"NO ZERO DAYS"

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Faeryl

Omni Ace
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Kaiju Slayer
Jul 26, 2016
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DATE: 15-JAN-2024
Okay so I spoke too soon. The workflow I had for materials and unwrapping things wasn't very optimal.
Spent today with a new process that is much more streamlined.
Also ended up using Blender's displacement modifiers to help explode meshes for baking.
Overall I used to think Modo was the King of Hard Surface, but Blender turns out to be way way more powerful.
 

Faeryl

Omni Ace
Staff member
Community Manager
Kaiju Slayer
Jul 26, 2016
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Planet Earth, USA, East Coast
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DATE: 16-JAN-2024
Sometimes learning is a painful process.
There is a big difference between a 3D mesh that looks good in your 3D modeling software and Substance Painter...and prepping it to work for ideal channel packing and finding all sorts of things you missed...which means you do it all over again.
3rd time's the charm? Lots of re work of UVs and mastering the Painter workflow today. I hope to be done!
 
Likes: Pandagnome

Faeryl

Omni Ace
Staff member
Community Manager
Kaiju Slayer
Jul 26, 2016
942
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Planet Earth, USA, East Coast
discord.gg
DATE: 21-JAN-2024
Just something I've been wanting to get to for a long time. Home, the station, took its first steps today.
Also processed a few people's requests for packs that they put in for in Nov but were not able to get to till now.
If you still want a pack upgrade, I'll give a window of Monday/Tuesday [22-JAN/23-JAN] to get them in. Pay in 3 plans available. DM direct as it is a manual process.
 

Faeryl

Omni Ace
Staff member
Community Manager
Kaiju Slayer
Jul 26, 2016
942
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Planet Earth, USA, East Coast
discord.gg
DATE: 25-JAN-2024
Alright, today was finishing up my review of Substance Designer, which I started on back when I made the ice for the first demo. It had been a hot minute, but after a day of playing with nodes I'm back up to par and actually improved.
So we have the full gamut covered now. Custom texture creation, Texture Painting, and hard surface modeling.
It's time for a deeper dive into Unreal, farther than I've gone before.
 

Faeryl

Omni Ace
Staff member
Community Manager
Kaiju Slayer
Jul 26, 2016
942
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93
Planet Earth, USA, East Coast
discord.gg
DATE: 31-JAN-2024
Spent the day researching different techniques for character customization.
Morph targets are popular but I decided against them (except perhaps for facial features, if we do those), because morphs would have to be created not just for the body but for all clothing items.
Also morphs don't preserve normals (they have to be recomputed), and don't affect collision boxes, so all that would have to be handled. Plus you would need to bake them for performance.
After all this, I decided bone scaling would be the best way for us to go. While it won't give you all the possibilities of morphs, it gets you most of the way there, is performant, and much much less work on clothing (none really) and hitboxes and baking, oh my.
 
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Faeryl

Omni Ace
Staff member
Community Manager
Kaiju Slayer
Jul 26, 2016
942
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93
Planet Earth, USA, East Coast
discord.gg
DATE: 02-FEB-2024
Today was one of those setback days...where everything breaks and doesn't do what you expect it to do.
I hate rigging. No wonder they farm this out so much... back at it again tomorrow.
Sorry folks, days like this happen but you have to keep pushing.
 
Likes: Pandagnome
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