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Turning Fabienne into a Violinist - My thoughts on my future here

Someone called for a violinist? Yes? No?

Alright folks, here we are again with some great news:
Gotta tell you a little story about what's going on with my ideas and about my future installments because this update opened me some doors to the next level:

Well you know, after that last release I thought I would update all my characters with just new nipples and from that on we'll see.

Yeah, not gonna happen!

I have eight slots for garments and a triangle limit of 35000. Time to go all out!!!

At first I figured to start chronologically so Cass Moon is number one and I already went over board designing a new loadout of garments and a guitar and such stuff. So updating her to full equipment wasn't that hard and she's my favorite as you might know so she's always got more attention than any other of my creations.

Anyway.

Next up is Fabienne.

I must say I haven't touched her in quite a while because of one big issue: I had absolutely no clue what to do with her!

So I started messing around with the custom offset function to get used to it and while I was working I realized that we now have nipples on mesh basis (*facepalm*)! Gotta try a bra with that now!

That went pretty nice, but just a bra looks a bit odd so let's do some nice panties. After those were done I found myself struggling once again.

What kind of clothes should I make for her? I already thrown her old dress out of the window since I figured it didn't suit her so well. The last time I worked on her I simply made it as an excuse that I have no real plan. I even wrote "Added a transparent dress to give her some kind of garment, but I think she look's naked with fur way better, so you decide ;)" on her update in April.

Now I got stuck once again. OK, let's upload her and move on.

Not even half a day had passed and while I was working on a new character when Fabienne returned to my thoughts thoughts. I pondered about my lore and really sunk into it for like an hour or so when suddenly an idea grew an me:
Maybe she's traveling around finding other half-dragons (and of course her dad, Cyrill) and actually met with one of them like Niamh or even with Stevie. Both are from Ireland, and since I'm working almost only on my "Savage Union"  band project maybe they influenced her in some way. Maybe they met because of the music she was playing!

You see it's getting dangerous when my grey cells kick in...

Now that's where we are going!
A traveler outfit like a "ranger" in a fantasy game, something with cloth and leather, oh and some boots! Maybe a hat would look cute on her...a flat cap or in Ireland better known as a PADDY HAT! There is a Irish folk band called "The O'Reillys And The Paddyhats" and they have a female violinist.

The stars had aligned, let's go to work!


As you can see Fabienne is now capable of a few different things and you're able to combine all those different garments as you like. They are all made in such a way that they work in layers without clipping (most of the time). Also for the quick action in the future you can drag down those pants and get the thong out of the way really quick to get something started!


Now that brings me to the future


I reached the point where five pictures inside FVNE aren't enough to show what the character is able to and I haven't even started on expressions. Of course I could take what I have done here to a completely new character instead of investing months in updating old stuff but here's the point: I for myself decided to have a rather small roster but filled with personality. I really love my old creation and I want to push them to the limit. That's probably not the most efficient way on farming karma, but I have higher goals set for myself for now. FVNE is no longer a simple tool for creating only hot stuff, this, for me is about creating characters that leave a impression on you folks.

I want to create high quality content and unique stuff!

Something that will be remembered when I have to quit.

My journey can't go on forever, but I hope I'll have enough time to finish what I imagine right now:

I have concepts for like three new characters for my rock band on the table as well as new clothing concepts for several oldies. So much to do! Filling all eight slots of garments is not the goal here but I wish to do for all of them at least a set of lingerie and a set of casual wear (sort of).

So, you see a lot is going on behind the scenes and though I got way more efficient in creating clothes I also long for better quality and more detail.

Let me hear your thoughts on the new style and stay tuned!

-Blacky out-

Comments

  • edited August 2021
    Farming karma is the only way to succeed in life, what is the matter with you?
    Weirdo

    Joking aside, quality is the better way to go about it. Especially with so many options to add in for a single character. But I filled up a roster of characters for use when interactions are up, that was my goal. My best effort was to make them functional as possible, enough for people to derive them enough to use for their interactions, the only thing I am blind to is how good the character will look with the tail moving. I dont know how it will move, how far out it will start moving from the ass point, how fluff on the tail will interact with the tail as the tail is moving, how multiple tails will move etc etc. Also expressions. How that messes up my edits here or there.

    Im still blind to a lot of things that will truly finish a character functionally for interactions. But at least, I can feel good knowing someone will want to use my characters or as a derivative for their interactions. This is why I have so many characters and a Male to Female versions of almost each animal.

