Episode 11 Update - 07/11/25

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This past month has been intense and productive. I have been glued to my desk for practically all of June, working during all waking hours, usually stopping only to eat or sleep, and getting a render off nearly every night. After a good amount of struggle, I'm finally in my zone and getting this complete my checklists at an output I wasn't able to before. I'm aiming to keep this pace up until it's complete. In doing the Camera pass, I'm now in the "locking down" stage, tying down all loose ends with the intent to produce a final version of each scene.

We are coming down to the wire, so, one again, make sure you've entered your preferred name and sprite for the episode credits HERE.

As of now, Scenes X, A, B, C are locked down. Scenes D and F, as well as a lighting and effects pass, are left. At the rate I've been going, I predict that finishing off D and F, and the lighting will take the rest of July, with August dedicated to all the final effects. My current fixation is finishing in Summer, and I'm sticking to that with the intent to finalize all the visuals completely by the end of August. When the sound/music is closer to final I'll be more comfortable announcing an exact release date.

The musician that worked on Episode 9 I really wanted this time, but he might not be as available. I have some good ideas for where it's going but I've been so enmeshed in camera and animation work that I haven't been able to hyper-focus on it yet, but I have been picking at it. I've also been going back and forth with my sound editor. He gave me at estimate of late August at the earliest for him to finish the sound mix, so I'm trying to finish around or before him. There is SO MUCH for him to do and I'm going to be going back and forth with him for at least the next few weeks.

I was able to finish off and finish Scenes B and C swiftly and efficiently, and the bulk of my work this past month was fixing Scene A. It seems all my earlier fears of a bunch of unfinished work were because of this, and doing all the things I told myself I'd "finish later" in the Camera pass revealed major overhauls in the original character animation that kept popping up. I really regret announcing that I'd finished all character animation before, because I still had a good amount of animation to fix in Scene A that I'd failed to take into account. I didn't want to post an update until finishing, and as of writing this, the camera and animation of Scene A are officially complete.

I'm now working on scene F, similarly tying down things as I go through it. Even though it's considerably more complete than A, it's very effects-heavy, and I'm not going to lie, there's still a lot left to do. But at this point I feel confident and as I continue, it seems to be all coming together.

In general, I still think this took too way way too longer than it should have, and I sincerely apologize. For a lot of this production cycle, specifically for most of 2023 and 2024, I've been in a terrible place. Every deadline I'd set tacitly had the expectation that I'd be as productive and "in the zone" as I am right now and I just haven't been. I fell short. But at this moment, I have found my zone. It might have taken too long, but I'm in a far better place and my output is where I need it to be. I want to continue to push until we finish, and I intend to maintain healthier habits and take way better care of myself when I dive into Episode 12. But for now, I'm locking in and getting this complete. And like... it looks good. The first half of the episode is more or less in its final form, and when I watch it, it feels right. It feels like everything I intended it to be and I'm excited to finally put it out there. So thank you for your support. Really. It means the world to me.

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