September Update 1 (Attachments!)
Added 2024-09-17 20:27:40 +0000 UTCHi. Today I've got some updates on the animation to show.
For the animation I've blocked out a loop and have been using this to refine the simulation setup. The raccoons hands are kneading the burr belly, the burr has a nice amount of jiggle (I might tone that down a little), and I've got some interaction going on between the fur and everything else. Now that's done I'm going to extend the loop and add in more details.
Oh yeah, busy raccoon. The EPs have voted. Next animation is the Racc rimming the Wuff! So I'll be getting onto that when this is done.
Next up is making the loop longer, with more variation, working on the expressions, etc... For camera angles I'm thinking close up face shots for the burr and racc, a mid shot showing the entire scene and a closeup of the racc getting stretched. I'd like to get this done by the end of the month, hopefully. If not I'll post up what's rendered by then and will continue to post up as camera angles get rendered.
I've included the main blocking loop that looks the best, along with multiple WIP renders in the attachments, see me fighting with the sim. < this is what has eaten weeks of my time this month, but the simulation should be easier to maintain with more control over the characters going forward. (and it runs faster too!)
The simulation node graph has been fixed up and pruned, it's now less a rats nest and more an organized flowchart. I've reworked some things so more per character settings can be... set. this has the benefit of making characters about on par to sim, e.g. the burr is about as fast to sim as the racc. I've also coded up an automated pre-roll animation creation (It's a bit you don't see but makes all the difference for simulation as the fur animates better.)
As for me, still taking the thyroid medication, my energy levels are trending towards being more consistent, the 'jittery energy' feeling has decreased but the spacing out/lack of attention span still remains. I'm more awake, but it takes a while to 'lock in' to a task and I'm getting distracted easily. This may still be initial side effects that will pass so I need to wait and see.
So there we go, some new WIP animation with better simulation and I'll be back sometime around the end of the month with more!
Comments
Sorry if I was being unclear, sometimes it hard to gauge how much information to put up because, well I'm staring at this for multiple hours each day and fail to realize I might not be giving enough context when I post. I've been mainly spending time getting the simulation working so that there is interaction between the two characters. As I can't directly hand animate this stuff I'm at the whims of entering variables and then clicking 'go' as I've multiple layered simulations here, both soft body jiggle and fur, I need to perform full renders to see the results as one is dependent on the other and I can't get the resolution needed for making decisions from the feedback from the viewport alone. So it's the same base animation (with some changes here and there) and is mainly for showing off the progress I'm making with the simulation. A quick rundown of what each shows: WIP1. this was more a lighting test than anything I wanted to make sure that nothing looked off with the lighting when in motion. WIP2. initial simulation running with some basic fur movement, this was to test out the pre-roll animation where the characters move into starting pose from a default pose before the animation starts, this helped lay the fur on the stomach and joints better. WIP3. adding a reactive bulge to the racc tummy and making the raccs hands interactive with the burr tummy and seeing how that looks. I also refined the lighting (best seen on the burr's shaft) WIP4. adding more colliders now the raccs shaft interacts (somewhat poorly) with the polar bear tummy fur, I also changed up some of the animation to prevent clipping. WIP5. I increased the interaction between burr tummy and parts of the raccoon. WIP6. fixed an issue with the guide hairs that was causing errant tips of hairs to stick up. The racc paws are also no longer clipping a lot of fur, the burr tummy fur is now much more reactive to the racc. WIP7. made the burr tummy even more reactive, this caused some flickering issues on the fur, this is also where I started changing up the simulation resolution of each character to make them independent and the tetrahedrals the right scale for their body size so the speed of simulation would be faster. WIP8. same as above with some custom designed post sim spatial/temporal smoothing applied to the simulated guide hairs, to make things look softer and less erratic. "Loop_Short_version". everything above has come together, the burr belly is now nice and soft with reactive fur, the raccoon's tummy is bulging correctly, the raccoons paws are kneading the burr tummy, the fur is now (for the vast majority) jitter free and not clipping in weird ways. If you compare this directly with WIP1 you'll see how much has changed. and now I'm happy with the simulation I'm going to be going on and continuing to work on the animation. I hope the above helped out with what the differences are. Maybe next time I could do it all as one video with markers going between the different wips? I can easily write at length about this stuff but most would likely find it boring so I try to be more concise with my posts. I mainly want to show with the WIPs there isn't a "make it work correctly" button and that this needs to be worked through, then rendered to check the work. You don't get an animation from what is shown in WIP1 to the actual loop without a lot of hard work and thought being put into it. If there is anything else you'd like to know feel free to ask.
pxl fur
2024-09-18 16:55:17 +0000 UTCAre all the attachments supposed to be the same video file?
Zelig Wiegand
2024-09-18 06:43:51 +0000 UTC
