Checkup Blues: Update #4 – Workspace & Release window

Hello everyone! Sorry about the lack of stuff this month, but I've been very invested in what's starting to feel like the final stretch of the animation process. I've entered some sort of crunch mode and am using every chance I get to do some animating. As of right now, the animation has passed the 3:15 minute mark, and the pace is high! I have to admit that it's starting to look like the animation might be a bit longer than anticipated though. The total lenght might be stretched to somewhere closer to 5 minutes, but I'm really not sure, I currently suck at these estimates – it's my first "lenghty" animation after all! Even so, it doesn't really change my release window, but we'll get back to that later. 

In order to make up for the prolonged silence this month, I thought I'd give you a peek at my workspace with a simple description. If you want a more in-depth look at how I actually work, that can be arranged as well. I just thought this peek might be interesting for those of you who are into Daz studio or just curious as to how my stuff looks. For those of you more interested in news about the release window, scroll all the way down for an overview on how the rest of the making of Checkup Blues will go. 

Also, another boring test render gif? Well yes, but if you look closely you might catch a glimpse of what it is that has caught the doctor's attention...

Workspace

So, I have two workspaces actually. One for still images, and one for animation. Since this post is all about Checkup Blues, We'll be looking at my animation workspace. 

I have a dual screen setup, consisting of the following components:

Right screen (Above)

• The Scene tab & Content library tabs shows all my available resources. While the content tabs show all resources I have installed, the scene tab displays a handy overview of all items present in the current scene.
• The GraphMate tab is a graph editor and my secret weapon for polishing my animations to look as fluid as possible efficiently. I use this tab extensively throughout the animation process. It would require a post of it's own to explain the importance this little friend has to me. 
• The Viewport is what it is. Here I can preview my animations at terrible framerates and experiment with camera angles.
• The Parameters tab is used by me to adjust certain movements – especially facial animation – while the Settings tabs are used for adjusting general settings for simulation, rendering and stuff like that. 

Left Screen (Below)

On the left screen I have the Timeline,  which is the main overview of my animation. It occupies the entire left screen to make it easy for me to see where I am and how things are laid out. The timeline also has a graph editor much like the GraphMate tab. Even though one graph editor can be used over the other, I sometimes combine the usage of the two for practical reasons. 

I don't know how optimal all of this is, it just formed over time as I worked and right now it's working very well for me at least! In addition to this, I like to put on some chill videogame music mix to relax/study to on youtube while I work. That really gets me in a state of zen while I go over miniscule details.

And that's how my workstation looks! I hope it's been a little interesting at least to get this behind the scenes look while you wait.

Release window

Now that I have a clearer picture of everything, I'm moving the release to the end of December as I'm pretty sure I won't make it for a November release. Once the animating is all done, all that remains will be rendering and editing. Rendering is expected to take a ton of time, which is the main reason I'm putting the release all the way at the end of the year. I'm actually expecting to finish animating everything near the end of November if I can keep the momentum up, leaving rendering as the most time consuming part left. Editing will add nothing to the release time since all editing is done using the test renders, allowing me to just swap them with the finished renders as I go. So sounds and all that will already be done by the time the final frame renders, allowing be to upload it pretty fresh from the oven! 

So, expect this baby to finally be ready by the end of December. I believe there will be two more updates on the project before release, at most. Though I'd prefer to just chug along right until the end, it doesn't feel quite right to keep you out of the loop for too long. Also, I thought that I'd be doing more other type content for you while I do this, but that prediction seems to have fallen flat pretty quick, what with me powering through the animation. I'm sorry about that, but this project really is my passion right now!

My god, you people are patient...! All the love in the world to you! Feel free to ask me questions in the "Community" tab here on patreon, I will be checking it regularly to engage with you guys to make up for my silence.