#but then i need to add highlights and render the rest of it

[lilliancdoodles]

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[enilehtnorevol]

hiii, I’ve seen some old art of yours and I’ve been wondering how do you draw curly hair? I struggle a lot with it…

hi!! well for starters i'm not sure what else to advise other then going through a lot of photos of people with curly hair studying how curls errrr work and behave and then training your hand coming up with random curly shapes

and then my painting process goes somewhat like this:

1. draw a base shape (it can be more neat/messy depending on your style and process) with some additional slightly lighter more saturated warmer/cooler color

2. add shadows and lights (note: it applies to everything not just hair - the darker the surface is, the less you should rely on shadows and more on light, highlights and reflections)

3. render and add details. it might be tempting but better refrain yourself from defining each curl; face framing pieces, stuck out locks, edges and where you need to show that one part of hair lays differently/goes in a different direction than the others (hope this makes sense) woud be enough

4. now i would probably stop at the third step but before i also used to use some grainy noisy brush to add more fluffiness

theres more then just those four examples of course but i hope they'll help figure out the rest!

[nn-ee-zz]

Your designs are pretty sick🔥

What advice would you give to a beginner in character design?

Thank you! My advice is based on my personal experience and thought process. Theyre not rules.

ADVICE FOR CHARACTER DESIGN;

-Stay honest to yourself: Drawing what you believe is popular might be the path to a lot of likes but not to a uniquely recognizable body of work. Draw what you want to see in the world. Draw the character you wish existed but can't find anywhere, because someone else wishes it too. I love what I design and you should love it as well. It also helps with the disappointment lack of likes might bring

-Concept over technique: Get your idea across. I'm around 60% satisfied with my current art technique but I push those insecurities aside because my desire to show my ideas surpasses it. If you have something to show, show it now. I've been drawing for years and I always feel like I'm not ''good enough'' to design what I want to design, but I have to push through. You will never feel fully ready, so might as well do it now.

-Focus: If you have an idea, focus on it and let the rest of the design highlight it. It makes your designs sharp and recognizable.

-Color: Careful! Don't restrict yourself but know that 2-4 colors are more than enough to make a design work. Sometimes it's the simplicity and contrast of your chosen colors that make it stand out

-Patterns: A little cheat to make your designs pop! If they feel too simple, add a pattern to a textile or a flat surface. Anything that fits the themes of the character. Careful! If you have a very detailed area that you wish to be the focus, try to avoid random patterns.

Here's an example.

Honesty: I'm not worried about how it looks nor who it is nor where the inspiration came from. It looks cool therefore it exists

Concept over technique: Scratchy lines, minimal rendering, rough details. As long as it's readable, it's passable

Focus: The concept was a bunch of heads stacked together to make a cowboy. Plus shoes. Everything else (the hair, the jacket, the face) are made to highlight the concept without stealing the attention from it

Color: Black, brown, yellow. Warm colors for a character in an arid enviroment.

Pattern: A pattern in THIS particular case would steal away from the focus of the stacked heads. No pattern needed here

I hope it helps!

Thanks and have fun in your character design journey!

[judithan-fr]

Tutorial: How I Render Accents

PART 2: COLORS

I usually do not recommend 'pixel hunting' aka going over your work with a fine tooth comb and picking out stray pixels to erase. However, for setting up a proper base layer for accents it is imperative to do so.

To explain my method of color blocking: I select everything outside of the lines, invert that selection, then fill in. This does a more accurate job than going into each and every section and filling them all in individually, and is also significantly faster. Only downside is small sections like above where you can see bits of the green (which I use bright green against a dark grey background to contrast the base color, lines, and background) poking out, as well as the inner section where it filled in a spot I did not want filled in. Getting all of this right in this stage will make your life easier as you go. (It's also the method I use to color block all my work, even beyond accents)

Now this where my style of rendering color may come off intimidating and, tbh it might be. I do gradients first and then I color over them with "normal" blend layers. I typically don't use multiply layers unless I'm shading something that has a lot of textures. If this scares you, it's okay I'll keep walking you through it. Here, my gradient goes from a pastel but deep periwinkle, to a soft more cyan blue, then to a lighter pastel green. Skipping steps and going from the periwinkle to green will give it a different look. There's also hints of a pinkish tone as an accent color.

So as I said, these additional layers are done with regular "normal" blend mode layers. I've placed one in between the butterfly line art and the line art for the rest of the flowers, and then an additional layer under everything else. This allows me to create a glow effect specifically around the butterflies, and then specifically under the flowers. Going back and forth with the proper amount of opacity (by using the airbrush transparently) helps to make it glow but not be Too Loud. Also checking it against a dark background can help to check for spots where it spills past the borders, as well as really gauge how Bright it is. I've also color matched the butterflies with the flower pits and the bulbs. This adds extra cohesion and makes them all look uniform but different enough with the gradients.

The stages of how I render gems/dew drops. Take the base color, make it a bit darker and less saturated (as well as changing the hue a bit depending on what the default color is. For yellows I go more orange/red, for blues I go more purple or even pink. It depends), add a small drop light at the bottom thats a fairly saturated version of the base color, and then a stark white/ near white highlight. That's it. Don't over complicate it, it will not matter when it gets shrunk down. Note that I do not use multiply/overlay/screen layers for these types of things as it adds too much bulk to the files and doing it manually helps to strengthen your color theory skills.

For shading and rendering, again, I create a "normal" layer and simply. Draw over what exists. Color picking and hand blending allow me to create the exact shades and effects that I want that multiply/screen/overlay layers may not be able to achieve. (which isn't to say I dont use them! i just don't use them for the main meat and potato part of my coloring) All of what is shown here is also achieved with the CSP asset SOIPEN (which can be found for free in the asset store)

another example. The one on the right is showing how the layer looks without the gradient base layer under it. All of this is rendered by hand. I also specifically put a highlight color around where the butterfly is sitting to give a better illusion that it is properly sitting on the flowers rather than just in front of them.

Next is changing the color of the lines, if needed. A method i'll use is I color just the sections I want (on a separate clipping layer) then lock that layer's alpha setting to them add in a gradient. It's a small and subtle effect that adds more depth without doing a lot of effort. (work smarter not harder)

Now we get to the Polish Layers!

first image is how it looks as a base. second image is with an overlay layer applied. I've used some dark purples and mid tone desaturated greens to push the values a bit further (especially evident on the top left wing) Third image is with a screen layer applied, highlighting the inner most part of the flowers and adding some additional bounce light.

