I spend a bit of time at the end of each update writing the readmes that go along with the content.
I just wanted to know how worthwhile this write up is for you all? Should I continue to invest that time to provide commentarty, or would the time be better spent on the content?
Thanks to everyone who voted in the poll; it was awesome to see that much engagement! I might start doing this more often ^^
I have been working on Andre as a result. I am focusing on removing the gap that comes last in the animation right now; which covers the end of Andre's spurt. I should have a shot that is roughly 8 seconds long finished by the end of this week, and will continue on from there.
I will leave the rewards cycle for December on, but rewards will come out late in January, similar to last month, in order for me to put in a good number of hours.
Looking forward, January will be paused as it will largely be eaten up by me working on work for December. February will also most likely be paused, as I am hoping I can go back home for a few weeks for the first time in 5 years :o. However, after that I am intending for rewards to be fairly regular.
Thanks so much for your support guys, this has been an amazing year! (well besides the world generally continuing to burn >.>). I sincerely hope you have an awesome 2022!
Hey all! I have released the November Update tonight; as usual please let me know if there are any issues, and feedback is always valued!
I am now going to start on the next update; I am not sure if that will be December or January yet (the last update ended up blowing out most of this month, but I do have the rest of the year off and MAY be able to invest enough time for an update; will keep you all posted!)
This past year I have been focusing on getting MLK finished. But to be honest I am kind of in the mood to switch things up for next month and work a bit on Dragon Growth. So I wanted to open this up to you guys; which project did you want me to work on next? Should I go back and give Andre some love, or should I continue to focus on finishing off Chester?
As you might have noticed, I did not pause payments this month, meaning it will be the first time in almost 2 years that I have done back to back months :) I've been really pushing to get some good momentum up despite some major IRL events that have been coming up!
This month I have been working on one of the inserts/revisions which I outlined a while ago; this is so that we can start to make the final score in this area. It contains a new growth spurt and will kick in around frame 3300. This will mean I will have completed two of the four revisions/inserts which I am aiming to do.
So far, I have polished 18 seconds, and am currently working on the polish for the next 4. By the time the insert is finished, it will be around 25 seconds or so.
Rewards will be a little delayed which I finish this sequence; I don't really want to leave it 'mostly done'. So expect them to be sent out in a week or two. However, I am unsure on exactly how they will be delivered; I will need to make some adjustments to the animation around it, since his scale will be different and I will be putting in an updated cage assets which will also be in a slightly different position (meaning I have to tweak the intro as well). So there will be a bit of cleanup work which I might run out of time for. I am aiming to have it all fully integrated into the main video as I always do; however It is possible I will only be able to share it in an isolated video for now.
I have also ordered new custom mocap for the next bit of the video, so next month will be back to adding content at the end of it, showing off how nice and big he has become :)
Hey all! Sorry for the delayed update this month; been a bit crazy IRL. But the good news is that part of that crazy has been me putting my head down and trying to push a good update :)
I am currently polishing up the start of his growth, so that is definitely going into this months update XD. I will have this polished over the next few days, and that will take me up to 22 seconds of polished animation for the month. So the final count should be somewhere around the 30 second mark when it is released, which is my largest updates in a while.
There was no rewards or charge for supporters last month, but there will be this month!
Project Status
I also just wanted to give a quick update in what is remaining on the MLK project, since it may seem to be growing indefinitely. This is not the case.
I estimated the final cut to be less than 8 mins not too long ago, but it is now 8:30 and still not done. However, this is NOT because of me increasing scope; the current plan has been more or less the same ever since the patreon poll in which it was decided what the second blast would do to Chester, well over a year ago. I am just proving to be terrible at estimating how long actions will take. Film is not my background, so my apologies for the misleading estimates in the past. Instead of me offering more flawed estimates, I'll go over what is remaining on the project to offer some more transparency for what is to come.
The animation is all one take, so there are no shots for me to plan and count like in DGA. However, there are 9 basic action points which will follow what you have all seen to date. 2 of these will be completed this rewards cycle, meaning there will be 7 left by the time the next WIP is released.
For reference, the last seven action points in the latest released animations are as follows:
Smash desktop and cage
Smash chair and roar
Fap
Notice laser and approach
Pick up and fire
Fall down, stunned
recover
These action points took around 1:30ish. So let’s go with that as an estimate rather than me trying to guess. This suggests, with the revisions, the total animation length will be a bit under 10 minutes.
I don’t want to reveal the specific action points remaining as I want them to be a surprise. One of them is obviously a growth sequence of Chester getting thicc. Which is my second favourite action point, behind the ending ^^
ToDo List
Here is a list of everything that needs to be done (I might keep a running list of it somewhere, if others have suggestions?). Points with a star next to them denotes me getting significant help from others, which I have been organising.
Remaining core animations:
Seven action points at the end of the animation
Three aforementioned revisions
Secondary Animations:
Dick and ball physics *
Revisit facial animation with more detailed rig
Muscle jiggle
Complete Prop animations
General Polish
Technical elements:
Brief and order multiple custom mocap takes for the remaining animation
Complete character models and textures (including muscle variant)*
Upgrade body rig to allow muscle character, add muscle deformers
Add improved facial rig *
Complete and dress environment *
Fluid effects *
Audio:
Score *
Voice and Foley *
Render:
Lighting and materials *
Prop and character effects
Administration
My apologies to everyone who has been sending me messages on the various platforms; I’ve been pushing the content side of things so the patreon page has been a bit neglected as tends to happen; But I will get back to everyone once I have finished the content and sent it out.
