TotaM

wow, this site is famished for updates !

TotaM grows with 30ish pics for the main set and another 20ish extras.

fail better

Happy new 2020 !
And diving to ue4 for good: for one thing, i'm swiching to v4 figures to see if they fit my needs better (no geograft to deal with). First project is very small scale and scope: just 2 characters pleasing each other in a loop. The goals are to familiarize with import/export of fbx, animations, texture & lighting. On the viewer side, some camera control and possibly some morph and texture control.
here is the very bland first import of some assets:

instances & random colors in octane

got an idea for a set where i want a chorus dancer line. That can be easely acheived with instanciating (same model reused in the scene) - but i dont want them to look like clone -even tho they are. so i'm playing with the random color node in octane.

excuse the low poly figure

clutter

my, i hadnt realized how long the process of adding clutter would be. i've always tried to have some details in the scenes i did to flesh out the mood (or jus go bare as with the black collection) - but here, as i'm building Al's office/home, i realize thats its more than mood - its Al's place, it should tell about her.
The bedroom/kitchen corner above still lack personality - and the noir-sci-fi touch, and while i'm filling the room, i'm not posing the actors...
Posting this draft and then later a more complete one so you can play spot the difference !

some time later:

notice the pet bowl ? i think Aletheia will have a cat companion...

Kapow ! Bang !

I'm in the process of watching as many noir as i can get my eyes on and i try to get the gist of that high contrast light. It also informs me on the tropes i want to explore and mess with. I dont really want Aletheia to be a female Philip Marlow - thats already very well done with Jessica Jones. And even tho this narrative maybe a little more than what i usually do, i should remember that i playing the erotic gamble here.
I tried to fog the scene above, tried to have the ceiling lamps cast some nice rays down with no success so far. I really want that foggy atmosphere, its part of the genre, blurs the background which in turns outlines the main subjects... But i dread the render times, making a long set even longer to produce. Maybe i could go with an episodic format ?

ms smith

its often happens while working on the scenes that some interesting, nice or plain weird shots/angle/artefact manifests. i usually giggle & go back to work - it also sometimes becomes part of the set. here is one instance in Zbrush that i caught. Ardente looking like a Matrix like Ms Smith.

censorship

the patreon page is currently disabled.
sorting things out with the powers that be.
thank you for you patience.

as of 15th june, still no news from patreon staff...

meanwhile

i've reopened ue4 & been traficking blueprints & mats - i've manage to overcome some of my past challenges, but only to see more hurdles pop up.
i'll finish this simple dress up thing before returning to Resolve.

there are also some legal licensing issues that i need to think about - check the pricing of daz interactive license and see what i can afford.
in any case, i wont let that prevent me from making this lil thing.

vfog

here is side by side a 5000 samples render (about 30 minutes) & a 32000 samples render (some 4 or 5 hours).

 

5000 samples

 

32000 samples

The 32k is a bit less grainy, its still not as nice as i'd like; plus those long rendering hours dont fit the bill in the making of a set for me.
This is why i need a second machine to render while i would keep on working with my main workstation *sigh*
In any case, i'll keep on working the set, it's just probably gonna take a lot longer than i had hope for a release. And if i want a second machine, i need to release sets... so i'll be working on a smaller scope stuff to in parallel that i can put in store before spring.

how about...

reworking the lighting of Resolve, i'm trying to play the film noir feel.
here is the previous version next to the reworked one:

previously

new version:

i'm not yet done with the volumetric fog but i like this new look that fits my idea of the narrative.
next will be to fit Ella in all this dark mess without loosing her in the shadows... 

to Morrow

Lets see, 2017 saw 3 sets out and the usual Black collection, plus the random pics to be found around the webz. And then very little publication. I've be hitting a technical wall on both UE4 and with the lighting of Resolve. I did kill a lot of sectoids in xcom2 tho - just in case it might solve my problems :)

2018 already has a destinations to go, with Resolve on the top of the list.
I'm not giving up on UE4 but i think i'll scale down my ambitions there. If i can get out a single (un)dress up mini game, in the vein of Ardente's Strip Me, but with 3d models instead of pre-rendered 2d pics, ill consider the milestone achieved.
Calice, Faunette, Marianne, Audrey... are living in my imagination and deserve a set each, so expect at least one of them to be sharing her fantasies.

Its a bit weird that coming from a written background, i develop my narrative without a word (apart from Strip Me which was a lot more verbose). *Show dont Tell* is the motto at work here. The character voice you imagine, their banter and moans can never be made better than within your imagination, i just hope the pictures provide the direction, the proper vector and that the whole converges toward the same overall story.
That said, i also like the minutiae of the old coffee-stained paper rpg character sheet, with a lengthy paragraph on how the protagonists chooses his shoes or would never eat peanut butter on a toast. Strip Me was a way for me to write about Cyprine and Ardente in more details and i'm thinking about doing more of that - but the format isnt clear yet.

