The Samus News Post

In a nutshell: I have to rebuild Samus completely, and this causes a ton of problems.

So I’m going to break this post down into two simple pieces: Why I have to rebuild Samus, and the repercussions of the reconstruction. I will then discuss the Samus short, and other relevant things.

Why I have to rebuild Samus:

1. The shoulders are fucking awful (seriously, they’re worse than Elizabeth’s)
   
2. The neck is rigged horribly (it twists, deforms, snaps, and breaks)
3. The hands are rigged horribly (the fingers collapse in on themselves)
4. The faceposing is awful (I take full blame for this one, I did a bad job rigging her face)
5. The hair is not jiggle-assisted (because Samus was made before I figured out how to do that)
6. Her head is too small (not inherently noticeable by herself, but if you ever pair her with anyone else, it becomes painfully apparent)

The repercussions of having to rebuild Samus:

1. Production of Hiveship will have to be delayed, probably at least another week, possibly two weeks
   
2. Production of Hiveship will very likely be slowed down even more as a result of this, because the voice actress I have chosen for Samus has a busy summer schedule.
3. I have to refit and rebodygroup the Zero Suit to the Daz body - this will pose a particular problem with the fingers, which are always a chore.
4. I have to completely rerig Samus’ face. My last rigging of her face was pretty bad, and there are no (decent) existing rigs of her face, meaning I have to do it all myself. And I hate rigging faces.
5. I have to rebuild Samus’ phonemes for a third time. I already rebuilt them once, explicitly for the Samus short.

So now, onto the short. If you thought the news was bad enough, just wait. It gets worse.

First of all, I want to make this abundantly clear: the Samus short was NEVER meant to take this long.

When I wrote it and animated it, it was supposed to be a 4-day project: one day to core animate, one day to record lines, one day to lip-sync and add variant animation, one day to post-process.

The Samus short was designed to be a low-quality, shoddy, quickly-thrown-together hunk of junk. The focus was never on the animation - it was always on the voice. That was the very idea behind the Ticks: hastily put together animated shorts that showcase the voice actress and how well she fits the character.

The Samus short is not an exception to this. As a consequence, the quality will in no reflect its grotesquely long production time. The Samus short has taken over 6 weeks to make, but it still has the quality of the original 4-day plan, and this will not change.

I am telling you all this right now, upfront, because I don’t want anyone to have false expectations. The short has NOT taken this long because “I am working hard on making it awesome”. That is NOT why it has taken this long. It has taken this long because of a trainwreck of complications and my schedule being extremely busy and poorly managed.

When the Samus short comes out, it will be shit. And a lot of people should be really upset with how shit it is. Because I am. I can’t even begin to explain how much the Samus short disappoints me. I have wanted to just dump it and move straight to Hiveship for a few weeks now, but I made promise to myself and to the public to release it, and so I will. I won’t be proud about it, I won’t try to excuse it, and I certainly won’t expect anyone to think it’s remotely decent, but I will release it.

Plus, I already paid for the lines. I’d rather release a failed investment then never release the investment at all.

That’s where Samus, the short, and Hiveship stand right now. Samus is completely broken and has to be remade from scratch, the short is horrifically overdue and low-quality, and Hiveship is going to be delayed weeks to months farther than how long it was going to take previously - which, by the way, is already over a month overdue from when I wanted to start working on it.

I am really sorry about all of this, and I completely understand if you are upset with all this. Despite all the problems, I still have every intention to finish the Samus short - in the absolutely sorry state it is in right now, easily the worst-quality thing I have made in over a year - and to work on and get Hiveship done.

But I’m not happy with the short, and I am not happy with how Hiveship and Samus are going.

On a happier news front, moving away from the trainwreck that is Samus:

• The Liara game, Slutbroker, is coming along well. I am hoping to have a developer video discussing the game up sometime later this week. Game won’t be ready for testing (and won’t even be feature-complete), but I am excited to talk about some of the mechanics behind it and what I am hoping you guys will really enjoy about the game.
  
• I have starting working on another Tick, for another character/voice pairing, on my personal days (juggling the Tick and Slutbroker). This particular piece is with the lovable petite medic, Rebecca Chambers, and should have hardly any of the problems Samus is having. So it should go a lot more smoothly, and will hopefully be posted a few weeks after the Samus short (which I am preparing to enter post-production on now)

So yeah. That’s all I’ve got for you guys right now.

Wish I had better news. Trust me, no matter how upset any of you may be about all of this, I am more upset.