    But my Alien gang tho, those are my real characters. Its just a private set of drawings that I have yet to fully realize as I keep making up crazy shit for it  that I want to bleed into Fvne one day. Like making a comic lead into the interaction or something (Dont know how that will play out or feel, but ya know, its an idea for now).
  • Well, I do believe that doing nice stuff to other people will bring joy and happiness back to you so I am like you trying to farm karma every second of my life >.<

    Ok, where is this discussion going? XD

    Tell you what: I am not a fan of the current karma system inside the app. A curency you can't spend on something? A value which determines if you are a good creator or not? What's the big idea behind this system?

    When I started to create characters I got upset like hell when I don't get the votes that I thought a certain character would deserves. I started chasing your shadow and look where I am now. I haven't managed to get even a third of your karma but does that mean I am a creator less half as good as you?

    No need to answer this question because it's a matter of taste of the people that are voting. The problem with it is that you upload something and desperatly hope for good results and you'll get dissapointed if you don't get your desired votes. Having this incredible amount of diversity here is the real awesome thing and that we all work for something we can enjoy.
    I just want to point out that that karma ranking system can be a problem in the future because it could lead to rivalery. Something we don't need here. It is so nice to see that we all come along pretty well with each other and that our dev's do their best. Hope it can stay like this!


    Functionality was and still is a big thing to me as well. I really hate to throw unfinished things on the market or adding things that can cause trouble. But since we all don't know how things will work when it comes to animations we will probably redo a lot of things over and over again untill we know how it will play out. Every now and then when I check on old characters when a new update was launched I discover things that don't work anymore. I don't want to imagine what happens when we move to unity 2019 xD

    Expressions and how cloth will move is probably my biggest fear to deal with in the future and after the past year I found myself reworking a lot of things I made back then. The point is that if those assets I make won't work later on it will be a hell lot of work to fix every character.

    By now for me it is way more interesting to make up little stories how my guys are conected with each other and how their personalities would be than just simply creating sexy content. Maybe I'll do some kind of episodic set of animations and bring those ideas to life one day if I have time for that in the future. Guess that would be a nice goal...
  • @Blacky

    Looking good, nice and folk-y. Reminds me that I've got some big plans to misuse the interaction system to create entirely safe-for-work music videos for various songs that I've visualized a story and/or characters for over the years. Several songs by Blackmore's Night come to mind, given the current context.

    Something that will be remembered when I have to quit.

    My journey can't go on forever, but I hope I'll have enough time to finish what I imagine right now:
    I guess I've missed something here. Got some incoming long term obligations that will severely interfere with this sort of unpaid hobby work? I certainly know that feel all too well. Still, it isn't impossible to do a little something on the side in your spare time, but I definitely also know how draining a day job can be, so I can see why one might want to drop everything and just relax on those precious few days off the clock.

    So, you see a lot is going on behind the scenes and though I got way more efficient in creating clothes I also long for better quality and more detail.
    One thing that can always be done is uploading a version of the characters with more complex meshes somewhere and link them here on the forum. Probably could also put the same link into the character's description on the cloud, too, so as to not miss out on karma. Bit of extra hassle for both creator and viewer, but eh, could be worse.
    I imagine interactions will also have restrictions put on them for cloud upload, so a similar workaround might be useful there, since I'm guessing it will be possible for interactions to be saved locally as well, and thus shared outside the cloud. I'm presuming they can also make use of locally stored characters too, so particularly complex scenes with many complex characters might require a big .zip of all the necessary components. Or one could just record the interaction, add some fancy flourishes with video editing, and upload the result to whichever porn video site one favors. No cloud karma that way, though, hmmm.

    I just want to point out that that karma ranking system can be a problem in the future because it could lead to rivalery. Something we don't need here.
    I don't know, I've found that a bit of friendly rivalry is an excellent motivator for innovation and improvement. Of course, once it veers into unfriendly rivalry, which includes such pleasantries as sabotage, malicious rumors and drama, it becomes a hindrance. Still, the presence of the karma system isn't a cause or a solution to these sorts of interpersonal dynamics; people will always find ways to establish a pecking order, no matter how hard you try to engineer systems against it. The primary benefit of a karma system is to give viewers an easy shorthand to find popular (and therefore, presumably, quality) items on a large list, so I'd say it's worth the petty e-peen size contests associated with such systems.
    Of course, this is all easy for me to say, given that I have no skin in the game yet on account of me being a lazy perfectionist who is perpetually tardy on his contributions to the cloud.

