April ProgBlog #1

I still haven't worked out whether it's better to keep a regular update even if it's "I'm an idiot and got stuck again" or just not say anything if I'm that stuck.

So after combing the hair into the right shape, I found out a few things.

1. while the collision detection works really nicely in particle edit mode, it completely fails when actual physics is applied, because for whatever reason the emitter collision is completely ignored
2. I can't work out for the life of me how the hell to rig particle hair

I've done spline IK for the tail rig so was trying to do something similar with the hair but don't understand how particle weights work. Wasn't the biggest leap to find out about curve guides, and then took me the better part of forever to work out that curve guides had to be on the same layer as the particle emitter to work. Once that was sorted out, I then spent way too long playing around with the different curve types to work out which one would be the best for the job. Seems that nurbs animates quickest so that's what I'm using.

I don't like starting from the bottom but that was the most organised way to do things. The curves need to be grouped. All of them using the hair rig armature (which is a separate armature parented to the head bone) moves the ponytail around nicely. Leaving it FK because it's easy for now, this ponytail isn't that swooshy.

Also trying to get back into the request queue which got put on hold as I really needed to feel like I was making some progress on AER (Spotify apparently thought so too as it kept playing songs from the thought track). I wanted to knock out three sketches of the upbok mascot, but only managed to come up with two in a hurry. There is a third half body one forming in my head but apparently it needs a bit more time to cook.

After watching some screaming going on about steem and various other cryptos, I've decided even though I'm doing to do my usual (stick with steem til it pisses me right off), I don't feel terribly comfortable promoting it by making it the AER crypto, so I'm chucking an @internutter and using time as a currency. And while I had insomnia one night, I managed to make good use of it just for a change by working out a time-based economy for AER, so I'm currently going through Arc 1 again (I suppose I could call it a season? Even though everything I do is non-standard which seems to annoy people) and modifying all the currency references. And still very slowly copying all my notes into the Drupal instance I made to hold my notes. I really do hate repeating work. Worrying about the order of things if I make updates to any existing events, may have to add either a time field or just a weighting thing to make sure things go in the right order as I think it defaults to updated date. At the rate I'm going with webdev (impatient much!) it will probably be a while more before I get irritated enough with the bare bones to apply at least some styling to make it easier to read!

This post also appears on my blog.

Stuff to do

• mascot for @bmj <-- in progress
• @tubcat illustration
• @symphonyofechoes header
• upgoats for @pangoli
• upgoats for @thecreativerebel
• upgoats for @sayee
• bananafish mascot for @f3nix
• upgoats for @lordnigel

Want a crowd character? If you interact frequently with me here (either on my posts or your posts or better yet both!) or on one of the linked Discord channels, all you have to do is let me know and tell me what you'd like :) It can be one of your characters (including ones you make up on the spot for this XD) or a self insert. There's a bunch of different human types to choose from, and pets/other animals are also welcome.

Thanks for looking! ^_

If you want to natter I usually haunt both the #teamaustralia channels (yes there's two, the PAL one and a South Pacific one for Aus/NZ), Be Awesome, and hang with the @steemartists on the server with the same name on Discord with a bunch of awesome people :D

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_{The steemaroo divider is free to use. Ask me nicely if you want an upgoat/cute critter footer.}