Update 53: Time

I am, As many of you may have guessed, or I might have said so already: Neurodivergent

Or, to use the term I prefer: Neurospicy

I am a person who needs to take their time with things.

And I don't mean 'I really prefer not to be rushed' - I think we can all relate to that, I mean I literally need to take my time to do... well anything.

It permeates all the way back to my childhood, where I would 'fail' at math, despite being technically proficient in it, but because I couldn't rattle off the times table and didn't know -instantly- what the answer was.

I would sometimes, but it would just 'pop' into my head, and I was never sure if it was accurate, I would have to double check myself, do the math in my head before answering, I just need some time.

It's why Animation appeals so much to me as an art form, it allows you to take as much time as you need to get things right

I've suffered with anxiety, which resulted in debilitating panic attacks throughout most of my adult life, and as it turns out, the anxiety of time I believe is at the root of it all.

I'm going to tell you all the story of how I figured this out:

Strap in, this is a long one, It's more MJ renovates than MJ animates but, there's a few previews in there.

But first, since it was requested, cat pictures:

Photogenic little shit

The Start

This is where I started from:

Ok the picture of her above the TV is probably the best picture I have of her, the ones on my walls are various artists, if one interests you let me know, I'll look them up

The flow of the room is simple: I work on the animation at my desk, then at the end of my workday, or, whenever viable, I will review the footage on the big screen, taking notes of changes I might need to make, so I can make adjustments on the next day.

Pretty cool right? Just install AC to get rid of the portable unit in the corner, install new server rack, get new sockets in, 2 weeks max right?

So I ordered the AC, whilst waiting for that and prepping my room, I moved to another couple of issues that had been bugging me, mainly this area:

The only picture I have before I hung the picture wall

That light switch, and the socket on the wall below it next to the door, I decided had to go and get recessed into the wall properly.

They'd been a source of a lot of problems, the socket at the floor was what I had the portable AC plugged into.

The socket almost melted when I was last running a render, it tripped the breaker a couple of times, so I wanted an electrician to look at it.

Also, since the AC was a heater as well as a cooler, I wanted to remove the radiator, since new flooring was being put in.

So, I hired an electrician to chase them into the wall, as they always should have been.

That however, opened up a can of worms the likes of which I'd never suspected, You see that blue MDF surrounding the door? That was hiding some frightful things:

This was -after- the electricians had done their work by the way, That MDF sheeting was hiding bare brick, it hadn't even been plastered underneath there, also, where they'd mounted the socket (due to wire limitations) meant it was now -below- the skirting board.

So, enter a builder to re-build the door frame and re-plaster around it:

Note the hanging cable: speaker cable, was piggybacking off the conduit that the light circuit was in, the conduit was coming away from the wall in a bunch of places

I'll get to the can of worms this had opened, but in the mean time, the big day had arrived, AC:

Behind it you can see problem number 2: What lay beneath that skirting, again, more bare brick, will get to that.

But this also included the installation of the sockets that I so desperately needed, to fuel my render farm:

Whilst at work though, the electricians discovered some stuff that was not just worrying, but straight up dangerous.

That's the main socket breaker, and the wires are straight up melted

The electrician said that he was amazed the breaker didn't trip, this could easily have started a fire, There has never been a more clear example of just how much power this kind of work takes, and how precious my situation was.

Returning to that brick, tearing off the skirting and dado resulted in some pretty bad walls:

See that bolt in the floor to the right? more on that in a bit.

But, I'd watched the builder plaster, and thought 'that didn't look too hard' and thought I'd try my hand at doing it myself.

And surprisingly, this went ok! At first.....

The tipping point

I don't have any good pictures of the before for the next bit, but the bead on the corner of this wall corner profile was always off, the current dado rail was half buried under the plaster, the entire corner was uneven, because I was removing the dado and wanted a flat wall, I decided to rip it off:

And this was the amount of material that was removed with nothing more than a wire brush, the plaster literally fell off, a chunk of the crown moulding came off too, it was huge.

But, I'd had my practice doing up the holes in the skirting and dado, I reckoned I could do it.

So I set to work plastering it:

But... this operation took me literally an entire day

At this point, I started to get anxious, this was all supposed to have been done by now, enter panic attack 1

I ultimately decided that I needed help, proper plasterers, and whilst they were at it, just get the whole damn room re-done, may as well whilst everything is disassembled like this!