    Functionality was and still is a big thing to me as well. I really hate to throw unfinished things on the market or adding things that can cause trouble.

    Which is why it's probably best to stick to what can be done now rather than worry too much about how things will be. We can make some educated guesses and in light of them, make some attempts to future-proof our creations to some extent, but an old adage about counting chickens comes to mind; don't presume too much and you'll waste less time and effort when it comes time to upgrade your creations with the latest bells and whistles.
    For a concrete example, I've been thinking of giving that cyberpunk rat concept of mine a long trench coat. It will be a bit finicky, but with a bit of creative application of the tools available, should work for a few static poses, at least. I've heard a few things about how cloth simulation works during my studies, though, so I know that as a general rule, you can't mix skinning and cloth simulation on the same mesh. The way to solve this is to make the simulating part of the cloth a separate mesh, and then mask the seam with something, such as a belt. So, presuming similar limitations will exist for the eventual cloth physics implementation in FurryVNE, I'll take that into consideration when making the design. Should be easy enough, since trench coats rarely come without belts.


    By now for me it is way more interesting to make up little stories how my guys are conected with each other and how their personalities would be than just simply creating sexy content.

    Aye, making more abstract, narrative-related plans that don't depend on the tech available is a good way to go about it. Been doing that myself, though I've also got plenty of old ideas that can be repurposed as well. And, should things fall through, such ideas can always be repurposed again for other things easily enough. I suppose, though, that the same could also be done with many of the 3D assets created along the way, too; with a bit of work to hide the lewdness, and some extra polish, they'll make good portfolio material. Or, should one be aiming for work in more risqué circles, why hide it?

  • I've got some big plans to misuse the interaction system to create entirely safe-for-work music videos for various songs
    Hell yeah, you're my man! guess what I'm planning :D maybe that will be be my future way entirely because:
    Got some incoming long term obligations that will severely interfere with this sort of unpaid hobby work?
    Yeah, you can call it like that I guess. I've got two jobs and I am planning a lot of other private things in the near future that won't go well with naked furry content ;) I might switch to do completely safe for work content though but that would mean that someone would have to add all the genital stuff on my creations and I don't know if that would be so good for everyone.
    so I can see why one might want to drop everything and just relax on those precious few days off the clock.
    Oh, absolutely not. THIS is my relaxation. I don't consider FVNE as "work". I am heare because I always wanted to create my own models and animations but never found the time to set it up or learn blender entirely. This is my big chance here.

    One thing that can always be done is uploading a version of the characters with more complex meshes somewhere and link them here on the forum. Probably could also put the same link into the character's description on the cloud, too, so as to not miss out on karma. Bit of extra hassle for both creator and viewer, but eh, could be worse.
    That's a fair point but I do believe as long as we don't know what works with interactions and what won't do the trick I will try to make everything fit inside the current limitations. not a big fan of sharing this content outside the cloud for now ;)
    I don't know, I've found that a bit of friendly rivalry is an excellent motivator for innovation and improvement.
    Your absolutely right on this one, and I am the very example for this. I grew because I wanted to surpass the rest of you guys. There is still one problem with that:
    The primary benefit of a karma system is to give viewers an easy shorthand to find popular (and therefore, presumably, quality) items on a large list...

    You're right because you have to filter somehow, but how would a new creator ever become as "famous" or "big" in terms of karma like Craket or Chyanna? We are a whole year ahead of everyone else who just starts now.

    ...Should be easy enough, since trench coats rarely come without belts.

    Ah, now that whole section is a extremely good call. You remind me to update Cyrills trench coat for that matter :D

  • @Blacky
    Hell yeah, you're my man! guess what I'm planning
    Seems that will become something of a genre of FurryVNE animations in the future, eh?

    I am planning a lot of other private things in the near future that won't go well with naked furry content

    Understandable. I wish we lived in a world that doesn't so readily judge one for one's sexual tastes, but such is not the hand we've been dealt, unfortunately. Still, there's ways to live a double life, though I can see why people might not want to deal with the hassle of juggling separate (online or otherwise) identities.

    I'm pretty sure there will be a market for SFW characters in the future, too. Doubt they'll ever be as popular as their lewd counterparts, for obvious reasons, but catering to a niche has its merits.


    THIS is my relaxation. I don't consider FVNE as "work".

