Succubus Doms Elf Behind the Scenes

  This was definitely the most complex animation I've worked on thus far, and I learned a lot making it. I'm gonna go through and share some details about the main setups used.   

   For the “Suspension” scene, the big challenge was getting our elf suspended in her bondage setup while also making it easy to animate. I parented the root bone of the elf to a simple IK rig controlling the chain, and then created a rope setup out of curves. 

  The challenge was then how to get the curves to react to the writhing of the elf. Turning the rope-curve object into a mesh and then using an armature modifier was my first option, but weight painting it proved tricky. This MAY have been the best option, but I wanted something quicker, so I decided to keep the rope object as a curve, and use multiple hooks set to the relevant bones of the elf.   

  There were still some intersections, but I was able to smooth out most of these with animated shapekeys on the curve object.   

  I think it worked well enough. The caveat to keeping the rope object as a curve was the inability to unwrap and take the object into Substance Painter, but I just had to settle and move on, applying a basic rope material from Blenderkit. Done is better than perfect!   

   For the “Nipple Clamps” scene, getting the clamps and the nipples/ears to stay in the same spot became an issue. I ended up using an empty at the locations of interest, and then connecting the hook bones and the breast/ear bones to this empty using a “Floor” constraint. I ended up having to frame-by-frame animate the empty to account for minor movements. I think it actually ended up being a benefit, since it gave a “tension” effect, with the nipples moving a bit on each frame, as if being stretched.   

  The “whipping” scene has my favorite setup of all. The Succubus pulls on a cord to pull up an anal hook, exposing the elf. I parented the elf hip bone and the anal hook to an empty, and then set up a driver controlled by the Succubus hand IK, so you actually get an all-in-one motion just by moving the Succubus hand. This was great because then all I had to do was animate the Succubus' hand to get the effect needed. This is the best outcome for these types of setups; no extra work needed, and a realistic effect.   

   Of course a little extra "flair" was animated into the movements, to really sell the effect. 

 In the final scene, changing the Succubus colors was a simple matter of dropping in a mix node and a color, then animating the values. This simply changed the base color while keeping all the other effects (roughness/metalness) active. Ryan Reos really did a great job on these textures and I didn't want to lose any of that.   

  Note that values don't change at runtime, but you can see the simple setup here. 

  In this scene in-particular I learned a bit more about the graph editor, something I've been getting more and more comfortable with. For her initial “orgasm”, I made a curve on the z-axis rotation, and was then able to copy-paste that curve up her kinetic chain, off-setting it by one frame each time. This gave a nice vibratory effect which helped sell the orgasm. The graph editor is really the key to smooth animation and I want to keep pushing it.   

  This animation was a big learning experience!  I'm happy with how it turned out and with the response so far. There's little things I would change but that's always going to be the case. Getting projects done is the main thing, and carrying the experience over into the next one, so that there's consistent improvement. 

   Let me know if you have any questions about this video or my process, on here or on Discord.   

   I'll have a preview going up soon of Jill Tickled; should be an interesting one. I'm trying out some new physics things and ideally this one should have simulated hair. Animating hair is definitely something I want to get away from, as it takes a ton of time, doesn't even look all that great, and it's honestly just not a lot of fun (plus if you make any changes to the body motion the hair has to be re-animated). I'm running a few experiments on simulated tickle devices reacting to the body which may or may not show up in Jill Tickled, but it's coming. I basically want to have a library of tickle devices that I can import into a project, giving me more time to focus on the actual animation of the character.   

   Hope everyone is staying safe and well! I'll see you around.