Paul Strong

Jeff Undergoes GenMax Testing

A new post entitled "Jeff Undergoes GenMax Testing" has been added to my site:

    https://paulstrong.com/

Be sure to check it out. I'd love to get your reaction over there.

I hope you're having an amazing weekend!

Paul

New Posts about Unreal

Hey everyone, I've made a couple of posts on my site about working my TF rigging technique into Unreal Engine, with a short feature test video with my good friend Vince. Check it out!

  https://paulstrong.com/

Again, I will be posting any new content on my site rather than Patreon, but I'll continue to send notifications to Patreon followers for a while. Soon I will also start sending my own direct email upd...

Migrating from Patreon

Thanks everyone for your interest in my animation work.

As promised, I'm making the move to my own web site. I've copied my content there and I intend to post any future work there. I will still post notices of new content for a while on Patreon, but the actual work will be on my site.

    Paul Strong Animations
   paulstrong.com 

As a Patreon follower...

Clothing.

I finally took some time to learn how to sculpt clothing last night and tonight. This is my first shot at it, but it seems like I'm getting the basics.

After all, we can't have clothes ripping and tearing off during a transformation unless we first have clothes.

This is Derick, by the way, and he's been kind enough to try on a couple things and model for us. Thanks, Derick.

These images are a little shiny because the...

Happy Holidays!

I hope you all are having a great holiday weekend!

This week I'm learning what it's like to have a 4mm kidney stone, but I've been mostly pain free this week so I'm in good spirits.

This was a weird but fun little clip I made quite a while back. I was trying out some muscle twitching and hair growth. A couple of you have seen it, but I figured I'd share it.

VIDEO: https://r2y.com/vid/vtoy.mp4 420p 15fps

Status

It's been a long time since I've posted. I do game development, which some of you know... and it probably doesn't come as a surprise otherwise. A game I'm working on with a small team started to get some attention in April so I spent all my time crunching on that for a few months. Rigging, animation, and programming. We got to a point where we need to pause, and unfortunately there is no pot of gold yet there but possibilities are on the horizon.

For TF, for the last bit I've done some ...

TF Example in Unity

Vince has come back into the Unity game engine and VR, this time to transform.

VIDEO: https://r2y.com/vid/unity-example.mp4 1080p 60fps

Still just testing capability here, but it was a success.

It was a bit involved versus my last Unity post since it's using an actual model, but the C# scripts I put together will automate out the complexity going forward. With this done, I can now export an animate...

What kind of VR headset do you own?

Hello everyone! This is just a quick poll to see how many of you have a VR headset.

If you don't own a VR headset, I'd like to know that also!

I'm no expert at VR, so there's some more to learn. I know that I can create SteamVR-compatible applications for PC, and maybe that would be as far as I go. I use a Valve Index myself, and I'm very interested in what others have.

Feel free to reply with additional comments on your VR setup.

Thanks!
...

TF Animation Workflow for Unity

With just a few hours of work today, I built a blend shape TF with dynamic joint pivots in Unity based on what I accomplished in Maya.

VIDEO: https://r2y.com/vid/arm-unity.mp4 1080p 60fps

The example is simple but the method is similar, with the joints' pivots moving inside the blend shape without extra deformation. Unity isn't quite designed for this because modifying a bind pose for a mesh at runtime modif...

One-click TF Rig Solved!

FINALLY... I solved the puzzle I've been working on for months! Erm, worked on when I've had the mental energy to try. I'm no Maya guru, but I will claim this as a level-up.

The goal was to create a one-click-does-it-all script that would simplify rigging for "TF" meshes that transform shape. As I've mentioned before, I use mesh "blend shapes" to represent stages of a transformation, but when you drive a mesh using joints, and the mesh blends to a new shape suc...

Learning Direct Streaming

Started setting up my own streaming server which should allow me to stream directly in the future. The video and audio are great with only a 3-second latency, but the web interface is currently trash. I'm not Twitch (yet).

For those with technical interest I'm using OBS Studio streaming to a Linux server running NGINX with a popular RTMP plugin, and serving the content from there (currently with HLS). 

I doubt I'm a voca...

Thank You

I appreciate your patience while I sort things out for myself. I may have a good income source on the horizon to give me the stability I need.

Still been doing regular practice on sculpts and in the last month I've had some success doing "likeness" sculpts of a couple fans' heads. Also doing some rigging practice here and there, and I feel like the workflow is getting simpler, but I still haven't automated TF-friendly joints on rigs in Maya. A friend on this Patreon (mostlyhuman) does i...

Poll: Web Site (Authentication Preference)

I am planning to put together a web site to host HD content and a streaming server to do my own direct streaming. If I do this, I would like to have followers log in so they can comment, etc.

If I accomplish this and you are interested, which would be your preferred way to log in? I'm asking because I don't know what's popular in the community and I will want to scope the work out.

I plan to offer the username/pas...

Lesson Learned

Well, I quit my job a week ago and all my time is free time again. In the scope of trying to fill out my life and stabilize, it was a mistake to take on that project.

I thought it would support my goals and it absolutely did not. Instead of getting over an initial hump, the problems got worse. Long story short: big gaming platform; massively under-scoped (3x) for time and budget; long meetings and design hell with no actual coding work; unpaid after working three months...

Let's Go for a Swim

Something satisfying about spending time as a sea creature, with the water sliding against my smooth skin as I swim, or maybe swallowing a live fish or two for lunch.