The earliest I could get anyone in was within a week (which was pretty amazing honestly, I got lucky) I figure: may as well keep myself busy.

I decided to get rid of the remaining conduit, and add sockets for all the ethernet runs that were necessary for the function of the space.

8 runs total, security camera x2, doorbell, 3d printer, AV stack, 2 wireless AP's, internet for my housemate.

Whilst doing that, I started to find some pretty troubling looking floorboards.

And yes, sandals are approved footwear for a building site.

One floorboard straight up disintegrated when I pulled it up, resulting in me needing to replace it, but of course the floorboards were a non standard size, I used the closest I could get, I'm going to fix it later:

This is only the beginning of my floorboard woes, will get to that.

I managed to do all my chasing, my wall mounted surround speakers, the lighting and sockets all got chased in, then the plastering got done.

The plasterers originally said it would be 2 days, but some problems came up, so it had to be pushed, over a weekend too, so I lost some time there, I had to occupy myself somehow.

This also meant I had to push the flooring install on a bit, managed to get that booked in eventually.

Chasing in the wires and removing the surface conduit had left some pretty ugly holes in the crown moulding.

This was after some expanding foam got put in there, it was ugly.

I managed to clean it up nice though using some epoxy putty and a lot of sanding:

The Bomb

During all of this, I'd spent a lot of time emailing back and fourth trying to get the rack situation sorted out, remember when I talked about getting an acoustic rack?

Well, as it turns out, that was rather more difficult than first anticipated.

Given they are a closed system, they need to be capable of dissipating all of the heat the equipment was capable of producing, in my case, the max spec (for now) I'd planned for was 6KW.

This was a tall order to fill, after some sleuthing though, I managed to find literally the perfect rack for what I wanted, It had temperature controlled fans, dissipation up to 12KW, it had ducting so you could just straight up divert the heat out of the room, or direct it into the room if you prefer (for heating supplementing, and to not stress the AC at all) , It was amazing.

It also weighed 350 kilos, before any equipment was in it.

Now, remember the floorboard situation? Well, where my rack goes, the floorboards were in a dire state:

So, these were taken up from the place underneath where the server rack was,

Also, you remember that bolt from earlier? The one also right next to the server rack?

That was a gas main.

So... had I proceeded with Plan A, I'd have been placing the better part of a tonne, on top of an unstable floor, connected to a power supply that was unstable, on top of a gas pipe

This... shook me a bit I'm not going to lie, I was still anxious of that kind of weight sat in a corner that was already sagging (old house, old joists) so I took action to replace the floorboards as best I could, non standard size be dammed:

Enter panic attack 2, it was now.... 3 weeks into the month? I was way over schedule, It was really getting to me, I was running out of time

Even noodle was upset with me, being she was currently restricted to my housemates room, due to all the construction work:

But, I was reassured that, had I proceeded as normal, I'd probably not be here to be making this post so... I soldiered on.

I had to wait a few days for the plaster to fully dry before I could repaint, I occupied myself with filling the holes in the crown moulding and fixing the aforementioned floorboards, plus some others:

Pictured to the right is the, to be later pictured, mountain of crap

Now that the plaster was dry, I could paint:

With fresh plaster you need to 'whitewash' it first (paint with diluted paint) then you can paint your colour:

And I got the ethernet all terminated nicely, just behind where the rack was going to go:

The Crash

I was getting close to being able to live in this space, but there Is still so much to do, I was getting stressed out, I knew that this work needed to be done, but I haven't been animating in months now...

Why did I do this at this point, right after all the tech work?

Why didn't I at least put something out just before doing all this work?

I got really anxious thinking about writing this update, on the prospect of facing more angry patrons, as yet another month went by with no new content, and nothing to show for it.

All this whilst having everything I own stacked into every corridor, cubby, bedroom and space I could find (I would show you my bedroom but... it's disgusting)

Having to move sideways back and fourth past mountains of boxes of IT kit that I still didn't have anywhere to put because I was still waiting for paint/plaster/glue/filler to dry and I ordered all the fun kit in advance like an idiot, not knowing all this was going to happen.

I needed more time

I started trying to rush things, which of course, ended badly:

I tried to use masking tape to get a clean line on the black, but I applied it too early, that or these walls are old and shit, but the paint came away.