An important thing to note about making accents vs making full coverage skins: OPACITY AND LAYER TYPES MATTER OVER TRANSPARENT SPOTS. What I mean by this is that if you use a soft, light grey to shade with a multiply layer, don't clip it to anything, and have it go outside the lines - that will no longer appear as a 'shadow' when it comes to the final result. Instead you will have a section of soft light grey that is simply laid on top of whatever the image under it is. The same applies for overlay/screen/add layers and so on. If i use a very dark color on a screen layer (to give a soft highlight) and airbrush it over a bunch of stuff and don't clip it, it will end up with this horrible dark splotch over everything that isn't opaque. To this end, mastering normal layers is imperative to having well rendered and convincing accents.

Another thing of note: when it comes to sparkles/small details, note how 'large' the sparkles behind the butterflies are. They seem a bit chunky, yeah?

this is what they look like at proper size. If anything, I could have gone larger on the small metal beads connecting the dew drop jewels to the lace.

Another trick I also like to do is this:

a slight hint of transparency! It's just enough to let the dragon's lines underneath show through but not enough to be super noticable. I like to do this a lot when it comes to sparkly and magical effects.

Next is the worst part of all: destroying all that beautiful hard work with the shadow and line art layers! (sobbing)

This stage always agonizes me. This is my first pass of the shadow/line layers and let's hope it's dark enough.

But yeah that's a start to finish look at how I create my accents. Unfortunately a lot it devolves into needing to know, yknow, line weight and silhouette importance, color theory and the ways that drawing applications actually apply color to a png vs how its rendered in app. All of these things impact the finesse of the accent, and are things you do have to learn gradually over time, but hopefully this has given yall some additional insight and perhaps some helpful tips.

And this should also explain why I get so mad when people go 'hey can I get this accent in another color' no! no you literally can't!

[hinamie]

do u have any tips for uhh idk art term....highlight and contour but for art? specifically w digital art? w pencil and paper it feels super intuitive but then when i switch to digital it looks all flat.............

(is it shading? idk what im doing tbsh)

(also hope ur doing well i feel like im crawling into ur asks every two days or smth looking for art tips sorry T_T)

(yuuji comic made me cry so hard btw)

hi rin!!!!!!! that wld be shading/rendering yes hgbhgfjs there’s no One specific term tho so ur all good <3 also omg re: the yuuji comic IM SORRY I KEEP MAKING U CRY GHJKGJDSGHKJ its ok i made a lot of people cry if the death wishes/pos in the tags are anything 2 go by so ur in good company :D i teared up also

i would Also like to apologize in advance because fr me this is one of those Art Things that becomes more intuitive the more u do it so i am a bit. lost as 2 how to explain but i will sukuna voice ganbare ganbare !!!!

it’s all about light sources babes so pick a direction where the light is hitting from and use that as your main point of reference. If u need to remind yourself where the light is coming from i was taught to draw a lil arrow or sun somewhere on your canvas 2 keep track . areas closest to the light or planes that are more Elevated will be brighter than areas farther away or Deeper. When u think of a face, the forehead and cheeks rest Higher than fr example, the eye sockets, so those areas will catch more light and appear brighter. it /is/ kind of like makeup in that way. 

also, shadows/highlights can have soft or hard edges depending on how . uh . intense, i guess?? the angle of the light is. like with a box vs a sphere, the former will have a lot more Cut and Defined areas of darkness because the plane where light hits is cut off more directly by the presence of a corner, whereas with a sphere the Slope means that the values follow more of a gradient. 

tbh tho if you’re still starting out, to practice light sources and shading it actually might be good to scribble and shade some 3D shapes and spheres/boxes or maybe even draw from life so u can really take time 2 pay attn to how light catches different surfaces . it’s boring work but the practice is never wasted !! lighting can be tricky so try and take the time 2 form Good habits :'> references r ur friends here now more than ever.

other than that, which i feel more or less covers the basics n fundamentals, my wisdoms 2 u and any1 else who will have it: INVEST TIME IN2 FINDING GOOD BRUSHES omg i feel like a lot of that New Artist Look (tm) comes from using default brushes —which on its own is fine, but the kicker is not taking time to get comfortable with how to make the best use of them. the fun of the render is getting to play with textures and colours so find some brush settings that help add a bit of personality!! also . resist defaulting 2 the airbrush tool to shade it Rarely cooperates and can muddy a piece. uhhhh what else what else try not to shade with black for the same reasons ???? i'm scraping the bottom of the barrel here but i hope something here was of any value :'>>

[clowndotgay]

I'm figuring out blender using your models! It's been a super fun experience. This is the first render that I've made using a full body + head!

Some problems I'm facing so far are:

I don't know how to color his hands.

I can't get his neck piece to stay with the rest of his head!

Replacing the texture of the suit is HARD.

If you could help me out with those things (and also help me out with any other problems you see with this render) that would be greatly appreciated! Feel free to not do that, though.

oh, this rocks! really long post below!

as for question 1: enter the "shading" tab at the top of blender,

and click on the hands. at the bottom of your screen will be this whole jumble of nodes. click on the "Attribute" one to highlight it, and then delete it.

After you've deleted it, you need to click on the gray next to the letter "A". Click on "Hex" in the menu that pops up, and put in the hex code of the colour of the hands you want. For Flint, that'll be (around) F14E18.

Yay! your hands have colours now!!!

as for question 2:

so, when you append a cog head model to the body model file, it'll kind of just be sitting there. what you need to do to attach this head to the body is to first enter Pose Mode while you have the head's armature (bunch'a bones) selected. then, select their bottommost bone (typically named "root"). for Flint, it's this one right here.

once you've selected the root, click on the blue bone with the thingie around it in the Properties menu in the bottom right.

Click Add Bone Constraint, then click "Child Of" (rectangled in red below)

this constraint is going to make this bone follow the bone of another armature. for this, we want the armature it follows to be the body, so click on the empty field labelled "target" and type "suitA" into the box (or suitB, suitC, etc. dependent on the body). then, click on the empty field labelled "bone" and type in "head" (NOT joint_head!! just head!!). this will make the whole head snap to the neck!

your constraint will look like this:

and flint will look like this:

and... the little thingie around his neck didn't snap up! this is an issue that happens with flint's head, and to my recollection, only flint's head. not to worry, we can fix this by putting the exact same constraint but in the "Constraints" tab of the armature this time.

okay, that fixes him.

as for question 3:

go into the "UV Editing" tab of blender, navigate to the suit texture on the left, click "Image" and then click "Unpack".

it'll prompt you again after you click unpack, just click "Remove Pack". after you do that, click "Image" again, but this time click "Replace". this will open up a file choosing menu. navigate to wherever you stored the blender ports, and there should be a folder of suit textures. open that and double click on firestarters suit texture.