I sculpted and rendered this one evening while streaming to a TF friend. I also started putting together a streaming server. Maybe someday I will send out links and do some live sculpting, if that is interesting to anyone.

I got lots of sculpting practice last month and made some progress on a few more candidates for...

An Update

Hello Friends!

Some of you know this already, but I recently took a job with a game company as the lead tech building a multiplayer networking platform. I've wanted to have a regular work focus, and my background is in game development, so this is a good fit. It should give me some balance with my evening TF habits as I get settled in. :)

I managed to acquire the domain name paulstrong.com for a future web site. Woohoo! I'll begin building on that when I complete ...

Word of Advice

Always never stop two-thirds of the way through your transformation. What the goat?

I've been experimenting with some animal head sculpting, and practicing animating a human expression while a head is changing shape. Place is turning into a ranch. This is just a funny still render from a recent session: funny to me because I yelped when I saw the render, making a sound that probably whatever this part-animal dude would make. I kept it.

I'm imagining overlaying a cartoon smile on h...

Renderer Build

An investment into my TF rendering pool.

One RTX 3090 drastically reduced my render times, and it's great to do 3D work on. With its 24GB of video RAM, I can have Maya, ZBrush, and Substance open simultaneously with detailed sculpts and ginormous textures and Maya won't spontaneously refuse to render.

But... why buy one, when you can get two for twice the price?

Ah, yes.

And another system that will properly house it...

I bent the knee and paid a scalper...

Have an Awesome Weekend

I hope everyone has a great weekend, and for my U.S. friends, a Happy 4th!

Best Wishes,

Paul

Rokoko Gloves showed up

Finally got my mocap gloves today. The chip shortage and shipping restrictions from COVID caused major delays. Should be fun to try out.

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Paul

Welcome Male TF Blog Members

The Male Transformations Blog featured my videos this morning. I've loved the blog for years. Check it out if you haven't:

    Male Transformations Blog
   https://maletf.blogspot.com/

Thanks to those who have subscribed, and special thanks to Apuleius for reaching out and posting my work!

Paul

My Ape TF, IRL

Thanks to those who replied to my last post and reached out with so much kindness. The problem with my neck has been clearing up, about 70% gone. There is still some sort of general inflammation so I will continue to take aspirin and be careful.

I had some good luck too. Last week I became an "ape" and bought 30 call options in AMC. I sold them on Wednesday during the short squeeze. For you traders, I bought the June 18 $20 and $35 calls and swapped them for June 4 $65 then $72 during t...

Weird neck pain, Patreon will remain paused

Some of you have been checking on me, which I appreciate so much. For almost two weeks I've had possibly a pulled muscle or a compressed nerve in my neck which hurts pretty badly, daily, but off-and-on. It's concentrated where shown above (pressure can subdue it sometimes) but when it is bad it can feel like it's everywhere. It's enough that it interferes with my regular work, and my TF work, and that's frustrating.

I think I strained it at least in part by sitting in a weird position f...

Joint Pivots Process Level UP

I had a major breakthrough today improving my workflow for animated joint pivots. This is a technique for having joints change their rotation point while the connected mesh blends from one shape to another. Think of an arm growing longer while still bending at the elbow, which is normally not something you can do with blend shapes and joints unless you can get away with distorting the blend shape. My technique was used heavily on Vince.

Maya makes doing this possible, but with excessive...

Ears are the Worst

Sculpting ears is a lot easier than modeling 'em, but it's still a nightmare. I started learning ZBrush last October. I just did this one from scratch while feeling my own ear as reference. Color aside, I think it looks okay.

I'm pretty sure every 3D artist keeps ears around and just reuses them. Well, I've got 4 pairs now.

It's important to get humans at least mostly right. If the shape or movement is wrong it's immediately distracting. You can get away with a lot more w...

Chillin' with Vince

Just hanging out with Vince this afternoon. I hope you all are having a great weekend!

A quick announcement: I'd like enough interest in my work to build up so that I can justify spending more time creating animations and getting faster GPUs, but that may take some time. For now, I have paused Patreon billing, and refunded patrons billed yesterday.

I will continue making TF art and animations, just at the same pace, which I don't ...

New Hair Workflow

Along with some drastic changes to my lower body, I also packed on some serious upper body mass, and I love it. You probably noticed I also got a bit of winter coat since I made the plunge.

Modeling and animating hair growth has been the biggest challenge I've had to face in my workflow, and it really made getting my first video done a chore. More of a nightmare, actually.

What might have helped, though, was to use the right tool. Maya is my weapon of choice, and it includes XGen ...

Motion Capture Suit Arrived!

My Rokoko Smartsuit Pro arrived. Time to play!

About to post the HD version of Vince, with minor animation improvements.

Thanks everyone!

Paul

Motion Capture

A little while back I ordered a Rokoko Smartsuit Pro with gloves for motion capture, both for work and for personal projects. As much as I could improve building animation by hand, I think I'd be better off cleaning up captured data, both with quality and efficiency. I was satisfied with Vince in human form, but I've gone back and improved the early part of the animation, which is being rendered out now.

Rokoko suits are sadly on backorder due to COVID (and possibly chip shortages) but ...

Blending Transformation Stages

Vince is a good looking dude, but underneath that handsome wormliness there are some technical bits that are needed to make the magic happen.
VIDEO: https://r2y.com/vid/vince-stage.mp4 1720x720 (21:9) 60fps
Vince undergoes four stages of change, with each stage comprised of two or more substages. This video shows the third stage.
Each...