Please feel free to ask any questions you might have on any of this post though as I will make a special effort to answer them over the next few days!
Sorry for the delay in rewards; I actually wrapped up the video earlier in the month, but have been waiting on some of the work to come in from those helping out.
I have the files, qnd have started writing things up, so I should be able to send out the rewards later in the week.
As for what they will be; a tad under 18 seconds of new animation for MLK, as well as a full length first pass at the score ^^. There are also some model updates for the thicker chester in the upcoming growth spurt, as well as some progress on the horse character.
I'll be releasing rewards this month! There will be an extra ~16.25 seconds for MLK; I am currently in the process of polishing the last few seconds. Also, the WIP score should also be up to date by the time they are released!
However, I did not reach his next growth spurt, which is what I mentioned I was aiming for last month. In fact, I fell a fair bit short of reaching that point. I'm still new to the mocap workflow; and was surprised by how much cleanup actions on the floor require even with the Xsense. (I'll post a side by side comparison video too!) I'm looking forward to when he is on his feet again XD.
I'll keep you posted on when the rewards will come out; but they should be in the first week or two of next month
I paused payments last month again, as June was all crunch for my day job and I didn't get enough time to devote to these projects. Crunch ended on Friday though, and I have taken three days off over the next 2 weeks to spend on MLK, with the intention to make a decent amount of content for the next cycle.
Right now, I am polishing a 4 second block of animation, which when done, will make 8 seconds since the last update. Apologies for the slow going, but covid followed by crunch was an unfortunate sequence for me. Regardless, I have tried to keep steady progress these last two months, albeit slow.
The sound track is also going well, and there should be a first pass on the score for next update (or if not, then it should be very close!)
I'll be responding to outstanding correspondence through the week.
Sorry for being a bit late with the update; but I am suspending payments and the rewards cycle again this month. I made some decent progress earlier in the month, but my family and I got Covid, one of us really badly, and it pushed out month into chaos. We are all fine now though! ^^
Things started settling down again last week, and I will try and push to get rewards this coming month; but realistically we are both behind on our day jobs so it will be a struggle.
I have paused this coming months cycle; having just released last months cycle, I obviously don't have any new content so you will not be charged your pledge. I will try to have enough content for the month after; I will keep you updated!
I have also added the scene file for the $25 patreons; check out the rewards post for the link if you are in that group and interested ^^.
My patreon has had a sudden surge over the past 3 months; it has jumped up from a very stable region in the low 3ks, where it has been for around 3 years, to hovering around the magical 4k mark which I put up as my full time goal.
Honestly, I am baffled that this surge has occurred, given that I have only been releasing content once every three months since my son was born, and so far as I am aware, nothing has happened to cause it. I don’t know if this spike in support is sustainable, or if it will drop back down to where it has been. I suspect the latter; but it doesn't really matter; even if it pulls back, I'm committing to move over to Patreon full time.
I will save my heartfelt gratitude for being in this position for another time (as I have dreamed about doing this full time since I made my patreon); for now, I want to talk about the timeline for me doing this, as it won’t be overnight.
I am currently approaching the middle of a large game project, of which I hold a key role. In an ideal situation, I need to see it out, both for the good of the team, as well as my own career. I will need to have this on my resume if my foray into full time patreon proves unsuccessful for any reason and I need to return to the industry in the future.
However, as I am sure everyone here is aware, ideal situations in the games industry are the exception not the rule. At the moment it is far from guaranteed that the project will see its completion.
Here is some details about how the timeline looks under these conditions,
I leave at the end of the project. (~2.5 years). This is a rough estimate as production timelines can always be extended. I would hope not in this case though.
The project is cancelled but the company goes on (~1 year). I have no interest in starting a new project, or to come on to another as support. If this happens then I will stay on long enough to set my family up. Healthcare is a concern.
The company or my position within it ends. (~3+ months). I don’t anticipate anything sudden happening just yet, but if the company or my position within the company was to end then I will transition immediately.
The only things that will prevent me from following through with transitioning over to full time is if:
my support collapses to a point where switching over would cause financial hardship on my family. The long term trend is above this threshold; so if support pulls back to the 3k mark this will be fine. I am anticipating it will.
Patreon becomes hostile towards my content, or shows signs of being financially unstable. This thankfully looks unlikely for now, but there has been one or two periods of concern over the years. Once I switch over to Pateron full time, my family's financial stability will be at the whim of a big tech’s terms and conditions, and I need to know that I can rely on it.
In the mean time, I will continue to heavily re-invest the patreon money into the projects (such as character and environment models, scores, VR help, etc), look to buying equipment that will help with output (such as a mocap suit). The only benefit me having a day job to my patreon is that I don't need supporters money to live off, so I can do these things; but this will change once I switch over to full time.
I will be removing the goals from my Patreon. I will be moving onto full time even if support pulls back, and the timeline is going to be determined by external factors, so it no longer serves as a goal.
Thanks everyone for their support. I honestly never expected to be in this position, and I am extremely grateful and excited! Please let me know if you have any questions or comments. And if you are new; would you mind letting me know what has driven you here? I am very curious to know what has driven the sudden 30% surge since the start of the year!
Please let me know if there are any issues with them! And thanks for the amazing levels of support <3
As usual, the scene for the $25 tier will be a bit delayed as it takes me a while to prepare it; It should be ready by next weekend though!
I still have not responded to several notes, please forgive the elongating delay; I was planning on doing them this weekend but I got these rewards out much later than I was hoping. I will try and get to them over the coming week.