and... there we go! firestarter! in the.. metal!

as for anything else:

the only thing i notice about this render is that some things could be hidden, like the bowtie, other size of tie, and the health insignia. in the top right of blender, there's a listing of everything in the scene. everything has a little eye icon and a camera icon to the right of it. if you click the eye icon you won't be able to see it anymore in the viewport, and if you click the camera you won't see it in the render.

knowing this, you can just make some stuff (like the white health insignia and the bowtie) go away by doing this!

also. if you want to have the health insignia become a certain colour like it does in game, all you need to do is the same thing you did to the hands. go to shader tab, click on the health insignia (and the glow), remove Attribute, add colour, bam!

one last thing that may help if you are unaware: you can make a render transparent by just clicking this in the "Render" tab of "Properties". navigating menus is for nerds, though, so you can just type "transparent" into the search bar and it'll show you where you can see that. turn "Filter Size" down to 0.00 px if you want no antialiasing, also.

closing notes (because i like having excessively long posts)

sorry for making this an excessively long post! i hope that it helps you in some fashion! i worry about putting too many images in 1 post sometimes but i hope that they help! also i am glad you are having fun with blender :o) playing with ttcc models like they are dolls is how i learned literally anything that i know about blender! so it makes me happy seeing other people learn blender for ttcc stuff.

send another ask my way if you have any other questions or i didn't make something clear! i find model stuff to be fun to talk about, and i spent enough time fumbling through trial and error that i'd much rather tell help someone do something rather than have them do the same trial and error

[forcedhesitation]

HUX BUFFS. I REPEAT HUX BUFFS. PARTIALLY BASE KIT SOMA FAMILY PHOTO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Info from @/dvveet on twitter!!

First, here is the OG post.

THE SINGULARITY has received HUGE changes, here’s a quick rundown -

• [NEW] Biopods automatically aim at nearest Survivor upon taking control of one.

• [NEW] After 0.25 seconds, targeting progress now decays over the next 0.5 seconds.

• [NEW] Added ability to destroy currently controlled Biopod.

• [NEW] Receive Killer Instinct when a Survivor becomes Slipstreamed.

• [NEW] Gain 3% Haste in Overclock mode.

• [NEW] Added aim assist effect when shooting a Slipstreamed Survivor.

• [NEW] Passive EMP printing is capped at 97%, with the rest needing to be done manually by a Survivor. They will be highlighted in Yellow when capped.

• [NEW] Disabled Biopods briefly pulse before reactivating. Alongside this heap of new additions, there are a lot of other changes.

BIOPODS -

• Survivors only glow if they can be targeted.

• Decreased targeting cooldown after Slipstreaming a Survivor to 3 seconds (from 3.5 seconds)

• Hear audio from a Biopod by default.

• Last controlled Biopod has Aura revealed for 10 seconds (from 5 seconds)

• Reduced time to switch back to The Singularity to 0.5 seconds (from 1 second), but increased it when near a Hooked Survivor to 1.5 seconds (from 5 seconds)

• Better aim assist when setting Biopods.

• Improved UI

OVERCLOCK -

• Increased base duration to 5.7 seconds (from 4.7 seconds)

• Stuns caused by Perks now cause Overheat.

• [REMOVED] Overclock’s scale with number of Slipstreamed Survivors.

EMPs -

• Decreased Aura range of Supply Cases to 28m (from 32m)

• Decreased range of EMPs to 8m (from 10m)

• Decrease immunity to Slipstream after using an EMP to 0.35 seconds (from 2 seconds)

ADD-ONS -

• Pass through of add-ons

...................................................................................................................

Pretty much all of these changes sound amazing. I doubt that they are going to dramatically increase the number of people playing the singularity, because he is still a complicated and demanding killer to play, and why bother when vecna is right there, unnerfed.... but for us dedicated players, this is going to make hux's gameplay feel a lot better. and who knows! maybe some more people will pick him up and find they like him!

this is honestly SOOO, SOOO much better than I expected, though. I would have genuinely been content with the 3% haste bonus for overclock mode, but we also get all these great new features to streamline the use of his biopods! which is. wow. I'm so happy. there is the possibility that there's something here that may cause problems that is just Not Clicking in my brain, which will inevitably lead to a nerf of some kind, but it all seems fairly solid and fair to me on paper. unless "pass through" means they aren't touching his addons, because if so, that might cause problems, since the soma family photo would award an extra 5% haste bonus. they should at the least nerf that addon to 3% as well, maxing his haste bonus out at a nice, even, sexy 6.

naturally, the misery-rotted crybabies of twitter are already complaining that this will render hux "too OP," especially "in the right hands," as if he isn't already a force to be reckoned with in the right hands. ANY killer is powerful in the right hands. the right hands are usually people who've played hundreds upon hundreds of matches as that killer. and it's not like any of these (likely low mmr) people are going to see him every match anyway. he's not vecna, wesker, or huntress, lmao. these changes are not going to magically make him super easy to play. biopod placement still matters, replacing biopods still matters, efficient chase still matters, tracking survivors' every movement still matters, using overclock efficiently still matters. learning to deal with coordinated swfs will still be very, very hard for people just starting out with him, because his counterplay is incredibly simple.

[theonevoice]

Mini painting process breakdown

I'm really bad at explaining my mostly-winged-it process, but since a couple of people asked here's a mini-breakdown of what I have been doing on my journey to this pseudo-painterly style:

Disclaimer: I have no formal art training of any kind, I'm guessing my way through this artsy season of my life that just restarted last October; this is merely a general description of what I am doing these days, not a tutorial or a guide to tell anyone what they should do. Anyone has a different process and I am a strong believer in doing whatever works for you, no matter what "The Rules" or other people say.

0. Before I even start drawing, I collect a bazillion reference pictures for every single thing that I plan to represent, from Michael Sheen's face to gold embroidery texture on 1800s extant garments;

1. (undocumented because when I said that I'm bad at this I meant it and sure enough I forgot to grab a screenshot of this step) I establish the general background color and draw a very loose sketch of the character;

2. I switch to a basic hard round brush and free-hand some color blobs to establish the position, general shape and values of the character, using the colors that are already in the background to make sure that the charater "belongs" in that space (tip: if I need to introduce new colors I pick a shade that seems close to what I want, put it on a separate layer, and then lower the opacity of that layer until the background color bleeds through and harmonizes the new shade);

3. I divide the character into smaller bits (face, hand, jacket, sash...) and apply clipping masks to bring the color blobs into reasonable shapes, in this case a left hand (I found that I can fine-tune the shapes at any moment by playing with highlights and deep shadows on the edges);

4. I then switch to an equally basic airbrush for the main rendering, using the color picker tool to blend midtones and highlights/shadows until my shape starts looking 3Dish (this part can be quick or take forever depending on a variety of factors that I honestly cannot explain);

5. I bring down the airbrush size to add finer details that can sell the illusion (here still in progress);

6. (eventually) I add a ton of adjustment layers to make sure that the completed part is consistent with the rest of the image (tip: if there are more bits of the same "family", e.g. skintones, I use the color picker tool to grab the midtones that already exist instead of mixing them ex novo).

