CODE BLUE Update

I've got some news about the upcoming animation!

- Free Version and NSFW Patreon/DA Subs Version will release at the same time!

- Estimated Release Date is November 12th!

- Free Version will just feature underwear, NSFW version will not *wink wink*

- Free + NSFW Cloth Simulated Versions coming later

- Hoping to god the tests didn't lie to me and render goes smoothly.

- I've increased the resolution from 1080p to 4k for extra clarity and sharpness.

- Estimated Render Time is roughly 4-5 FULL Days, but I've made optimizations.

I made some major optimizations to the render, specifically the layer separation. I'm now rendering the subject, setting, and underwear layers separately one after the other, per frame.

This actually takes about the same time as it would to just render it all out as a single layer, but what this actually saves me from is having to re-render entire parts of the scene that don't require a re-render, like the setting or underwear.

Rendering the subject alone rather than with the setting is significantly faster, and actually nets better quality as it can sample faster than it would with the setting, so she'll look less noisy than the previous full quality test render, on top of the higher render resolution.

If there's issues with the hair, the extra few days I allocated for myself gives me slightly more time to correct errors in the render, which should be significantly easier as I only have to render the subject. If there aren't any errors and the edit goes smoothly, there's a chance that the animation may release sooner, but that's not guarantied.

As for the cloth simulation version, I don't know how long it'll take to figure out, so I'm just releasing a free version rather than delaying it, which should have been my release strategy instead of the other one.

The version featuring Cloth Simulation is still coming, but I don't know how long it's going to take, and I need to buy a license for Houdini so I can export the cloth.

The cloth simulation could just be a drop in replacement for the current animation, but I'll be re-rendering the background and subject layers for proper reflections and shadows. Call it a Special Edition featuring Cloth Simulation.

I'm really happy with this animation though, especially after the catastrophe that was trying to get this animation out before November. It's definitely an ambitious step up from Star of the Show in terms of render quality, animation, lighting, complexity, and length. 

The only real challenge now is color correcting the HDR video for SDR, which is challenge I need to tackle while this is rendering. Which is why this image used looks a little funky as I had to correct it, it looks much better in it's full color range but I can't upload that to most websites.

I also need to finish the sound, but that's going along smoothly, but I don't have much to share about that.

But yes, assuming nothing goes wrong from this point on, I should be able to release this on or before the 12th!

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