Bad News
Ok so, let me quickly get the bad news out the way. So last time I was babbling on about Poser Game Dev's Kinect Mocap feature and how I was hoping that it would help me speed my workflow up. Well fuck that, its useless. I had hoped that it was at least a little useful, for like, getting basic poses recorded, or perhaps some decent movement for short little movies. But it was not meant to be. I wasn't expecting like super professional mocap or anything, but this feature is honestly pretty fucking useless. Even with trying to unfuck the result using an extra layer of animation, you might as well do the poses yourself. For motion capture itself it might be useful, but you'll still have to guide the whole result into not looking like a retarded zombie. I wrote a whole epistle on Renderotica about it but one of the things I noticed about the feature is that even in Poser's OWN tutorials you can see that the mocap isn't even remotely accurately calibrated for their OWN figures (shoulders are up to the ears by default), which leaves me to ask: what the fuck were those guys thinking? So yeah, I bought a $200 kinect for nothing, for now then. Maybe it will improve with the next SR, who knows?? If any of those guys is reading this, I HIGHLY recommend a calibrating tool for the mocap skeleton.
Ok so that was the bad news. There is some neutral news about the Oculus Rift that I tried. Its fun, its fascinating, but I can't use it professionally. The DK2 is indeed a development kit, still very pixelly, and it gets uncomfortable in a hurry. Also, I just can't see my keyboard. I do sometimes use it in an emergency when I need to hide what I'm doing (because of certain unauthorized people wondering around).
Good news
Now the good news! So yeah I'm full on busy with comics. The good thing about Poser Game Dev is the figure combining and poly reduction features. I will combine all of the Project E characters with their clothes for the non-sexual scenes, and remove a tonne of hidden polys, making the figure very mobile in a crowded disco full of V4 and M4 that have been reduced in polys. I also have some lores figures from renderosity going in the scene. I forgot to do a street scene so I'm now also working in that. there is a scene with all the girls packed into a Mini Cooper, which will be fun!
And guys you HAVE to go to Deviant Art because there's so much new stuff!!!
Sci Fi
Next to that I went doodling around with Project E and spent an afternoon working on a future concept called Siren 7 which is a Sci Fi story set in the future. The lead character is called Rose. Because the response was so enthusuastic on Deviant Art, I decided to spend another day working on a futuristic exploration suit for the main character. I'll probably be releasing that in a store near you soon.
Better News
Now back to animations. Just today while I was waiting on a render I came across a compilation of 'vines' on youtube. Vines are like short message service thingys but then with video. they last something like 6 seconds and are a rage! Together with that, some of you might know (or engage in) collecting animated erotica GIFs on site like Tumblr, and they are also short like vines are. So I thought I might try make some Lali vines, partly as an experiment to see if I can start thinking about adding looping animations in my comics. Well... here are two animations already (made in the last 6 hours! And I have another along the way.
These animations were made by hand, using Poser's interpolation off course. Note: NOT with the bloody mocap feature. Just imagine if that improved, or if I won the lottery and could get me some proper mocap stuff. Man I'll be making movies instead of comics!
So yeah onwards I go. I hope next time I sit here babbling at you guys I have a comic in the store... well almost then. And a new website!