Update: EP 9 Poll result, PoseViewer, Mocap Workflow

Hey everyone,

I hope you had a great week!

Today's Update will be about Episode 9, PoserViewer, Mocap Workflows, etc.

Episode9:

First of all the Poll result: it was actually very very close and I decided to add an additional Pose. One with Fingering and one with Fisting. So we end up having both 😏

PoseViewer:

We made the Update to Unreal Engine 5.3 which is great performance and stability wise. But we also faced some issues with Shaders in some of the Maps. For example in the new Mountainscape Map. Took us quite a while to figure out the issue, but we fixed it.

And one really cool improvement in Unreal Engine 5.3 is the almost infinite number of vegetation.

No matter how many trees/Plants/rocks I add, the performance is almost the same. This is mindblowing 🤯😁And will help a great deal with Vegetation on the Island!

In the first Image we have around 14ms and in the second one 16ms to render 1 frame. That is not a massive difference if you consider how much more foliage we have in there. Around 500 extra Trees/Bushes, full nanite in highest quality. Amazing 🥰

The next update of PoseViewer is planned for the middle/end of October. The one coder we still have is still fixing stuff for the Locomotion for the next game. And he wants to get it done before switching Projects. So as soon as that is done, we will tackle the new cumshot system and ship the update. His estimation is that we should be able to do it "in October".

Motion Capture Workflow:

I thought I explain a bit more what I have been up to the last week.

• So first of all I need to fire up the Mocap Hardware, calibrate it, etc.
• Next we need to get into the Mocap Suits, calibrate each character as well
• Since I already taped the Floor for the Set, we know where to walk and what to do
• Before the actual Mocap Session, I recorded Audio files with VoiceOvers and inbetween instructions for acting. That way we always have the same situation and it´s easier to get into it.
• Then the Mocap Session starts. It usually takes a couple of takes to get 1-2 takes I think are good. But it can also take 20-30 takes. You never know 🙃 We record videos also to later align the motion capture with the audio so they match 100%.

• Once the Mocap Session is done and the files are saved, I need to clean them up. Motion Capture cleanup means: fixing twisting limbs, fixing weird jittering/floating, etc. Once the cleanup is done, you get something like this (that's from another project)

• Then I import the files in Maya where I set them up for retargeting to our Characters

• Once the animations are retargeted, adjustement and more Fixes are done in Maya. For example my Wife is shorter than the girls and that means that I have to adjust arms, stride-length etc.

• Then I add the animations to the scene and stitch the different takes together. And I have a basic representation of the Location, 100% matching with the tape on the ground in the Mocap-Stage. And here you can see how ugly it looks in Maya 🤣

So you see it´s quite a lot of work. And I did not mention all the hundreds of substeps of tweaking, cleaning, checking, etc. Also, fingers are not captured so I have to animate them in the last polishing step. And facial Mocap is a completely different story and needs to be done separately. But that´s for another update 😉

Other than that the summer break on the House renovation is over and I will be working part-time on the construction site as well. Probably the next 3-4 weeks. But I will catch up with our stuff once the little one is sleeping!

That's it for this week's update! I hope it was interesting for you!

All the very best,

PM&Team