That's it, I believe, unless I am forgetting something. Feel free to ask if there is something more specific that you'd like to know!

[themetalvirus]

ok, allow me a rant about the line between sonic's eyes for a second

if you don't see what i'm talking about, i have highlighted the line in red:

this isn't just there for no reason, it serves a purpose. it is the junction of sonic's eyebrows, which is important to establish here. it's the little crease to show separation of the eyebrows and intensify his expression. it's present in most official 3d models and renders of modern game sonic, which i believe has overexaggerated its importance in the eyes of some artists.

it can be very easily be stylized out while still keeping sonic recognizable and still looking like he has two distinct eyes! the brow crease is not important for sonic's recognizability or anatomy.

the Triangle of Delineation is what actually makes his eyes into two seperate entities! that's the most important part, and it's present in pretty much all interpretations of his design that keep the monoeye. they still need some degree of separation to read like eyes. it's the Triangle that helps separate the eyes from each other!

(otherwise his eyes just look like a visor. don't be like ron lim, kids)

the eyebrow crease can most be easily seen as an eyebrow crease appearing and disappearing as he scrunches his muscles in the movie design! once again, the crease is not essential for modern sonic to be readable as modern sonic.

so why, why, why, why, why god why do i see people draw him like THIS???

this does not read. it looks like he has four eyebrows. it looks like he has two expressions on at once. the crease stays on his 3d model when his eyes open wide because his eyebrows can't move independently of his eyes in most rigs and the brow crease is dug right into the model itself. it is a technical limitation and stylistic choice. double eyebrows like this, however, do NOT occur in official art.

in several artists' interpretations of him, the eyebrow crease stays even if he is making varied / wide eyed expressions, and there is only one continuous shape for each eyebrow; no additional putty tubes put on top. i've also noticed that artists who commit to The Crease are more likely to reign in sonic's worried expressions so they don't have to lift his brows too far up and away.

with artists like evan stanley, who like to utilize movement of the brows for expression, the crease can disappear. if he is making a worried expression, the Triangle of Delineation stays, but the crease tends to move upward with the rest of his expression; if it stays, his brows are one continuous shape until the junction of his eyes. (i'm aware there's also some yardley in here)

now let's add the Crease to a few of these and see what it does to the expressions:

yikes..... see what that does to the readability and shapes?

so, in conclusion: keep in mind that the junction of his eyes has a stylistic purpose, and sometimes that stylistic purpose can be detrimental to whatever you're trying to get across on sonic's (or any other monoeyed character's) face! if you're creasing his eyebrows, make sure the brows are each one continuous putty-snake shape, and don't muddy up what you're trying to communicate by adding more eyebrow shapes. this has been a PSA

[sketchyartthings]

Your art is gorgeous!! Do you have any tips on good ways to learn how to render?

Tysm! I try really hard, so it always makes me happy to hear someone enjoys it :D. If you want to learn how to render, the way I started was by getting a good idea of the forms of what I’m drawing, making attempts at rendering it, and iterating on them until success. I get that it's not exactly new advice though.

(Most of the rest is pretty specific to my methods.)

Usually I find that turning up the saturation when you’re done helps(more saturated colors than you probably feel like). Also hue changes with brightness, shadows are typically cooler, and highlights are shifted towards the hue of the light source. If you want to be kinda painterly like what I try for, I’ve found that I need to be a little less neat than I want to be and add more details later. I use dark base colors, carve out highlights, and blend colors. I use dark backgrounds and some glow to hide my mistakes too, it just makes things look better.

Learning to render is a long process, so practice makes perfect and whatnot. (please take everything I say with a grain of salt; I'm new to this too, and youtube is where I got all of what I know when it comes to art. Most of what I know can be learned with internet searches and practice.) Good luck on your journey!

[unholyplumpprincess]

Stress Relief

For someone on Twitter who requested a lil Voidstrike :D and who am I if not indulgent in them

Summary: Wraith has been working herself too hard trying to find the answers of her life she knows so little of. Anita is tired of seeing her work herself to the point of tears and anxiety and decides to help her favorite girl out.Or! In which Anita takes it into her own hands to absolutely render Wraith's mind into mush so she stops thinking so much.

Ao3 link: Here

Reblogs > Likes. Remember to Reblog if you hit Like to support future content like this and keep me writing :D Comments and tags will be read and u shall be SMOOCHED!!!

Fandom: Apex Legends

Relationship: Bangalore x Wraith - Voidstrike

Warnings:R18+/NSFT, Wraith has piercings/body mods, Anita is a service top as she deserves, Otherwise p tame for smth horny!

Words: 1.4k

______

“None of it is clear! Not even the birthdays add up- o-or even the names! What if I’m not right on this? What if- what if I’m tracing the wrong person? And it’s me- but not me? What if I-I just can’t-”   

“Settle down, kitty. You’ve been at this for three hours, you’re gonna get yourself overwhelmed. Take a break, you’ve been workin’ too hard, beautiful.”   

Anita’s voice is a soothing break in the confines of Wraith’s loud mind. Everyone is too loud, theories running around, too many names being shouted- what was right, what was wrong. What could be false information, what could be right.  

Frustratedly, Wraith stares at the documents in front of her.  

~Rest under the cut~

The documents are scattered on the table, messy scribbles on a journal and one already closed beside her- full of notes on the pages, front and back. Wraith has been gnawing on her bottom lip, pinching the plump flesh between her teeth and surely close to drawing blood from how flushed it is.  

It- it should be right here. It’s staring her in the face, she just knows it. If she could just get everybody to settle down and stop talking all at once-   

“Hey,” Anita’s voice once again cuts through her inner mantra. Her tone is full of command, solid with no room for argument. It makes Wraith’s eyes snap up, milky white starting to drown into icy blue as the voices begin to settle down. “Don’t think I asked you if you wanted to take a break. I said take a break. C’mere.”   

Anita’s tone is final. Her look even more so, peering over her arm that’s thrown over the couch where she’s sat. Her other hand has a bottle in it, sipping on her taste of drink and providing Wraith company for the day. 

