extremely depressed since I was only working on VRChat content ever since early 2018. I was making all of these avatars mostly for myself, I ended up being selfish for a good period of time and I wasn't acting like myself. My friends picked it up and noticed that I was changing for the worse. 

Sometime in April of 2019, I ended up deciding to make all my Private Avatars public. It was really hard for me to at first since I treated all of my avatars like they were mine, but once I did make them public and started to see how much people truly enjoyed them, it has made me gratified. Instead of making stuff to show it off and treat it as an "ego booster", I ended up making stuff because it was something I was passionate about and wanted to share to the community. It was a slow process but I eventually got my priorities and mindset sorted out. 

The lack of priorities due to no school and work, I was on full overdrive mode when it came to working on VRChat content. People tell me all the time that it's crazy how much I've done within the span of a year. They'd tell me I have a lot of time on my hands, or too much time on my hands... well, I do! 

I had all the time in the world. But as the year started to close, I started to burn out. So I took a break off of VRChat creation for a while. I started to spend a lot of time on VRChat talking to people, hanging out with friends, just making new memories and experiences. Feel free to hang out with me if you wanna talk by the way! But taking that break was what I needed. I feel a lot more confident in certain scenarios and a lot more content nowadays. 

I do have to thank my close friends that I've met through VRChat, I don't want to name who they are for personal reasons but I am so glad that I've met you all. They were with me through the toughest times and when I wasn't acting myself and they've stuck through it till now. I am so grateful to be with you guys, you guys know who you are :). I love you all, and I look forward to hanging out and making more memories.

I am glad though, that there is this much support from everyone! It turned one of my hobbies into something that I could give to the community and I am thankful for everyone's kind words~

I am doing a lot better now and I'm glad. :)

Mental health is important. Know that things can always wait, no matter the reason, you are always at the forefront. Take care of yourself, don't let life-stresses bog you down. There's a lot more in life, I promise, and you'll know too once you've made it there.

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Moving Forward

That being said, I plan to continue working on VRChat content moving forward into 2020. I have been really burnt out the past couple of months so that's why I decided to take a break from VRChat content creation. It was the break I needed.  I am still waiting for the Unity Update to come to VRChat and then I can finally start working on Patreon related content again. I will be detailing a roadmap sometime in January for future plans. 

The Patreon exclusive avatar for January 2020 is definitely a thing but it will be teased and demoed later into the month.

All those who have commissioned me, don't worry I am still going to be working on them. Currently, now I am not accepting any more new commissions until I have completed everything.

When we revert the world back without all the Christmas decor, I plan on overhauling a few things in the world. I already have spent a lot of time optimizing and fixing performance issues, so I'll keep trying to push the world to a smaller size. The world as a whole, I would love to make the world a lot more interactable, because going around the town during the Christmas update truly was something magical. 

I do have to thank and give credit to Uzucake for doing all the retextures on the map, it was very time consuming since there were like over 80 textures they had to draw snow on top of.  They are truly amazing with what they do.

Full-body updates and gesture tutorials to all the avatars is something I have planned. A lot of you guys are starting to use Full-Body so I think it'd be great to get all the avatars working for full body. I also know a lot of people still get confused with a lot of the gesture combinations so I will try to find a way to convey the gestures in a simple way.

For the older avatars that I made in 2018 that are featured in the world (you can pretty much tell which ones they are due to the pictures being a different style), I will be updating all of them to be more up to date with the new techniques and improved particles I've learned and created. Their pedestals are pushed more towards the back, and all the Links were made in 2018 (aside from the Breath of the Wild one). 

So yes, that means I will finally be updating and overhauling the Ocarina of Time Link in the Chamber of Sages to have more stuff.

About that Mario I owed ya.

I have come to the conclusion that even if the Unity update doesn't come any time soon in January, I will try my best to upload the Mario avatar to all November/December patrons (who are eligible to receive it) sometime in January. 

It is honestly just really ridiculous. The mindset I had going into November was that the VRChat devs stated that the update was going to be released sometime in early November. So what I did was of course plan for the eventual update. I halted all work on anything VRChat related until the update would come out but then December naturally came. Aaaannnddd still no update? I could have uploaded it to everyone in December but what if the Update came soon since apparently the New Year's Eve world was uploaded using the new Unity. So that means they would have to push the update out before then. Aaaannnnd now we're here and still no update. 

-.-

Extremely inconvenient. So to give back to everyone who has supported during this transition period, I will be uploading a secret avatar I am working on to all of your accounts. It will only be for people who have supported in November/December/January. More details will come in 2020. 

I wanna make sure everything is communicated to everyone, so please feel free to ask any questions in the comments, the #patreon-chat, or just by simply sending me a DM. 

Oh, you've made it this far? Then I appreciate the time you've spent to read this.

I usually don't make posts like this but I felt like it was necessary to close this year off. I know I've said this multiple times already but, thank you guys, really. You all are amazing, I hope you all know that. Remember that there are people out there to support you no matter what. I've made a new channel in the Discord Server called #venting, so please, vent any life struggles you are currently battling or if life is just too overwhelming. You definitely need it and deserve a break~

Here's to a new year and a new decade, see you in 2020.

-Kernel