Logbook - Blog Posts

Funny blender stuff

April 21st, 2024 - started writing at 2:20 AM

wowie been so long since i last did a log or something in blender lol

i guess I had taken a break from any major blender projects. I had other hobbies i wanted to focus on so I kind of set that aside for the time.

Lately I've been back to working on some projects. I'm still working on Dawn and Psyche but I have Kepler in the works now!

this is my older model and aaaah the nostalgia ^^

My newer version of Kepler looks verrry different, like for example they just hit a growth spurt and have some sweet high-tech gadgets LOL

They also don't have that side eyelash anymore. Long story short back in 2021 kepler used to be genderfluid but isnt anymore. the eyelash was my way of indicating it but i never used it so. it doesnt do much

also they've got their sweet sweet FOV as a pupil now how cool is that

April 21st, 2024 - finished writing/posted at 3:21 AM WHY DO I WRITE THESE THINGS SO LATE

Funny silly SSOA stuff

December 19th, 2023 - started writing at 3:19 AM

So when we were coming home I bought some arts and crafts on the way...and a little bit of context I've been into The Scrambled States of America as a new interest

I'm not stopping all of my astronomy-related stuff ! Usually when I find a new interest, it's a really intense hyperfocus so I may not be as focus on spacecraft n stuff as I usually would be. The same thing happened with constellations it's just states so it feels super different hehe

Anyways, when I got home and later that day I started getting to work and making use of those supplies i bought, and the result:

Meet California !!! Spent over 7 hours working on him non-stop with the power of my dark magic /lh

*He doesn't wear glasses but does wear sunglasses sometimes, I just didn't find any so I used my own LOL

him with the gang:

This is California, Rhode Island, and Arizona !!! I have to prop them up with cut foam pieces because they're so blubby shaped LOL. Arizona was the first I made, then after her I used some extra foam to make Rhode Island (he's freakishly strong for his size !!!)

a very snazzy state, I will say

he wore a lil top hat in the talent show book hehe

Some oc stuff bc why not lol

been making SSOA OCs in my freetime hehe...they're usually based on astronomy but i like including science/wildlife that the state may be recognized for

I've only properly named two so far, Californium and Arizonac, but I'll talk a little more about Arizonac since he was the first I made

As much as the Pomni I've made him out to be he's not like that 24/7, but he's very secluded and prefers to be alone (or with a few close friends)

He's a very skillful and dedicated astronomer, and that's because I've read a lot of notable astronomy-related things about Arizona (ex. its various dark sites, lots of telescopes, Flagstaff's Lowell observatory) and being an Arizonan im proud of that hehe

So with that, he's actually nocturnal and so he's very sensitive to light and sound (and touch). That's also a reason why he prefers to be alone other than his introverted personality because daytime noises and light are discomforting. The little red dots around his eyes help him kind of see in the dark (as with red light when you're stargazing, it helps preserve your dark adapted eyes)

Californium I haven't done much about him other than make him like this futuristic robot-type guy who's just in love with space exploration (because of the JPL, Caltech, Silicon Valley, DSN at Goldstone, the Vandenburg launches, all that jazz) but also other science topics and wildlife because I heard California's quite diverse in that.

December 19th, 2023 - finished writing/posted at 5:55 AM

My trip to California !

December 19th, 2023 - started writing at 2:17 AM

The trip started at 5 AM on Friday, that was when I left on my eons-long road trip to California.

I wasn't really feeling that tired, I actually didn't get any sleep (had an awful headache until I had some tea mere minutes before I was supposed to wake up and get ready)

We packed some blankies if any of us needed to lay down, but I knew I might've not been able to sleep so just in case I packed up some study guides and an encyclopedia to read in the car. For the most part I just stared at the window listening to music because we drive through a very dark desert so I got to watch Orion set as Ursa Major was above me while Libra was rising to my east.

When the sun was rising I was definitely eager to see some major star in Scorpius appear as a very faint dot but I guess not lol (the sun should be in ophiuchus right now, not too far from antares, but im impatient to see my favorite constellation)

We went on the route we'd usually take when we go to Big Bear, mainly because less traffic, so we went through San Bernardino I think? Halfway I started getting really tired and giddy to the point where I was laughing at trees for no reason LOL (and me imagining TSSOA California being a rebellious teenager)

The main point of the trip was to visit my relatives at a cemetery near Los Angeles. And it was nice having breaky with them over at a Denny's. I had some chicken tendies and. fries with ketchupie and. ranchie idk WHAT IM SAYING LOL and I felt like my tired sleepy side was definitely catching up to me (I'm not one to be a part of conversations 😭 im kinda shy tbh)

After that we drove about 30-40 mins to the California Science Center, one of my favorite places to be haha because THEY GOT SOME SPACECRAFT MODELS!!! and can't forget Endeavour herself :D

^^ some of my favorite models that they have. when i went here for the first time i remember i was so happy to see hubble and juno

They also had this area where you could use NASA's Eyes on Earth software and it was really cool because they projected the satellites and earth onto a sphere so it was like you could actually view it

ICESat-2 :D (seeing it made me feel so giddy)

they had so many cool goobers there, even if one of them's a giant space boat <3 (they had a timeline of space shuttle missions and seeing CGRO made me feel happy, i have the mission patch btw lol)

NOW IT'S OFF TO THE GRIFFITH OBSERVATORY !!!

and this time we got to park much closer to the observatory, and we didnt walk eons and eons down the road LOL.