Anita had her own share of documents in front of her, highlights and little red notes scribbled with questions or comparisons. Her own table is pristine, carefully laid out thoughts in comparison to Wraith's mess on the table.  

Helping, Wraith reminds herself. She wasn’t alone.   

Her breath is shaky, over stimulation clouding her better judgement. But...Anita was right- not that Wraith would admit that out loud and fuel her ego.   

With finality, she moves from the kitchen table and slowly crosses the threshold into the living room. Her footsteps are soft, watching Anita watch her with a small furrow to her brow as she looks Wraith down then up to catch her gaze. 

There are no words exchanged as Anita sets down her drink, opening her arms and shifting her open legs to be a bit more closed. Wraith doesn’t need to speak either, slowly climbing into her girlfriend’s lap and settling her arms around Anita’s shoulders. Just as Anita’s arms encircle around her waist, one hand on the back of her head and encouraging Wraith to bury into her neck with another on her lower back.  

Fingers gently dip beneath Wraith’s hoodie to brush warm fingers against icy cold skin. It makes Wraith sigh as her body eases its tensions all at once, inhaling Anita's spicy scent and taking note of the cologne on her. The same breath exhales from her just as easy, easing her muscles. 

Anita hums against her gently, resting her cheek on Wraith's head as her hands slide under her girlfriend's hoodie. Her fingers trace over Wraith's back, sliding up then down nice and easy until Wraith's breath has calmed.  

Everything is quiet save for Anita's breathing and the slow steady sound of her heart. Wraith appreciates the comfort, quietly showing it by pressing soft kisses to Anita's neck.  

"Mmh, watch it, baby. You know I'm sensitive." Anita sighs out, gently trying to readjust Wraith and clearly expecting her to do the same. But when Wraith hums softly, nipping at her neck, she knows she has Anita right where she wants her when Anita moans.  

"I know." Wraith murmurs matter-of-factly, adjusting her stance in Anita's lap to make it more pointed how her thighs splay on either side of hers.  

"Could distract you," Anita relents with her tone playful as if she's pondering it. Even as her hands slide down into the loose lounge pants on Wraith's waist, sliding down to get a handful of her plentiful ass. Anita pulls Wraith against her in a harsh grind, causing the smaller of the two to gasp. "Could take care of you. You've been workin' too hard as is.  

Wraith sighs shakily, feeling how Anita's hand slides further down, brushing fingertips under Wraith to slip under her panties. Normally Wraith liked playing cat and mouse, toying and teasing until Anita was at her limit. But she can’t today.  

Wraith’s whisper is gentle, hardly above a breath as it breathes from her. A simply, tiny, "Please-"  

"For you, baby? I'd do anything."  

--  

Wraith finds herself sobbing on her back before she can even blink. Now in her bedroom, lying on her back with her fingers fisted into the sheets- not knowing whether to settle there or Anita’s curls. Her back is arched, lips parted and hair a mess around her as Anita lies between her legs with messy, wet sounds coming from her. Licking, suckling, moaning into Wraith's pussy with her arms hooked under her thighs.  

Anita has pushed Wraith into a half-folded style, baring her pussy to its fullest so she can torture her clit. Sometimes dipping her tongue inside of her just to moan and making Wraith cry out with a squirm. 

Wraith has cum at least three times already, sweat building on her forehead and making the rest of her skin shiny with a heavenly glow. All of her clothing save for her hoodie has been tossed off, her hoodie tugged up above her heavy, pierced breasts. Something that Anita pays attention to by sliding her hands up to give them a squeeze when her lips focus on suckling Wraith's clit.  

"G-God, 'Nita-" Wraith sobs out, her body trembling as her back arches. She can feel the rubber band in her lower abdomen threatening to snap again, making her strain with an arch of her back. Her voice trembles in a cry, slamming her hands down to the bed to curl her fingers tight into the sheets. 

Anita doesn't even acknowledge her save for a low hum of approval. One of her hands squeezing her breast moving so she can slide her calloused thumb over Wraith's pierced nipple, gingerly pinching and tugging it. Just as her other hand splays across Wraith's lower abdomen, applying light pressure to keep her pinned down. 

It's enough. Forcing another orgasm from Wraith's trembling form. Her moan is loud, one of her hands coming up to grab her own hair to steady herself as sobs wrack her frame. Her breathing is heavy, hard, everything in her mind being reduced to nothing but mush. 

Anita doesn't even stop. Her tongue only pauses for a moment, splayed out underneath Wraith's throbbing clit to feel how the engorged little thing presses to her tongue. Her eyes are near pitch black as she looks up at Wraith, taking in every inch of her greedily. 

When Wraith finally catches her breath, Anita's hands slide down her form. Two fingers sliding through her slick to gather lubrication before slipping them into Wraith who quickly whimpers, her head falling back weakly. 

"Come on, d-don't you think this is a little exces-- ah!" Wraith is cut off once more by Anita curling her fingers just right inside of her. Followed by her blowing air lightly over Wraith's flushed clit to make her jump and squeeze down on her fingers. 

"Excessive, huh?" Anita practically purrs out, her voice thick and hoarse from her own arousal. Pleased by pleasing Wraith. "What's excessive is how much you think. Relax. Let me handle tonight, okay?" 

Wraith's breath shudders when Anita moves, bending Wraith in half as she pulls herself up to her knees. Keeping one arm braced on the back of her knees to begin thrusting her fingers into Wraith as if she was fucking her. Punctuated by how Anita leans in, her lips brushing over Wraith's parted ones that gasp against her helplessly. 

"Like I always tell you. I got you." It's whispered in a gravel tone against Wraith's lips before she captures them to swallow Wraith's cries. 

Wraith would hand it to Anita later. She sure did know how to keep a girl's head clear.

[holyjak]

A discussion of the newly released Electric Clojure by Hyperfiddle. What is Electric? "Electric Clojure, a reactive Clojure/Script dialect for web UI with compiler-managed client/server data sync." What does that mean? You write a single piece of code, e.g. a UI component function, and hint which parts need to run on the server vs. the client. "The Electric compiler performs deep graph analysis of your unified frontend/backend program to automatically determine the optimal network cut, and then compile it into separate client and server target programs that cooperate and anticipate each other's needs." Thus you program as if there was no hard client-server divide (no 2 separate files with REST calls in between) and Electric handles splitting it up and managing the communication between them on your behalf. It is groundbreaking and fascinating, with potential to significantly simplify web apps. Go read more about it.

Highlights from the discussion (many comments by the founder):

[..] we're seeing 10x LOC reduction (18k to 2k) in rebuilding Electric's sister project, Hyperfiddle (a spreadsheet like tool for robust UI development), as well as massive gains in performance.

