July updates - Poser figures & comics

Hey peeps!

Good news, I appear to have a nice work-around for the JCM problems I was having with Project E. Thank you to those that helped! This means I can now FINALLY start thinking about how to wrap this girl up.

Make no mistake there's still MUCH to do, decisions to make, and there's always a small risk of realizing it might be a lost cause... but at least I can finally resume serious development. I need to do mesh repairs, entirely new JCMs, new WM, improved UV maps. I have a few vendors advising me already about this and that. 














One of my key ambitions with Project E is compatibility, at least with V4. Firstly for my own sake, it will save me a load of work not having to convert all my V4 content, and second the same also applies for you guys. I can animate the joint centers and make her compatible with V4 clothing, and make her compatible with V4 textures, for me the compatibility thing is no problem because that's private, but once I put this girl in the store, things will be a little different... legally. So its a matter of finding a nice solution. Should the whole compatibility not work out, I doubt I'll bother releasing PE. I'm not going to make any illusions about support and I'm not going to let her go down in history as yet another dead figure... of course unless I can rack up some proper support for her. 

In the meanwhile I'm setting up a tester of the current version for review for a few vendors (of which I just improved the shoulder Weight Maps - top picture). Please don't ask for this copy because I only want very specific people looking at it. The real beta testing version will come out much later when most of the above mentioned improvements have been sorted out.

I wish to repeat, and I cannot stress this enough: Project E is a figure I have designed to use for my comics, and thus it is a moderate/hi resolution artistic figure with plenty detail, not a lo-poly game figure. I am not promising a V4 replacer, or a figure that is better than what DAZ makes. If it works for me, I presume it will work for some others too.

BTW the figures you see here are FBMs and character tests. This could be the face of Project E but that can change in time. The base body of Project E is very flat and featureless to minimize any disturbance in the effect of the weight mapping.

V7 mania

No doubt most of you artists will have noticed that CG giant DAZ has released yet another genesis figure (G3), along with all the usual merchandise getting re-sold, as well as a new Victoria model. Off course me being the nosy bugger that I am I go an buy it and check it out and open my big mouth on all the relevant forums (except DAZ's... ahem). But aside from it being DAZ exclusive (as in, not Poser), G3 is a good figure. If you work with DS, you're in for a treat, especially with Iray, their new renderer! (check my impatient attempt above lol) 

But if you use Poser, well...yeah, hmm, I don't wanna pick a fight or anything but I do wanna say that its not really cool to develop a figure partly financed by the thousands of dollars that loyal Poser customers have invested in DAZ, and then not let those same Poser customers enjoy it, half expecting them to dump their entire workflow to start using a new piece of software just for a figure... not sure what to think about that. 


There were some arguments for technology or something, but within 24 hours of G3's release, a bunch of Poser users over on Rosity managed to port G3 into Poser, looking fairly decent too. If they could do that, then I'm quite sure DAZ could've easily made a plan for their Poser fan base. Hmm... anyway, whatever. I tried to port G3 into oser like those guys did but without much success. To be honest I didn't try very hard because I already have my own figure. 


But still, in defiance I chucked V7 and PE into zbrush and basically traced her shape onto PE, making an FBM for her. 

Hua! Hua! Hua! Hua! All your FBMs are belong to us!!




Comics

No further news regarding comics, other than that the Disco Dragon is busy rendering on my second PC and another secret project rendering on a third PC. Whenever I'm not working on PE or some other project, I work on Sen's first comic. I cannot wait to bring that comic out! I think I'll be using the updated Project E for Sen. That will be siiiick! :D

Tales of the Rogue

Speaking of comics, as a young CG comic artist myself I feel I must support CG artists wherever I can. Upstarting CG artist and buddy of mine, DarkSeed, just wrapped up his first fantasy comic about his heroine Abbadonna entitled "Tales of the Rogue - Into the Cursed Woods". Darkseed spent a good long time working at it and is now finally also a veteran of the comic-making process. Darkseed is a very ambitious fellow and this can be seen in this elaborate tale. If you're a fan of strong leather-clad ladies in a world of demons, legends, swords, comedy and magic, I certainly recommend checking this out, especially now since it's on sale this weekend over at drivethrucomics!







Comic format

So my last post was about what comic format you guys would like me to use, and first of all THANK YOU for all the votes. Second of all, the result was very surprising. I was honestly thinking that the landscape cinema style would be more popular but it seems that the old-school comic still wins it! This is kindof a relief because the Disco Dragon is rendering at a massive cinematic format now and its taking FOREVER to cook renders! I might resort to a horizontal comic if it takes any longer. What is also clear is that tablets are not as popular as the good old laptops and PCs with you guys. I guess tablets are rather small eh? 

So what do you guys think of the results then? Let me know your opinions!


Below a copy of the poll (also if you wanna vote and haven't yet)