Pre-Vacation Update: Liz Short, Plans For The Rest of The Year, and a Few Last-Minute Notes

Hey all.

So, as I have mentioned previously, I am leaving for the rest of the year, tomorrow morning. I will spending the time with my family, which means I expect my visual efforts (EG animations, posters, etc) to come to a halt until I return.

I will be on vacation between December 15 and January 2.

Rather than making a long and elaborate post, I’m just going to bullet-point the major take-aways here.

• The next stream will be on January 6. There will be no streams between now and then.
  
  
• The Elizabeth short will not be released until the new year. I am shooting for January 8 for a Patreon release. As always, the public release will be 5 days after the Patreon release.
  
  
• The Elizabeth short isn’t really a “short” - it is expected to be about 8:00 in runtime, making it technically longer than Blue Star Episode 1, which only clocked in 7:40 in SFM footage. This is not the norm to be expected from shorts in the future. Read the bottom of this post for more details on that.
  
  
• I have a new Patreon banner that’s been in the shop, that I am hoping to publish sometime during my break (waiting on one thing to complete it). I’ll be posting it here, too, just for posterity’s sake.
  
  
• I am going to try and write a lot over the break. These writings will be published to Patreon first, with a delayed public release. I have a “writings” tier that I don’t use enough, so I want to actually give that tier some love.
  
  
  • Some of the things I plan to write and publish include:
    
    
    • The remaining 3 Fallen Throne chapter synopses
      
      
    • The Leliana short’s screenplay (to be made and published in February)
      
      
    • High-level synopses of Episodes 4 and 5 of Blue Star (the remaining episodes of Season 1)
      
      
    • High-level overview of Hiveship
      
      
    • High-level overviews of Seasons 2 and (possibly) 3 of Blue Star (possibly, because I’m not convinced that there will be a Season 3; I need to write out Season 2 more fully before I make that decision)
      
      
• I am going to also work on some programming stuff. Top of my agenda includes experimenting with implementing the Patreon API into my website. This should allow me to post content to my website, without having to worry about Patreon getting fussy about it. If you don’t know what kind of content I’m talking about, then this probably doesn’t apply to you. I haven’t made much of it recently, but that doesn’t mean I won’t want to in the future. So I’d rather have it and not need it, than need it but not have it.
  
  
  • Beyond the Patreon stuff, I also have some SFM tools I’d like to write:
    
    
    • Finishing and releasing the Outfit Loader v2 upgrade.
      
      
    • Writing a tool for more easily applying material overrides to models, including saving and loading override presets to material-group presets.
      
      
    • Writing an alternative model-spawner script, which will allow for easily spawning multiple models without needing to constantly re-open the model-browser and scroll back down to where you were.
      
      
  • I also have some non-SFM tools I’d like to write, namely, a lip-sync pipeline between 3dsMax and Unity.
    
    
    • I have already written a tool for importing my Source flexes into 3dsMax, for using the flexes in Unity.
      
      
    • I would like to write a tool for importing SFM phonemes (the .pre files my models come with) into 3dsMax.
      
      
    • Then I can build lip-sync animations in 3dsMax in a near-identical fashion as I build them in Source Filmmaker. From there, I can export them out to file.
      
      
    • Finally, I would like to build a tool to import and apply those exported animations in Unity. Final result being a workflow that I am already comfortable with, for getting lip-synced animations into Unity.
      
      
    • I know lip-sync tools already exist for Unity, but I would rather build my own, using a workflow I am already comfortable with.

Obviously, that’s a lot of stuff I plan to work on over 2 weeks. And that’s all while working around spending the holidays with friends and family.

I don’t expect to get all of it done. To be perfectly honest, I don’t expect to get any of it done. But I can’t function without having a plan - even if that plan goes to shit, it’s still better to me than not having a plan at all. And so that is my plan.

So as a final word, let’s talk runtimes. As I said earlier, the Elizabeth short is currently planned to be 8:00 in total runtime. That’s a lot. That’s a lot more than what I plan to make shorts in the future.

In the future, I would expect my shorts to sit somewhere between Addendum A’s runtime and Miscellaneous Expenses’ runtime - or somewhere between 2:00, and 3:30.

I bit off more than I can could chew with the Elizabeth short, but it was all in the name of indulging Incognita’s breeding fetish, and to make up for how much time has passed without a voiced Elizabeth project, and how much time will pass before a future one. As such, the Elizabeth short is running uncompromised. And that is why I was unable to finish and release it today.

With all that being said, I will still be logging in on a regular basis, and I will be here to answer questions and shoot the shit. So don’t hesitate to bring in any questions or comments you have, just on account of me being on vacation.

Just don’t expect me to be cranking out posters, animations, or WIPs until I get back, after the new year.

But when I do come back... we’re gonna start 2018 right. With a bang. Or, more precisely, with five bangs.

;)