NOTE: Til now focus was on correct program semantics, now started work on DX etc.

Our DOM module is only 300 LOC - it's bare metal DOM point writes + Electric (reactive language) + macros for JSX-y syntax. When the programming language itself is reactive, DOM rendering falls out for free.

Mechanically, Electric is comparable to Solid.js except the reactive engine (missionary) is general purpose, not coupled to DOM rendering, which is a special case of incremental view maintenance.

[..] over-abstracting is a primary risk and has been top of mind for us since project conception in ~2012. [..] Electric is an attempt to find exactly the right level of abstraction. The goal is to remove and flatten layers, not add them, thus decreasing abstraction weight in the end if we succeed. Maybe we fail, but first let me share some details about how we think about this:

I've personally failed to build this project several times, Electric Clojure is something like the 7th attempt.

strong composition model as a starting point, based on category theory generalization of "function" -> "async function" -> "reactive function" -> "stream function" -> "distributed function". [..] (This rigor is in response to the past failures.)

Functional effect system (monad stuff) at the bottom, which provides strong semantics guarantees about glitch-free reactive propagation, process supervision (like Erlang) (transparent propagation of cancellation and failure), strong resource cleanup guarantees (DOM nodes can never be left hanging, event handlers can never fail to be detached and disposed). Already this results in tighter operational semantics than we have ever achieved with manual resource management (and, again, we tried, see past failures).

Electric affords the programmer trapdoors to the underlying FRP/concurrency primitives. Electric is essentially a Clojure-to-FRP compiler, so if you code raw concurrency and effect management, that actually typechecks with what Electric generates, allowing seamless transition in and out of the abstraction.

3k LOC + 3k test LOC is the size of Electric today (includes a rewrite of the Clojure analyzer). Spring Framework is, let me go check, 59k just for spring-core/src/main/java, and there are like 20 other modules I excluded. Indeed it is not a fair comparison but certainly we have complexity budget to spare.

About Missionary: "Missionary is a reactive dataflow programming toolkit providing referentially transparent operators for lazy continuous signals, eager discrete streams, and IO actions. Missionary aims to improve over state-of-the-art reactive systems, it can be used as a general-purpose asynchronous programming toolkit but also as a basis for event streaming and incremental computations." Electric uses it for functional effects and as its reactive engine.

[bakersstreetirregulars]

Legend of The Duskgloom Sea: The Black Pearl Islands

⛴ Welcome aboard the Silent. I assume this small one is yours?

⚙️ HEY! I’M NOT SMALL!

⛴ That would be a yes. Since it’s clear that you’re also headed for the Black Pearl Islands, allow me as one of Captain Caviar’s First Mates to show you the ropes of this vessel. In order to shove off, the crew needs their rations. 15 Stamina Jellies from your inventory should do. Once we supply the food onboard, we’ll be ready to set sail.

Navigation

⛴ Navigating the Duskgloom Sea ain’t an easy task-

⚙️ -but the user interface is SUPER friendly. Just double-click on a highlighted square with those yellow arrows to move forward! The crew will do the rest.

⛴ As you move, the Silent has a limited durability before we need to return back to port. Moving through open seas will inflict 100 HP of damage, but moving through a whirlpool will inflict 200 damage. We can’t navigate through the rocky reefs, lest we beach the ship entirely. Encountering other sailors lost at sea can provide a bonus for you, although some are best left as they are when they’re too far of a detour.

If you wanna repair the ship, we’ll usually need to find supplies using 4,500 Black Pearl Coins which you’ll find throughout these islands to patch a few leaks and restore 1,200 HP on the Silent, but who knows? Maybe you’ll find someone that’ll do it for free. Once your durability goes too low and you try to sail your way out, and we’ll need to turn back and that’s the end of your voyage. If you wanna head back sooner, click that “Drop Anchor” button on the lower-left and we’ll head back to count our cargo.

Battles

⛴ So, you claim to be a champion in battle? We’ll test that claim and then some. Hostile forces like those from dry land will line some of these islands in a simple two wave encounter. Best them all, and you win the battle with a bit of extra loot. If you lose too many times or attempt to retreat, those forces, real or not, will put a sizable hole in the ship for *500 damage.

*If you are facing the final boss at the end of the archipelago instead, admitting defeat will destroy the Silent instantly and end your voyage right then and there.

These battle scenarios come in Normal and Master flavors, but don’t provide a power level for either one. Obviously, the Master level is much harder and requires tact with a generous amount of luck, but the Black Pearl Coins and Sailing EXP you get are somewhere higher towards being doubled. There are some… conditions to mention first.

💔 Healing Down -60%

💥 Shield Durability Down -60%

🛡 Enemy Debuff Resistance +40%

⏫ Minimum Cookie and Skill Levels set to 60

❌ Bonuses from Toppings, Bonds, Costume Sets, Guild Levels, Relics, and the Sugar Gnome Laboratory WILL NOT WORK

⛴ Anyone who’s braved the fabled Giant Icing Ridge in the Dark Cacao Kingdom can survive this just as well, and we will run extra training drills for every Cookie aboard to ensure their preparedness for the battle ahead on the high seas. Unfortunately, the curse of the Duskgloom Sea renders your bonds from dry land all for naught, and the stormy seas will render your Gnomish Technology, Toppings, and even your Relics too soggy to work their magic.

To gain additional buffs here to fill the difference, you’ll need to find an Altar where you can unlock a bonus effect for your team. Higher-level effects require Black Pearl Coins to unlock, and you can swap the entire list for 750 Black Pearl Coins up to 3 times per shrine. You can only buy one buff per shrine, and these effects will vanish alongside your Black Pearl Coins after your voyage ends.

Finishing your voyage while you still have Black Pearl Coins will add them to your score alongside any additional applicable bonuses. Higher scores will place you in a higher rank which yields better rewards at the end of the season.

Hidden behind the red haze, however, are massive foes on the lone islands that align the rocky gates of the Black Pearl Islands: Boss Islands. Unlike regular islands, the bosses that inhabit these islands will actively block your path and won’t let you go around. There’s only one way to go: fight and best the boss to advance. Every other combat condition applies, but do mind that they are all immune to stun and other similar forceful movement and immobilizing effects, and that they might have an additional augment to them.

Minigames

⛴ We’ve all seen ‘em. Those little games in the much bigger games, like that one game where a battleship tries to shell some folks off a teeterin’ island surrounded by squids while they fight to be the last one standing. There are two such minigames you’ll encounter: Creepy Treasure Island and Shocking Stormy Sea. The better you do in these games, the bigger the haul of Black Pearl Coins you’ll win on top of your base loot. If you lose too much or pull back, you’ll snag something that’ll deal 500 damage to the Silent instead. The Cookie you choose won’t affect anything in the game.

