"Preparations" (Final Fantasy) release.

•  Scarlet, now an executive in Heat Inc. (after the 'aggressive' negotiations for her) is tasked with the preparations of Aerith and Jessie for transport to a Black Menagerie Club event. Scarlet, in either a rare instance of charity to her 'minions' or just outright hate for Aerith or Jessie, decided to let the guards have some fun before the transportation arrives. Afterall, who would know?

•  So the idea behind this was for a voice actor to play Scarlet, speaking as if on a business call with her superiors. "Mmm, hmm. Of course. I have them right here. Hmm? 'Unspoiled'...? Of...of course they will be...." with the idea being that Scarlet, in her haste, screws up and gets punished again later. A prelude to more with Scarlet as well as one for Aerith and Jessie. Sadly, since the video has no sounds at all, I dropped the idea and here it is, 'as is'. Projects with them later are still a go, though, much much later.

• A lot of my project ideas need voices, and finding the right ones has been an issue. Several major ideas that I really wanna do will require them, so those won't even be a mention til I have that already lined up. I'm sure some of you are tired or annoyed at the 'as is' releases. No more than I am. Going back to my roots was also something I wanted to do; Black Menagerie Clubs with Ramma'Jams. So those style are more on the horizon.

• The Violet Parr animation is being rendered and will be ready by next Saturday. Another without sound, but it's not an 'as is' since it was this small broken loop I'd started, lost, found and now actually made into something. I think I was testing other fps styles. At any rate, you can sorta of consider it a "Biggest Fan #3", I suppose.

• Lastly for this week; Sancus 2. Still being worked on, though I want a few voice lines...if I can find someone for them, awesome. If not, the end will be reworked a little to accommodate the lack thereof. Maybe I can splice voice lines from the games to work well enough.

Weekly WIP #60

•  Sancus Program 2 (Mass Effect) - Miranda Lawson
•  Post Transit (Final Fantasy) - Aerith Gainsborough, Jessie Raspberry, Scarlet
•  Misc.

• Sancus Program 2 - New information screen for Miranda. Carted off to R&D to be a lab rat and what's that? Orgasm Prevention Serum? Oh, no... guess she'll be there awhile. Yeah, I like to make themes and setting and plot. I'm pretty pleased with how the lighting is coming along in there already. The room is a bit large, so probably gonna shrink it down. Still needs consoles and techs and all that fun stuff though. And of course; the guard. The guard, who has the horrible misfortune of having a front-row viewing of the testing. Poor guard...

• Post Transit - The name is still a WIP. The idea is Scarlet, now a low-level corporate girl with Heat Inc. is prepping some 'assets', Aerith and Jessie, for transit to a Black Menagerie Club booking (yes, a prelude to a future project) and decides to let her minions have some fun in the process. After all, what will it hurt? Who's gonna know? Etc. etc. She did get away with a less-than professional 'interview', right?

•  Misc. - The Touhou loop released a few days ago took up some of the time this week, but it was a fun little thing to throw together and good practice for things like animating chains. Plus, I'd really wanted to use them. They can be so expressive. A Discord follower commented on needing to use them more for other things and yeah, I agree. I have some more things in mind for them later on.

•  The scene build WIP is, well, a secret. Only like 4 people are gonna know about it, since I need/like/want people I can ask opinions to about it as well as Voice Actors. I've wanted to do this thing since I first started SFMing and only now do I feel confident in my skills enough to attempt parts of it. It's massive in scope, so it'll be a WIP for a long time. I'll poke at it when time allows, but since it's that way, I don't want to get any hopes up for anything, thus secret. Friend and I agreed it was too nice a build already though to not show off some. And from time to time, I might show off more builds if they don't give anything specific away.

Weekly WIP #59

• Final Fantasy Project: (Unnamed)
• Mass Effect: Sancus Program 2.0
• Misc.