On top of that, I am -exhausted- there has not been a day go by this month that I haven't been spending 12 hours every day filing, sanding, painting, fixing, drilling, cutting or building, taking 8 hours to sleep and 4 hours to cuddle/play with noodle fills my day completely, it's hard to even get an hour to see my PT at the gym.

But nothing to do about that now, what's done is done, now it needed to be finished.

I need more time

I'd timed all my painting perfectly so the new floor would go in after, I was delighted when the day arrived, except:

The floor was covered in some residue, it came off, but the job was arduous, I had to spend a whole day on my hands and knees cleaning it off, and that, in your 30's, isn't conductive to good back health.

So I had to complain to them, on top of that, my accountants managed to mess up my taxes so bad I had interest to pay, so I had to raise a complaint with them too.

The only viable option for the rack manufacturer seemed to employ salespeople who know nothing about racks.

I need more time

So I rush through the other jobs, one being to try and stain the door:

Which ended terribly:

So I had to sand the bastard all the way back, I just went with danish oil finish in the end, I wanted a dark wood door to suit all the other dark woods going into this build, but because I was running out of time, I needed to just, get a door ready to fit.

Noodle is also still -very angry- with me

I need more time

But I needed to clear my under the stairs bit out, for the planned drop ceiling and re plastering of that section (laminate flooring is laid with an expansion gap built in, so you need skirting to go over it, ergo, I had to clear that room out)

That place had a tonne of shit in it:

This is probably not even half of my stuff I had in my storage cubby , it's all the gear I have to keep on hand for node/workstation/server repairs, plus my own trinkets and keepsakes for display, It was all haphazardly balanced and crammed into shelving fixed to walls that never want to hold fixings properly.

And this was -after- I boxed it all up, this was all individual items I had to pack away, it was a huge job.

And there was still so much to do

And it was at this time, amongst these failures, delays, and the ever mounting time pressure, as I was trying to clear out this monumental mountain of crap, it broke me.

And I cried.

I cried long and hard about it all, all the pressure, all the failures, all the work, I was strung out, I was exhausted, I was done

I couldn't do this

I have nobody who can help me

I was out of time

But I needed to get this done and get back to work

The Discovery

Every time I tried to rush something, it would end badly, and end up costing me more time, But every time I slowed down, and took my time to do the job right, it would usually go pretty well.

Whenever a workman would run out of time on a job, and tried to rush it to finish it, it went poorly.

Everyone I hired gave an estimate of how long it would take, and it was always about 50% off, some responded properly (continued to work at a normal pace) but some rushed and as a result, bodged the job.

We all give the timeframes we -want- to believe we can achieve, but life never really works out that way.

And... whenever I worried about the length of time it's been since I've served up some content, I get a few new patrons, or an encouraging message from an existing one, and I realise... this is probably me more then it is them.

Also, sure, there's the odd person who does say something, but it is rare...

The truth is that nothing good comes from something rushed.

This was going to take some time, and I needed to be ok with that.

And the truth is, 99% of you all are awesomely chill, and just want to support my work, and that, well, it means more to me than words can describe.

So now, every time I feel an anxiety attack coming on, I just need to breathe, tell myself I have time, and it goes away!

For the uninitiated, the best description I've heard about what an anxiety attack feels like that I think most people can relate to is thus:

You know that feeling, when you trip, where you start to feel yourself loosing your balance, that drop in your stomach?

It's like that, magnified a decent amount, but for about 20 minutes.

For me it's usually me believing I'm going to have a heart attack and die on the spot, and nobody would be able to help me in time.

Noodle just needed some of my time

So... to have that just... go away... let's just say it's been a pretty significant month for me.

And... I've had lots of breathroughs on this over the years, having seen a therapist for about the past 7, there's various discoveries along the way that have alleviated the symptoms for a time, some of those including:

Admitting I was lonely

Admitting I was attracted to men as well as women

Admitting I was always seeking my fathers approval

But I was never free of them completely, until now.

The Revival

I was reminded of the time when I was way back when, In my dinky little setup, clumsily blundering my way into 3D:

That monitor placement by the way -horrible idea- it has given me neck pain I have to manage daily, heed my warning, observe proper ergonomics.