In Creepy Treasure Island, you’ll go back to Cookie Run’s roots with a slightly top-down platformer level. No abilities. Just Coins. Use the Jump and Slide buttons to kebab and weave through the reefs and shells while collecting both regular Coins and Black Pearl Coins. You also have an Energy bar which drains passively as you run. Collide with something, and you’ll lose a bit of Energy, but you can restore some with occasionally-appearing Energy Potions. If you run out of Energy before finishing, or finish with less than the required Black Pearl Coins, you lose. Make it to the end of the level with enough Black Pearl Coins, and you win the game with whatever you got plus a base bonus.

In Shocking Stormy Sea, you’ll be running around on the Silent’s deck collecting Black Pearl Coins and dodging lightning. Use the virtual joystick on the left to move around, and the Dash button on the right to dash forward through any coins and out of the way of any lightning strikes… if done correctly. Get caught in the highlighted circular impact zones, and you’ll take lightning damage aside from the passive Energy drainage. If you run out of Energy, you lose. Outlast the timer, and you win the game and your Coins.

Mysterious Chests

⛴ Rumors also tell of mysterious chests like this one on isolated islands. You can tell where they are from anywhere on the map from the golden auras they give off when entrenched with the archipelago’s thick fog. They come laden with high-end treasures that you could use back in your own Cookie Kingdom… as long as you have a Duskgloom Key to open it.

There’s a few places to find ‘em, like events and stuff and the Gallery found in your Trade Harbor. Those are free for anyone. For the time being, however, unscrupulous merchants can and will sell you a few with a whole lotta other stuff in a bundle if you’re willing to fork over some of your own real money.

⚙️ That’s gonna be all for this event because this ship’s horizontal slanting traverse is making me feel waaaaaaaaay off-balance. HEY! YOU’RE DOING THAT ON PURPOSE AREN’T YOU-

[fedor-bortnik-fmp]

Stalker. Progress. Part 1.

After being done with the weapon, I decided it is time to start working on the final asset - the stalker

Before starting, I checked again on what kind of main references that I used for the Stalker. I really liked those renders, since they carried clothes and items that I originally wanted on the character: With rugged apparel and dirty gear.

I like the reference, however, there are things that I would avoid from this reference from my production:

I won't be doing long-hanging clothes, as that would force me to use physics in Unreal Engine. While it is easy to set them up (thanks to Royal Skies (2024) tutorial). Applying the physics could easily backfire on me later on by having some problems or attention, that I can't just deal with (what if something starts clipping through the physics, or it would bug out during the animation sequence). So I decided not to risk it.

While I will follow the original design as possible, I decided to make some minimal changes to the design: I will change the mask from the current design into something more industrial, and crude - as if the Stalker has found that mask and decided to use it. I thought about designing the mask just like the 3M 7500 respirators, since they are compact and simple, and would look great on the character's face, highlighting the eyes. I also won't make a face cover, since originally I wanted the character only to wear the mask itself, without any upper head cover.

Finally, I will be creating the character in a priority order, meaning I will do the essential clothes first, and If I have time to add extra content to him (like pouches, or some metallic objects on his belt), I will.

While checking with my schedule, I decided that I would be avoiding long fabrics in order to avoid relying on physics engines, since I was already tight with the project in terms of schedule, and did not have time to learn new features. To create the bottom part of the character - I decided to make a short skirt, some jeans and classic running shoes since I feel like this is an ideal apparel for such a character.

I was suggested to use a MetaHuman rig in order to create realistic faces and meshes, and I decided to give it a go since I believed I had enough space in time even if something would have went wrong. I launched the metahuman, selected some faces and began the designing of the human character.

It's really interesting to use MetaHuman in order to build faces: you can select multiple faces with different origins and mix the meshes together in order to get what you need. I find it quite an interesting tool since it can help artists to get a hyper-realistic face of many kinds by just selecting some models that have the exact features you want: It is a wonderful tool in cases where you need a starter mesh for many purposes, trying to make a realistic project, or need some references in terms of sculpting.

Upon creating the mesh, I decided to give the MetaHuman a try - I figured that I could have exported the simple mesh of the MetaHuman in order to build clothes around the body, and in order to do proper rigging - just build the rig as usual, with the exception of avoiding the head. While sounds a bit risky - in reality, it should not be a problem, since in theory, we can see only his head and the beginning of the neck - meaning the rest of the head would be hidden with a craft, which will implement all the needed animations.

Upon exporting the model, I noticed that it was harder than expected to export his textures and materials - there was no FBX file that contained all the mesh information, only pieces of various body parts and some texture pieces - since Unreal Engine used composed materials of various filters and alphas, in order to create the shading.

I decided to not think too hard about it for now - since I needed only meshes themselves for now, and in the end, I could just import the mesh into Unreal Engine, apply the head mesh onto the stalker body, and not worry too much about it.

Also, during the breaks - I create a forum thread in PolyCount in order to get some feedback on the work. I know that in order to get some feedback I would need to actively engage with posting my work, and I will try. Since I don't have any final posters and renders - I just posted whatever I had at the moment and images from previous presentation slides. I will change that once I get some nice renders.

References:

Royal Skies (2024). Unreal5 Applying Cloth Physics (In 2 Minutes!!). [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMUD297S6zk [Accessed 20 Jul 2024].

Safety Supplies | PPE, Workwear & Safety Equipment. (n.d.). 3M 7500 Half Mask Respirator & 6035 Particulate Filters | Safety Supplies. [online] Available at: https://www.safetysupplies.co.uk/product/respiratory-protection/half-masks/3m-7500-series-reusable-half-mask-respirator-6035-particulate-filter-kit/.

DreamStudio (2024) Image of a stalker in white and yellow colour robes with a gas mask. [Digital Art].

DreamStudio (2024) Image of a stalker in white and yellow colour robes, standing. [Digital Art].

MetaHuman (2024). MetaHuman Creator. [online] Available at: https://metahuman.unrealengine.com/.

D3lta_Fe. (2024). Fedor Bortnik Final Major Project - project EUROPA. [online] Available at: https://polycount.com/discussion/235751/fedor-bortnik-final-major-project-project-europa#latest.

[webiatorstechnologies]

Exploring Magento 2: New Features and Upgrades for Improved Store Management

New features and enhanced speed are just two of the many highlights of Magento 2.4.6, the latest version of the popular Magento 2 e-commerce platform. This version focuses on making the product faster and more efficient. 

