Trae's Patreon Changes On Sept. 1st

Ohai Patrons, wanted to mention a little bit more about changes coming to my Patreon page. :>

First up, I'll be adding a new tier for requesting renders. I won't be doing anything too complex, but they can be ideas of different poses, environments and such. The current characters that will be available initially will be:

• Trae (quadruped)
• Ymir (anthro)
• Kona
• Locke
• Goldkin
• Reghar
• Nabel

Characters that I will include in the next few months will include:

• Dalbie
• Talos
• Eva
• Rooth (anthro)
• Artherion
• Aesculus
• Kaliyah
• Zedex
• Trae (anthro)
• Ymir (quadrupedal)

The first list will grow as I complete new and improve older models to meet my current standards. **I will only accept suggestions that are SFW.** These renders will be released to the respective character owners and patrons first, before a lower resolution public image is released two weeks later. I do have people that have generously allowed me to render with their rigs previously, which did wonders with reducing the amount of time I had to wait on jobs being completed, but the end goal with my Patreon is to get the funds for serious upgrades to my own rig, so I don't have to bother other people to render on their rigs. Having this tier should hopefully help to accelerate that process with a more attractive incentive.

Secondly, I do need to address the issue of 3D Model viewing for the "Another Dimension" tier. As most would have noticed, I've not really been able to upload new models to that tier in recent times, due to the nature of the models that I have been working on involving fur. Most of the new models would require significant adjustments in order for me to have some form of realtime fur put in place, particularly with manes... I am investigating a way of bringing particle fur into a 3D viewer, but the biggest challenge will be being able to do so without causing too much lag. This won't be such a problem for models without as much hair, but fully furred models will be a huge pain in the ass.

So, with this in mind, I am going to put that incentive on hold for the foreseeable future. I will continue to investigate ways of being able to bring furred models into a 3D space for people to inspect, but I don't currently have the time to devote to that. Instead, I will be looking at doing turntables of posed models, likely with a little bit of animation involved as well. I know that this isn't the best option, but I do still want to show my models off somehow outside of still renders!

Thirdly, I also need to address the Bronze Tier and the lack of private streams. Unfortunately these won't be happening due to logistical and technical issues, mostly stemming from poor service that I've had with Picarto having significant amounts of frame drops. There isn't going to be much that can be done about this because of the current state of broadband infrastructure here, and I am still waiting to be connected to the new broadband network that, at this point, might as well be vaporware for where I live...

But I digress. I would like to eventually poll people on what they'd like me to do as far as tutorial videos go. I don't just want to do something general because I'll probably ramble on, so having a proper direction to go with will be a big help. I'm not going to just regurgitate what other people already have said though, but I will definitely be looking to apply my own experience in a few areas that I'm a lot more proficient with, mainly sculpting and fur.

I will also be putting full HD VODs of the modelling process, however editing and encoding may take a little while, since these are recorded when I'm streaming, and I'll have breaks between work. I do have the sessions timed though, so as long as I don't forget to have the timer up when I'm streaming (or at least not forgetting to record when I'm working offline) the process of making a model should more or less cover from scratch to final product. Obviously Twitch does have the VOD option as well, however those videos are not kept up forever and expire after a couple of weeks.

Finally, there are some renders that I will also be needing to do at a higher resolution. I want to target at least 6000x4000px for each render for high resolution (remember these are all at print resolution!). I will likely also be updating all renders to include a signature, in case any of you have wanted to make a print of work. :D Does seem a little incomplete without one, after all! Patrons will be informed when these files are updated.

Depending on workload, I will do a Patreon-supported model that will be a fan work for a popular character design with my own vision on it. I have a few ideas in mind, and more will be revealed soon enough! Still early days but I'm thinking about the best way to go about such a project.

So, tl;dr -

Tier changes:

• Eye Candy ($2) - no change aside from more consistently-sized renders.
• Another Dimension ($4) - 3D viewer dropped, replaced with turntable videos until a viable alternative can be found.
• Bronze Tier ($7) - Private streams dropped, VODs to be included. Q&A videos planned.
• Silver Tier ($15) - 10% commission discount dropped. Render scene requests available. Limiting slots to three initially.
• Gold Tier ($25) - New tier. 10% commission discount will be placed here. Limiting slots to three initially, and included render requests too (for a total of 6 requests per month).
• And Patreon-supported model.

These changes will go live on September 1, when the next scheduled billing cycle commences. Thank you all for your continued patience during this time. I am trying to work when I can, and I do hope that I can pick back up on the content cycle soon! <3

 - Trae