    Wish I could say the same. I like doing it just fine, being a creative outlet and all that, but it does demand a lot of time and effort for the level of quality I demand of myself, and then there's the need to constantly learn new things along the way to further complicate the equation. Recently, there's been a lot of other things that I've been needing to do, so all I've wanted to do after plowing through them has been to commit to some more passive activities to recharge before even considering jumping back into any of my character concepts. Of course, by that time, there's likely other distractions coming down the pipeline, so I've been stuck in something of a vicious cycle of procrastination for months.


    That's a fair point but I do believe as long as we don't know what works with interactions and what won't do the trick I will try to make everything fit inside the current limitations.

    Fair enough, and there's a case to be made for the benefits limitations have on creativity, since it tends to give a nice kick to figure out ways around said limitations. Still, when you absolutely, positively got to exceed every limitation in the room, accept no substitutes.


    but how would a new creator ever become as "famous" or "big" in terms of karma like Craket or Chyanna? We are a whole year ahead of everyone else who just starts now.

    First in, best dressed is a factor, of course, but merit has a funny way of bubbling up to the top. Despite our efforts, we're amateur hobbyists at best. What would happen if a real industry professional were to start moonlighting in our circles, I wonder? Even with the day job eating up the majority of their time, I've got a feeling they'd be capable of producing better stuff than us in a fraction of the time it'd take for us to come even close, so they'd quickly become the talk of the town. Especially if they take requests from the crowd.

    Outside of that, for someone who starts with nothing but a fresh install of Blender and a can-do attitude, they'll eventually grind themselves a nice skillset and (hopefully) a few dedicated fans. By that time, the environment could have changed quite a bit; older creators will have moved on, and while their stuff remains in the hall of fame, people eventually get tired of retreading the classics and go looking for newer, hidden gems. With a bit of luck, our hypothetical plucky new creator's works will be noticed, and seen to be good by many. Perhaps even good enough to see them take their place in the hall of fame. Still, that's a long and arduous road to tread, so a few shortcuts wouldn't hurt. Perhaps, once the interaction system rolls in and we get a big influx of new people because of it, there might be incentive and demand for some community programs and events designed to highlight up-and-coming talent. Character/interaction design contests based around a specific prompt or theme might be one type of such event, for example.
  • edited August 2021
    Reminds me that I've got some big plans to misuse the interaction system to create entirely safe-for-work music videos for various songs that I've visualized a story and/or characters for

    Fuck! Thats such a good idea! I support that!

    I just want to point out that that karma ranking system can be a problem in the future because it could lead to rivalery. Something we don't need here.

    Maybe. The problem will reveal itself based on the people. I am lucky with the upvotes that I got but honestly, seeing as the only way to get karma is through characters up-votes, I mostly disassociated myself from it. Functionally speaking, its the Favourites and OwO's that im looking at, because functionally, favourites are peoples list of characters they might revisit, OwOs work on the same way but in the more congratulatory essence. Like a commendation.

    This is why I encourage Derivatives as small as just a re-colour because it makes the dynamic web of sharing characters work with eachother. If none of my characters are of taste, I know they are quality Enough for people to want to do simple deratives of for their taste which in turn is a win for me anyway and his own. The important aspect here then becomes the web and content of sharing and evolving what we create.

    Like memes.

    And none of that has anything to do with upvotes in the end. Or rather, the only function of upvotes is visibility on the Top List. There "might" be future headliners in the "Start" page of the Cloud site that utilizes milestones such as "This character has been used the most the past week for interactions". or "This character is the most OwO/Fav/Upvoted with the Tag Feline". Like a feature page. Which will utilize more of the functional upvote or maybe karma system.

    "This user has gotten the most karma this month"

    But regardless, the most important thing is that interaction between us where I make a character, someone derives it, someone else uses that derivative. etc. Karma, numbers going up, yadda yadda is just numbers. And currently you can brute force it by piling characters like I have, but thats not why I do it tho.

    but how would a new creator ever become as "famous" or "big" in terms of karma like Craket or Chyanna? We are a whole year ahead of everyone else who just starts now.

    I know it is easy for me to say all that ive said as im diving into my big pool of karma like scrooge mcduck but in all honesty, I dont think it will matter.. In the end, just having fun with fvne is the important aspect.

    Character/interaction design contests based around a specific prompt or theme might be one type of such event, for example.
    That sounds fun, but might need some brainstorming. "Christmass event!" - suddenly everyone makes a reindeer character.

