#i also usually try to stick closer to the originals when i do a redraw

[wigglebox]

Grump [x]

[fatedroses]

Faustus’ Story

Alright, because @lunarpaps asked for me to go into more detail behind the changes I’ve made for this characters story.

I’m going to make one, albeit long, post going through the timeline and actually have this written out for anyone curious on this characters story and how at least for my canon he fits into the world as a whole.

Alright, starting off are the major changes I’ve made in terms of the story I’ve already written and posted on here, or may have referenced. I may end up linking on an oc page or something similar to this post, and after I get this posted I will most likely end up drawing snippets of the events, cause this also inspired me to do so anyways.

Changes, and anything that I forgot will be added in a reblog later on:

With Liam returning for this version, Hugrim, and most of the decisions involving him, is going to be with and between him and Sarath. This is better just because him and Sarath have better chemistry with each other, and I’ll eventually get around to their stories after I get them more solidified. I’ll admit that writing the initial relationship between him and Faustus just didn’t seem to flow the way I wanted it to, and that I’m more satisfied with this direction, and it lets all of them get a happier ending.

Faustus is more of an emissary and ally to the Vanguards rather than an outright leader, I want his position as a Greyguard to be more relevant to his character and therefore Felicity is going to take his older role in the council of the Vanguards, a better fit considering her role in the Kirin Tor and her relationship with Praeragos. I guess Faustus technically takes the role as one of the adventurers due to his interactions with Genn and his tasks often delivering messages and running errands, but whatever.

Because Faustus would in turn be spending more time both between Darnassus and Stormwind, and later Kul Tiras, when he isn’t on any assignments because of his position, I plan on him having more interactions and development with Anduin, Mathias, Varian, etc. I’ve been able to affirm to myself that it’s alright writing dynamics between these characters, cause I’m a dweeb and steered away from that for whatever reason. 

In turn I get to explore his reaction and interactions to the events that happened, both that he was and wasn’t there for. For example him traveling to Northrend with Felicity and a few others to learn of what happened as a person alongside his team, from a bystander’s point of view in his off time with the Vanguards. To then participating in the search for Anduin during MoP, as an active member of the alliance and as someone who would’ve went searching for the missing prince regardless of his allegiances or not. By originally putting him in a situation where he had to be in a consistently neutral environment it made him going out into these new situations difficult to write for, as it made trying to get the information for these places hard to actually write in a way that made sense.

Now seen with the “Dynamic Duo” piece that was posted before this post, Faustus’ affinity for magic and the situation with being a spellblade/mage-rogue combo is going to be something that took effect far earlier in his story. With him and his brother, and in turn his mother and his father respectively, the boys took after their parents, with Faustus showing traits of magical prowess while Pheles showed traits of druidic prowess at an early age. After the fire Faustus then later gets training on magic from Felicity, her parents, and Ashton, and he specializes in Ashton’s practice of magic which is close ranged, portals, and enchantment. However in most cases he’s on active duty he tends to focus on using it for teleportation and avoiding the long ass boat rides when he has the ability and energy to. Speaking of Pheles, I’m leaning towards making the two twins, just because the year difference really doesn’t make too much of an impact and this fits a bit better.

Krennan takes Faustus in as an adopted son rather than having him just kinda stick around the castle like it was previous planned/implied. It gives me an excuse to give Krennan more attention due to the fact I was already interested in the character beforehand. It also gives Faustus the opportunity to build his relationships with the royals and Felicity more organically than it was before.

The story behind Faustus losing his arm has been tweaked, but that’ll be explained more in depth during the story section of this post. I also plan on redrawing the pieces that went with it as well. Hex is still the main antagonist of that arc, and it’s still a decisive sacrifice Faustus makes, it’s just the events beforehand and afterwards are a bit different.

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For the sake of having this all in one place, I’m also going to have the entire story written out. When I tagged this as a long post, I meant it. I might tweak a few things in the future, but this is what is what I’m running with for the time being. This also includes the story of his parents due to their relevance in setting up the events that happen later on.

Story:

Parents and Childhood (Ages 0-10):

Born to Ilaise and Cedius Erthwal, Faustus and Pheles’ life started out rather average, and they were planned to be raised in Gilneas. Ilaise, born and raised in Gilneas herself met her husband Cedius during a trip to Boralus. The druid was taking his monthly trip to the market for supplies to aid in his research over the cycle of regrowth and decay, driven by his fascination with the Cenarion druid circles spurred on by an encounter with Sarath as well as other traveling druids. Ilaise herself was working alongside Ashton Wythers, another mage of the Kirin Tor, in finding the limits of their magical ability, and was known in her own town of Emberstone as a rather renowned hunter that earned her a friendship with Mia before the would be queen was courted by and got married with Genn. In learning of each other’s studies they hit it off, eventually leading to Ilaise offering to bring Cedius to Gilneas, which he heartily agrees, wanting to get away from Drustvar due to some history, and family, the druid wanted to get away from. 

However Cedius, in his move across the seas, was still going to need a decent size of land to continue his studies. Thanks to Mia granting them a closer audience with both Genn and his father, they were granted a section of land, a farm estate that was to be built by the two north of the city, given their own resources of the forest and whatever land they needed, so long as any food and lumber grown was produced in benefit to Gilneas and her people. Cedius took this offer gladly, as the efforts of mass regrowth of crops and ensuring that it didn’t negatively impact the areas surrounding it was a part of his research. Genn, in his curiosity in seeing that if this plan would work, brought him to investigate it frequently, eventually leading to his cordial friendship with Cedius.

