Progress Report - October 1, 2024

Howdy, everyone.

Progress is chugging along. All of the lip-sync is finally done, and I have moved onto the jitter phase. It's a subtle thing, but I think it personally adds a lot to the "completeness" of an animation. Take, for consideration, this Progress Report's poster.

In the bottom image, Pharah is standing perfectly still while Symmetra talks. Top, she has a notable sway to her body as sher watches. Makes her feel more lively, rather than an unanimated 3d model. Or Symmetra: in the bottom image, when she isn't speaking, her head is just perfectly rigid as she looks down at Dva; in the top image, her head is bouncing and swaying about as she moans.

This all is what the jitter pass is set to achieve. It's all minor animation to just give a more lively feel to everything. The kind of thing you don't notice when it's there, but you notice when it's not.

You can click here to see a full 1:20 comparison of the DVa facefuck sequence.

I've gotten the first project file, of three, fully jittered. I'm not going to bother putting time estimates on things. I'll let you know how progress is going next week. The finish line is in view, but my depth perception in this analogy is terrible and I can't fathom how far away it is yet.

As a final note, I'm not gonna lie, I am absolutely feeling the burn-out on this project. Turns out that 15-minute projects are beyond my comfort capacity - I am absolutely chomping at the bit to work on something else, to move back to working on Overbreed, anything really. So now I'm wrangling that on top of everything else when it comes to getting this project completed.

I am definitely not going to be doing another 15-minute "short" video. I elected to pull the trigger on this project because I had spent a month treading water trying to figure out a good project to do, and even though I knew this project was going to be a long one, I didn't want to spend any more time trying to come up with new ideas - I just wanted to lock something down and get to work on it.

In retrospect, I really should've just spent another week or two coming up with a shorter, more concise idea. Because, well, you remember how this was supposed to be a June video?

Looks at calendar saying October 1

Yeah. I should've kept looking.

Not to say I regret making this idea. I've had some flavor of it on my mind for months. I just wish I didn't make it as a "short" video, meant to be done and released as a holdover while I work on my big projects (currently Overbreed). This should've been a big project unto itself.

Especially since, even clocking in at a heavy 15 minutes, there is a lot that I had to cut out of this video. And I think, despite my efforts to stitch it all back up, the observant viewer will definitely be able to notice exactly where things were cut.

Like, for example, why DVa's hair goes from being down in the opening sequence to being tied into a ponytail in the later sequences - I had to cut an entire sequence where Pharah and Symmetra casually discuss tying up her hair for easier pulling or keeping it down because it's prettier (while taking turns fucking her, of course). Rather than change all the poses to accommodate her hair staying down (clipping into her back, and Symmetra's hand placement), I just decided to leave it up to the viewer's imagination to fill in what happened there.

The next short video, I am going to make a conscious effort to keep it under 10 minutes. I don't want to do this again. I don't want to make you all have to wait again, and I don't want to have to drag my haggard burnt-out soul over the finish line again.

That's all for now. Until next week, everyone.