It was a lot more crowded this time but that was probably because it was later and so people might have come to use the telescope at the top of the building.

I see what they did there. Nice one. (That's the California Nebula on the left lol. Yes, it's a real name and it's in Perseus)

The view from when we left was really pretty,,I love going to these kinds of places :sob: but now im back in good ol' desert Arizona (came back early on saturday) but I LOVE GOI

i think im runnin out of space here so ill continue into some other stuff in another post

December 19th, 2023 - finished writing/posted at 3:18 AM

What I'm going to work on for Dawn

November 6th, 2023 - started writing at 12:47 AM

*text marked with an asterisk indicates an update as of November 19th as I had this draft for some time)

(going to start logging more stuff, kind of practicing writing the dates even if it does that for me already :P)

Some unnecessarily lengthy and probably pointless context, you can just skip to the blue header

I worked on a LOT of my personified spacecraft. They just aren't here because I've been doing this since mid 2021, so they're on my DeviantArt account.

(I have a lot of fun posing. Not so much fun rendering for eons hehe)

But, it's almost 2024! And with the experience I gained since I started on the first ones (Perseverance/Curiosity; they used the same model) and a few other non-spacecraft, why not do it all again?

Honestly, really from scratch. Not only would it be difficult to add onto, change, or reuse previous content, but I also want to preserve the original files as they were + I work using procedural and manual rigging with Cloudrig now.

(There is an exception where I may use Perseverance/Curiosity (just the mesh parts). I updated them in 2022, and they also still share the same model. I archived their older models.)

I have practiced Cloudrig with Scorpius, who I finished not too long before I started working on Dawn.

Continuing on that, I decided to settle on a new land and began chipping away at Dawn. This time I've got a lot more considerations to keep in mind and I'm taking all the time I have.

In fact, she's not actually finished by the time of writing, hehe aren't I a little procrastinator /lh

so, what next?

WELL I'M GLAD YOU DIDNT ASK :D /j

1. Extra facial options for conveying expressions

The older rigs have options for stuff like creases and a sort of "tint". I call it a tint, but it is really just blushing. An important thing is that it functions as a color-changing mood indicator for intense emotions

Dawn, for example, would blush (or tint) yellow in a very happy state, or from platonic feelings

Then there's blue for an intense state of sadness

A new thing I could is stuff like. Agh I don't know what theyre called but yknow how angry characters may have those red lines to represent a vein, or scared/shocked characters have those pale blue/white lines around their heads???? whatever thats called, yeah I might do that lol

2. Closing/opening the eyes

A LOT of the eyes are done within procedural texturing. Her eyelids are not actually masked by any mesh. I currently have a few bones to close the eyes but they kind of crowd the layout and I don't really see a point in using them.

The eyelids are a texture via math nodes, and it is just a parabola. However, I am unable to get a more stylized curve without making things more complex

Before I reuse the rig itself in any way, I want to update the eyes so i can have a slider to toggle a hidden curve that I can use for the closed eyelids.

*UPDATE: THIS HAS BEEN ADDED

3. Possibly making the mouth more versatile.

This is something I am not sure is possible with my knowledge or just really in general? it probably could be but I may have to add in a lot more nodes and stuff.

The mouth is also done through procedural texturing. There are no actual image files used and all the shapes are solely from math nodes.

So my main problem is "curving" teeth so if I have a more curved mouth the teeth can kind of follow along, and it will look better. i may have to play around and experiment with vector stuff

4. making a pose library

As an animator myself, a pose library to add basic expressions and, more importantly, lip sync, is TOTALLLYYYYYYY NEEEDEEEEDDDD I mean I think you can apply poses mid-animation? I have soggy memory

5. Overall, making sure I can reuse the rig

Unlike the new rigs, reusing a rig and adapting it to a new character was a big pain in the antenna dish. With procedural rigging its much easier because the constraints will be aligned with what i tweak in the meta rig.

Because of that, i have to make sure that Dawn's rig is something that will not require too much tweaking when I get to reuse her rig for others. I'm working on Psyche, and by the time i can rig her, Dawn's rig should be good to go.

So again, making sure i have all of the above ready for reusing YEAAAH

November 19th, 2023 - finished writing/posted at 10:33 PM