And then there are all the projects that the childish infinite me would do on a dime, but that the reality bound me cant keep the pace with. Which will probably pop up here and there because those cant be kept silent. I sometimes wish i was more disciplined and rigorous but then a colorful butterfly captures my attention and off i go to infinity and beyond !
ah well, thats me :)

so,
cheers to the year past, cheers to the year to come,
may joy, giggles and friendships follow you along
cyprine

Wrestling with light

For a year now i've been working on 2 monitors that give me quite different outputs, one being much brighter and vibrant, the other more tonaly neutral.  Its a boon and a curse, allowing me to check what an image might look like on your side, with different screens - while at the same time confusing me about what my /real/ image is.
Legibility is the word here: if the image is readable in its details, i'm fine with it.
Here is an example from Resolve:

the scene is supposed to be /in the dark/ but how much can you make of the Ella character. So i came up with a much brighter version:

Which will be readable on most monitors.

I really like playing with light, and i'm still learning how to control it. I hope you enjoy the results and forgive my blunders.

my brain

I have not been very productive this week - blame the toothache that's been eating at my brain.
White Out will be delayed to Sept. 9th. patience !
The next project should be an interactive something in Unreal, some basis for future game related endeavour.

the Future

the next projects in the pipes are White Out and seriously tackling the ue4 game i have in mind.

White Out will have to remain mysterious until release. For one thing, it will keep you guessing and allow you to discover the set fresh. On the other hand, it will teach me to withhold my drafts and deliver something more polished.
That doesnt mean i wont be posting things, it just wont be White Out :)

The ue4 project, tentatively called Times Again, is a sci-fi space station sim, with dating and sex, management and roleplay elements and... well, thats the idea - now i may be biting off more than i can chew there so i'll try to pace myself and see what i can do with what little i know of ue4.

Once i get some playable framework, ill be posting it for my patreons to test.
TA setting has humanity spread in the solar system and the player in charge of a remote space station. Distance and isolation have reshaped how humans view each other (when the next living body is light years from you). Androids may be the perfect sex toys, but wouldnt the space dwellers crave for that human touch ?

So there you have the very 1st premise of TA. Questions, comments, suggestions are all welcome !

homage to Waterhouse

in the bathroom set i wanted to pay homage to Waterhouse.
Here is the original work Hylas and the Nymphs:

and here is my lil wink to it:

btw, here is the page for Hylas

Brown betty

a tribute to Fringe episode Brown betty (season 2, ep.20)

getting the tech around volumetric light, unfortunatly render times explode and that wont do for an image set, unless i can wait a thousand years - or a stark brings me 2 or 3 more computing power.

Revisiting Calice

Calice was one of the 1st character i made with daz and she's been taking numeric dust for a while.
Here is a reimagining of her, complete new body & texture.
I'm not sure of where she belongs in my lil multiverse: she could easely pop by Faunette where fantasy creatures exist, and i could see her appear in my mythic-cyberpunkish future with Aletheia but i'll have to debate somemore with myself about that.

bye 16 hi 17 !

 a calendar awaits my patreons

plans for 2017:
+ more work with ue4 with hopefully a sexy sci-fi project i've been carrying around for 4 years already. I'm not saying too much, i have to figure out how to feed/fit my ideas into the engine.
+ images sets, hopefully more than in 2016... Owen & his new gf have already some scenes cooking, i'd like to play with Faunette & Anaides (her satyr friend), Aletheia & the cyber+twilightZone+ish world of hers, and i wouldnt let Cyprine & Ardente without some cuddles to display.
+ 2017 will have its Black collection as it has become a kind of a ritual, out on august with images i post around the web, plus exclusives.

wishing you all to have a gentle, exciting, sexy year 2017,
merry pixels,
cyprine

butterfly

Marianne's lil tattoo

also, patreons can expect a calendar soon.

Owen's new girlfriend

Please meet Marianne

She's still in chrysalis but i've got an idea on where she'll spread her wings.

also, I've found it !
Calice original tail belonged to Jezebeth unfortunatly changes to the store makes the product unavailable - and i've scrubed my archive, i must have ditched that old model without paying attention.
So Calice will definitly need to use a new tail. But while i'm at it i'll revamp her whole shapchanging succubus body & try to see where she fits in my lil multiverse.

in other news, ill add a bunch more questions and maybe some images to the stripMe game & try to ship it cheap to the usual marketplace.