  • @Craket
    That sounds fun, but might need some brainstorming. "Christmass event!" - suddenly everyone makes a reindeer character.
    Luckily, the sky's the limit when it comes to potential contest ideas, especially once interactions enter the fray.

    You know an old game series by the name of Thief? Some of the best stealth games ever made, still the gold standard by which others are measured. Excluding Thi4f, of course, we don't talk about that misbegotten abomination. Anyhow, the first two games shipped with a robust map editor called DromEd, and the community around those games is still making stuff with it to this day. They hold mission design contest every now and then, and the prompts have ranged from holiday-themed missions, maps built around gimmicks such as verticality and climbing, limiting the creators to only using vanilla assets from the base games (with bonus points for clever, unusual use of them) to even one case where there was no gameplay design at all in favor of wringing as much graphical fidelity out of the old Dark Engine as technically possible to make eye candy maps for players to simply gawk at.

    They have an interesting way to handle the logistics of it, too. The entrants are always anonymous, the names disclosed only once voting is done and the winners declared, so as to keep the process as objective as possible. Of course, being a tight-knit community who know many of the design quirks of their creators, guessing who made what mission before the names are disclosed is very much part of the proceedings, and all in good fun.

    As for what themes would be applicable in our specific corner of the internet, specifically in terms of character design since interactions are still a ways off, I've got a few ideas:

    Something based around clothing could be fun, and can be approached form a variety of angles; maybe give the entrants a specific character template to design an outfit for, or do the opposite and give them an outfit template to design a character for.

    A vague description of a character with plenty of room for creative interpretation might be workable as a starting prompt. Hell, could even be as simple as a single word. You can get a lot of mileage out of that, believe you me.

    Here's a twist; make the entrants design a character they'd never normally even consider. Maybe have each of them come up with a bunch of terms and/or concepts they personally dislike, and randomly pick one to be their specific prompt.

    One idea I've been considering trying out myself is trying to emulate a specific artist's distinctive style for a FurryVNE character. Might also work nicely as a contest prompt, provided the artist in question doesn't mind. A variation on that could also be to design a parody caricature of the artist's style, too.

    Holidays might be a bit boring, especially if they're done annually, but there's ways to make those interesting, too. Taking your Christmas example, simply prohibiting reindeers, Santa/elf outfits and other such obvious holiday clichés would force the entrants to do something a bit more unusual. Julbocken and Sonargöltr, anyone? And, of course, some holidays are more versatile than others. Halloween, for example, has practically infinite permutations of spooky critters and phenomena associated with it to use as a basis for a character. Could even go so far as to theme a Halloween contest around a specific type of monster, with extra points for those taking it in an unusual direction.

    That's about all I can come up with for the moment. Oh, and since there was talk of trench coats, I went ahead and made a rough, box-modeled mesh of one:



    Clocks in at just 1160 triangles total, though that'll probably quadruple once it's done. The clipping shouldn't be an issue once I slap some subdivision and other modifiers on it, but it definitely still needs work. Not too bad for a few hours work, though, if I do say so myself.

  • Keep these things written somewhere for the future. I love these ideas, and might actually be a thing when everything is put in place.

    And I am serious. I believe theres more to fvne that will be possible than you think, and that I hope will happen. And tbh, maybe we can do a character contest of sorts with what we have currently. Just to test the waters on how we can do things ya know. Although it depends on amount of people as well.

    I was maybe thinking deriving a lesser known users lesser known character or something

    Regardless, since you have already a good mind put into the idea, I suggest you save a good pitch for when there is a good time to propose it.
  • @Craket
    I love these ideas, and might actually be a thing when everything is put in place.
    Thank you kindly. I'm very much guilty of being one of the much derided "ideas guys," but I guess I'm lucky to be an exceptionally good ideas guy.

    maybe we can do a character contest of sorts with what we have currently. Just to test the waters on how we can do things ya know.
    Definitely a possibility, though we'd likely have to organize it unofficially amongst ourselves. I get the feeling the devs are a bit busy with things that take higher priority than building a proper cloud backend for holding community contests at the moment.

    I suggest you save a good pitch for when there is a good time to propose it.
    I actually had that "design a character you dislike contest" idea even before the first playable build dropped back in the day, since I figured it'd make a nice counterbalance to people finally getting to design the things they'd been wanting to make. I was planning to propose the idea as a way to get the community more engaged once we had some expanded options for character creation to better facilitate variety, but then Covid hit and I became too busy with IRL bullshit to do much of anything. Still, better late than never, I suppose.
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