• I was sent a pic on Discord and from that pic I decided to make a short loop with character(s) I've not used before. Aerith and Jessie from Final Fantasy was chosen. The small loop turned out so nice already, and there was a lot of interest/reactions to the WIP postings on Discord, that it's gone from small loop to full project and I personally love it.
• Scarlet, who has basically become the protagonist for Heat Inc./Black Menagerie in the Final Fantasy universe has caught some of the girls for a Menagerie showing. Rather than just have her thugs prep them for transport, Scarlet decides to give them some time to 'blow' off some steam. Hur. Hur. Consider this a prelude project to one later on.

• In another universe, another session of the Sancus Program is about to start. The machine is smaller and less bulky. It's not attached to a console, for one. The project got off to a rocky start though. I have to reset a good bit of the animation already. I broke the flexes without realizing I did and saved over it. Now I know about that though. Learning process.
• Yes, Sancus 2.0 will have Miranda Lawson in it. Other than Kelly Chambers, who I have only a very janky model of but could maybe headhack, Gabriella Daniels, who I have no model of, and maybe EDI, who I do have some nice models of but is slated for something else, no one else would fit the theme. But I mean, it's Miranda Lawesome. So. Yeah. See what I did there?

• Still intend to get past projects spruced up enough for a general release. Seeing how well the start of 2024 has been overall, I really wanna press forward. So those will be fixed and released as they come along between working on the good stuff.

Weekly WIP #55

Hostile Takeover Release

Scarlet attends a meeting at Heat Inc., who had 'devious motives'. She apparently also brought the wrong guard along, having been bought prior, and now finds herself being 'persuaded' into either selling out Shinra Electric Power Company or joining Heat Inc. How long can she hold out?

• Bottom Left = Main Video (4 minutes, 41 seconds), the other 3 are full turn loops (32 seconds each).

• A Lazy Susan, of all things. I thought the idea of a machine on one, with the attached person being turned around for those sitting to watch, was a fun notion. Then decided to just make it a motorized turn table. Like a display rack.

• I really think her motion came out fantastic. I wanted to make it a longer video, with more transitions, an intro, etc., but decided to release it as is. She was a wonderful model to use, so other projects with her are a certainty.

• I let the camera stay on angles longer this time. It felt more 'correct', since the music seemed more subdued, as well as a decent close up of the face.

• I had fun making this animation. I hope you all enjoy it.

• The next large project release will be Subscribers Only (Supporter and Invester Tiers) with some free loops for all.

Weekly WIP #21

• Backgrounds. A lot of small things can add up to very large effects. Take background characters. Even if subtle, small, far off, and not the focus; background characters help bring the scene to life. The more the better, right? I dunno. 23 is how many are in Crossing the Line, and it's been a chore to animated them, even slightly, since there's so many. Getting them in camera angles without taking away from the main focus, Samara, has been a challenge too. Going back and watching Shiala: The Mirage, for example, I feel like too much focus was on the background. I would say I need to balance that, but I don't. I need to focus more on the main. 7 more to go on Crossing, some camera angle adjustments, lights adjusted, and is should be about ready to render, finally.

•  Speaking of background characters; The Board Members of Heat Inc. are also nearly set fully for Hostile Takeover. Far less in number, coming it at just 8. They're a bit closer in view though, so they've needed better animations and more refinement.

•   Having said that, I'm going to either spend less time on the background or just have less characters in it. Sometimes more makes sense, other times not so much. Maybe it will just depend on the scene. I also have new ideas on ways to compose animations and I'm going to try it out on the projects that come after these. Hopefully, it will speed up the process and just make things better all around.

•  I admit I've had trouble staying focused on a specific project right now, bouncing from thing to thing and starting lots of new ones. I started another one just last night. Downside, obviously, is things get finished/released slower. Upside, I have several things to be working on, so, there isn't a lack of things to do.

• For those who are new here or those who didn't notice, I updated the 'about me' bit on the front page to simply read 'working on several projects' rather than a 'main' one. I've stopped projects (Marvel Misadventure), rushed them (Aloy: Breeding Cauldron) and just overly burnt out and screwed up others (Max: A Long Night) because of the 'main' concept, feeling stuck on them even when/if they just aren't clicking for me. Now I just feel like I'm too slow instead of stuck too, so, that's a win.

•  I'm hoping to have something ready for release soon, preferably month's end.