Hello,

I’ve finished a bunch of animations, as well as the bibi cinematic.

I think I’ll finish all the animations around Christmas, I’ll then get the game presentable and send it to Steam to get it pre-approved.

What takes a lot of effort this time is the testing and polishing phase. Since I decided to invest more into sounddesign, combined with the update being 3-4x as big as usual, it has become tedious.

It feels tedious because of the underlying pressure.

There is nothing worth mentioning besides that. A consistent output of animations.

Patreon
In other news, when Patreon removed SGs' page, they said I could apply to return to the platform in two months.

What they didn’t mention is, that it can’t be one of the projects that were previously on Patreon and violated the TOS, even though SG has never violated any rules (and in my humble opinion, neither did WIAB). But they closed the ticket and ignored that SG has never been involved.

I also don’t want to create an alibi-project to get a page up, so I won’t be returning to Patreon.

This does limit potential future growth, and I might never get where I once was, but it is what it is.

Blender
I’ve been doing quite a lot of Blender again.

My mental is pretty damaged from this long ass development cycle (I bet yours is too.), combined with a few “minor” setbacks that happened in the past couple of months… But damn, do I feel good when I learn new stuff.

You see, I mentioned a while ago that I wanted to learn rigging to a degree… I need to at least somewhat understand the whole process to really make Blender work. I used Auto Rig Pro and delved into the world of rigging…

A few weeks ago, I realized something… This move to Blender isn’t some little bibi project. It’s a life-project to me.
I don’t just want to understand rigging and how to really get the most out of an armature, I want to master it.
So, I went ahead, purchased some valuable courses and books, and delved even deeper. Not just into rigging, but animation and posing as well.
The jumps I’ve made in the past 10 days are phenomenal, and it’s incredible how much momentum I gain from learning new things.

I’m only a fraction into it, but I went from awkward posing to creating an actually good looking jump cycle with Bella in less than 20 minutes, without prior guidance.
I’ve adapted a completely new approach to animations…
One drawback tho, I’m starting to despise Daz.
I’ve been speedrunning Blender issues that lead me to pause my Blender adventures in the past.

Certain actions get rid of your bone’s constraints? Make a bibi bone INSIDE the actual bone and parent them to each other and put the constraint on the bibi bone.
Clean as fuck results!
I will make blender logs soon, and I know I’ve been saying that for two years, but in the past, I spent 90% of my time on getting better ports from Daz to Blender, improving shaders, etc.

I don’t just wanna show screenshots of technical mumbo-jumbo… I want to share pretty pictures, fluid or experimental animations… and I’m finally getting there.
More about this in the future.
But it’s really helping me mentally.

Preview
This is the last preview of the update. I’ve mentioned earlier this year that after this update, I will severely reduce the number of previews I show.

Not every log will feature one, it goes hand in hand with faster updates.Oh, a while ago I mentioned that I was about to license a great song, but the guy didn’t answer anymore…

Two months later on the dot, I decided to check back in as you never know what’s going on in someone’s life and, 3 hours later I had the signed contract.
And with that, a great, 2-3min cinematic for a girl whose name has three letters will become a reality.
I may or may not publish a Christmas treat. Not as big as in the previous year. One image… A good one tho… Probably Jeff.

Ocean

https://disk.yandex.ru/d/MRYjTg8AxOW_-Q