These updates make the platform more user-friendly, especially for merchants. These alterations allow merchants to complete formerly time-consuming bulk procedures in minutes. The Magento 2 upgrade supports the following performance enhancements.

The response time, category tree rendering performance, bulk cart operations' query response time, order sorting of customer queries, etc., have all been optimized with GraphQL. Magento 2.4.6 is compatible with the latest Page Builder and PWA Studio versions. 

The accessibility of this update has been greatly improved. With the release of Magento 2.4.6 comes a new meta package (version 1.1.0) that automatically installs a curated set of Magento Commerce Extensions. 

These extensions are automatically updated to the most recent versions whenever Magento is upgraded, eliminating the need for manual upgrades. Bolt Quick Checkout and Magento I/O Events for Magento Commerce are part of the Magento Commerce Extension meta package.

New Features of Magento 2 for Better Store Management

·         Category Processing

In this release, enhancements have been made to the system that deals with categories; in particular, support for nested children trees has been added. Therefore, significant performance gains have been realized due to merchants' newfound ability to process categories. 

The system was refactored to improve loading reaction time, increasing the system's speed and efficiency. As a result, searching across more than 1,500 categories has been simplified, saving time and effort for business owners.

The optimization of query response times has also hastened the turnaround for bulk cart operations. That means you can add more than 500 things to your shopping basket, whether simple or customizable.

·         Scalability Improvements

Magento 2.4.6 can aid shop owners by restricting product quantity. The new option controls how many items are shown in the grid. The default is 20,000, and it only applies to collections of products that include UI elements.

With the help of a properly configured database load balancer, Magento Open Source/Adobe Commerce 2.4.6 can process 1500 orders per second. Using the new REST endpoint, you may import up to 100,000 data per minute.

Payment Processing 

The updated Magento payment module includes features like the "Pay Later" option, PayLater communications with PayPal Vault, increased Fraud Protection, and ACH webhooks. 

In addition, a Fraud Protection webhook will be activated if any potential threat is identified in Braintree. Notifications are sent to the ACH webhook when the status of an ACH payment changes from "pending" to "declined" or "settled." 

I/O Conferences

With this new functionality, data and events may be captured from Magento Commerce and sent to connected systems. It paves the way for cloud-native app development in App Builder, enabling developers to respond to changes in different store events.

It supports various store events like order status, inventory, and pricing. Additionally, this feature can share information across Magento Commerce's crucial systems, orchestrating the full shopping trip.

Eliminate Incompatibilities

By upgrading, shops can avoid compatibility concerns with previous releases. For a hassle-free adventure: In this new version of Magento, several problems that were previously assumed to be permanent have been corrected.

In less than a year, all Magento 2.3.x versions will reach their End-of-Life (EOL), meaning merchants will no longer get support for or updates to those versions. Hence, online merchants should consider switching to take advantage of all that Magento 2.4.6 offers. 

Merchants can rest assured that the personal information of their stores and customers will remain secure if they upgrade to Magento 2.4.6, including the newest features and security patches.

What Are The Advantages Of Using Magento 2 For Online Stores?

Customers will have a more positive experience with Magento 2 now that its performance has been enhanced. Additional technical and business benefits of the Magento 2.4.6 update include the following features - 

Reduced or eliminated dependence on a large number of factors

The number of bugs has been drastically cut down

Improvements to the structure of the platform

Superiorly optimized source code

Optimal scalability

Quicker reactions

Safer systems

Conclusion

For both consumers and business owners, Magento 2.4.6 is a watershed moment. By improving inventory management and boosting store performance, Magento store owners will have an easier time making sales. 

Magento 2.4.6 is similar in providing a streamlined and accelerated shopping experience, much to customers' satisfaction. It's highly recommended that you update to Magento 2.4.6 right now. 

At Webiators Technologies, we help you upgrade to Magento 2. Book a free consultation with us today to discuss the costs, timeline, and other details of an upgrade to your store with one of our certified Magento Commerce consultants.

Original Source : https://bit.ly/42ZizIk

[grad603-breilamia]

Week 9 lecture notes -

Some principles -

Relative relationships

Legibility and readability

Context and emotion

Dwell time and duration

Direction

Final video size and format

Perfect grammar-no typos.

Designers to look at- 

Jesse Reston -kinetic typography tutorial

Jenny Holzer

Kevin Macleod, free music for backing music 

audiojungle - backing music  

Free music archive 

Storyboarding - Essentially planning, helps to visualise your concepts, and have a visual sketch of your direction & flow. look at different angles and techniques - can look at an example

Titles - the first impression, they present the story, 

Credits - continue connection with film design

- Directing/producing - you 

Design - type design

Sound design - individual music track

Voice over - your speech, who is talking

Sound effects - the website where you've got the files from

Production date.

Week 9 after effects tutorial notes  - 

Illustrator, create new, mobile, ... For correct sizing for after effects file.

Go into after effects

looking at time line of numbers,’ you are just looking at how many frames there are, reading by seconds. E.g 1 second and 5 frames in - 15f

Composition settings - change placing of key frame by changing seconds 

To edit where rendering happens, grab top scrolling bar, pull it to appropriate end. 

After importing a file from another place, double click composition to see files appear below.

Click e hold for drop menu's,

Ellipse, click and drag stroke.

Click in the works full and fill options comes up for gradients , default black and white. To change click on fills colour box, move colour clicker, click on them to create more to get more colours. 

Window, align, select all layers, align now you want

Solo is little circle, bottom left, hides other layers when selected 

Little alien allows you to hide certain layers without deletion for efficient working, make the alien a ufo then press the bigger alien bottom right. 

Masking methods - 

highlight layer, rectangle ellipse, create rectangle over selected layer. Undock mask section, click mask path stopwatch, creates key frame, then move key to 1 second or wherever. Hold shift, and press the left arrow key to move the rectangle across and hide the layer. 

Key frames versatile, you can change the order by moving front one back

Solo next layer, create shape, can use pen tool or ellipses, uncollapse mask layer, mask path stopwatch, move slider, shift and arrow keys to move. 

Unfortunately, I deleted my work from the school computers before knowing we were to save and upload!

Sdl - 

add layer for truth 

Storyboarding

reflection: I got a hold of the masking techniques quite well, I have found I tend to make one mistake when learning new things that have a domino effect on the rest of what I am doing, I need to pay closer attention to details and the surrounding things that need doing when creating a methodology. I want to start creating my work and am happy to get on to the storyboard, I like being able to visualise my work and have a reminder as I go along, I feel storyboarding is a very effective motivating technique.