I remember as I set out to make my animations, wanting to complete these long format, story driven pornographic pieces, the comments I would get would be like:

"Just do short loops, its not worth it, nobody wants that stuff."

"Don't bother with Houdini, that's for big CG studios, nobody cares about it in porn."

"It's just all about volume, don't waste your time."

Well you know what, people do want that, and you know what else

I am fucking good at it

I can do this

I will do this

Drop ceiling goes in

Wireless AP, security camera and lighting installed

The placement of the AP is such that I will get perfect signal with my mocap suit, previously it was mounted behind a TV, thus was picking up interference

Door oiled, cut, and prepared for super deluxe cat flap

Dado, skirting, architrave painted for installation (I had the plasterers back as they did deco too, really decent guys!)

Make way too much mess and find out copper nail vanish would be sick.

Noodle played with

Speaker terminations: Mastered

I used adhesive lined shrink wrap and screw down banana plugs to get a permanent connection that wouldn't expose the copper to oxygen and thus oxidisation, I don't know if it actually -does- anything but... it looks cool.

Relationships: Mended

I am -screaming- through tasks day by day, and i'ts finally -almost- at the point where I can get things up and running again.

Also, just because I can't animate, does not mean work here doesn't get done, My concept drawings:

Begin to breathe life

All models shown are strictly WIP and subject to change

Amongst other fun stuff we have lined up for the future.

Pay no heed to two models in the scene, it's just for modelling sake.

This is a particularly good example of the iterations that take place to bring a finished asset to completion:

Reminder: All of these are subject to change

So believe me, We've got a LOT planned.

I am brimming with ideas about what to do next, my clarity has not faded, if anything, It has exceeded my wildest expectations.

I am itching to get back to it

So, all of this has cost a LOT of money, both personal and business, and believe it or not, I'm very aware of the fact that most of you are here for MJ animates not MJ renovates but, well, this is my life.

That's what this update has become really, the story of my life, in many ways, I enjoy sharing it with you all, and I appreciate so much the love and support I get back from all of you.

And I think it's appropriate at this point to look back at when I started all this

All those years ago, when I was still back here:

I whacked a 3090 on a credit card, so I could make better animations.

And... this time is a similar sort of thing, it's a gamble, it's risky to 'go offline' for this length of time in this business, people leave (no offence taken, I get it!) notwithstanding the -significant- financial outlay of this work and equipment.

But way back when that gamble paid off, in a big way, I now get to do what I love and get paid for doing it.

The Takeaway

Whomever it was that made the comment about the singer turning up to the concert and someone shouting 'sing bitch' that I immediately deleted, I know you want some porn, but you're just going to have to wait for it.

And no matter how amusing the anecdote about it (and it was amusing) just know that, by leaving a comment like that, all you're going to do is possibly trigger me and delay things further, I would thank you to not leave them in the future, I will continue to deal with them the same way I currently do: deletion.

Those are the types of comments I ignored when I started this venture all those years ago.

To those I say:

Fuck you, I know what I'm fucking doing.

I've not even gotten to the -really- cool and expensive tech stuff either!

Which... as it turns out was just as well, I imported the ram from the US and it got held up at customs, I've now got to print the purchase receipt and send it to them so they can apply tax to it, except, no printer that I can use with my current equipment (I bought a MacBook, both as a backup for removing into my mocapVM, but it can't connect or see the old ass printer I have, so I had to buy a new one, yes I know I just went to linux, but apple make good mobile devices, sue me)

I am going to cable manage the -shit- out of the new rack, which sits in the room currently waiting for me to put it back together, but I need to wait for paint to dry before I can do so, It's a Monday job now

A note on that, I decided not to get the 350kg acoustic server rack, not because of the weight, or the price (7K GBP!) but because after another measure, It would be so deep it would intrude on my desk space by about 30%, I don't have a lot of space here, so I need to make it count, I think having that oppressive monolith, even if silent, within half a foot of my right (mousing) arm would do more damage than the fan noise would.

I'm going to try to manage the noise in other ways, I have some acoustic foam I'm going to install in and around it.

The room as it stands at the moment, I'm not messy.... well... I am, but there's literally -no other place to put anything in the house-

So, next month, expect a bit of server cable management porn, followed, hopefully, with some previews of actual porn (maybe, but I should have the space at least inhabitable within a week)

Ciao for Niaou