As the years went on in this arrangement, in both his relationship with Ilaise and the regrowth project on the farmland, went well. Him and Ilaise got married after Ilaise returned from aiding the other human settlements against the first horde, lending her duties over to her colleague Ashton who took her place fighting so that she could settle down and eventually have Faustus and Pheles with Cedius, an act she was greatly thankful for. Genn and Mia, busy with raising their own children, and with the situation regarding the surrounding kingdoms, found themselves being able to visit their friends less and less, though they were able to visit each other during the birthdays of their children.

The brothers themselves found friendship in each other and the other children of Emberstone, which was nearby. They had met the Greymane siblings beforehand, but due to the distance and the ever nearing conflicts they didn’t really have the opportunity to get to know each other well. Faustus found at a young age that he had an affinity for the arcane trying to save a vase that tipped off the table. This was much to his father’s amusement having to leap after his son and the vase to actually save the situation, only for Ilaise to run in with a very confused dirt covered Pheles from their trip to their own private garden, discovering that the boys had the affinity of the opposite “preferred parent”, a joke among the two. This led to the boys getting some rather rudimentary training alongside their education, turning the rather mischievous pair even worse in their tricks as it helped Faustus honed his ability to blink short distances, which made him almost impossible to catch, and Pheles had a rather special focus on growing roots that often led to Cedius tripping and landing face first in the dirt, as well as jumpscaring both parents as he found his natural talent in the bear druid form.

Unfortunately Cedius’s history ended up catching up to him as his brother, known only to others as Hex, had hunted him down to Gilneas alongside several members of the cult. With Hex’s intention to either force his brother to use his druidic prowess in strengthening the reach of the blighted lands back in Drustvar and bringing about the return of Gorak Tul, or die. He started a fire at the base of the house, which was first discovered by Pheles, who ran to get his father to alert him about it. With the aid of his accomplices the fire spread quicker than usual, making it difficult for Ilaise to try and put it out as everything she tried to do only seemed to come back tenfold. This only got worse as the roof started to collapse, which ended pinning Faustus under a beam. Cedius had went off to try and find the source up until he encountered his brother, refusing his offer almost immediately and trying to call upon some wicker constructs to defend himself, and while Ilaise had managed to keep the fire from burning Faustus, he was too panicked in his young age to try and blink out from the debris until Ilaise was able to lift the beam a bit and Pheles pulled him out. As they tried to escape the house Ilaise pushed the boys away from more falling debris, sacrificing herself and getting herself pinned so that the two could escape by Faustus blinking both of them away, and they started to run to get help. Hex elected to leave his weakened brother to his colleagues to chase after the boys, believing that if they were in immediate danger Cedius would agree. Instead Cedius watched on as Pheles tripped Hex with roots along the dirt path, knocking his mask off so that they could both run away and so that Faustus could nail Hex in the nose with a rock, catching him off guard so that Pheles could attempt to carry his brother off on his back. One important piece that both Ilaise and Hex didn’t realize was that Pheles had taken his father’s very important research journal with him as well.

This only enraged Hex more, knowing that even if his colleagues succeeded in their attempt to now assassinate Ilaise and Cedius that the brothers would become issues later on. So he gave chase. Pheles found that drawing the pyromancer into the city was a bad idea, and threw Faustus off his back, electing to attempt to maul Hex’s legs before running off in another direction, while Faustus ran off in another direction. Hex went after Faustus however, as he was still injured by getting pinned. Pheles ran off towards the harbor, catching the attention of one of the Kul Tiran vessels that had their own druid working up in the crows nest. The crew took Pheles in, and sent their druid to go help his brother. This druid, Silvio, managed to catch up to Hex, clawing at his face in his bird form and giving Faustus enough time to run into the city of Gilneas and hide before Silvio himself flew off, leaving Hex to deal with his wounds and return to the burning home before he could manage to get caught by any city guards sent his way.

Hex and his colleagues made sure that Ilaise and Cedius were dead before returning to Drustvar, not knowing however that before their deaths they had bound themselves to the hearth, making their spirits remain on Azeroth and defeating their purpose of making them useless in death. Pheles joined the crew on their voyage back to Kul Tiras, much to the captain’s chargin but that aside he would eventually be taken to Ulfar by Silvio to learn the ways of the Thornspeaker, and gave Pheles an opportunity to learn more about his father from his old teacher before eventually returning to that vessel to join the captain in learning to become one. Finally Faustus went into hiding, becoming paranoid that Hex would be able to find him again, or that those around him could give him up to him, and isolated himself, finding his life as stealing food from stalls and blinking away before anyone noticed and hiding away in the empty unused water pipes that surrounded the city. Genn was alerted to the fire by his guard, leaving Liam and Tess in the care of Krennan before they went to investigate, only to find the home and farmland in ash, all of Cedius work was gone, and the now-king himself found Ilaise and Cedius inside the home, hand in hand with each other, and realized as because he couldn’t find the boys that they were still out there somewhere.

Adolescence and the Greyguard (Ages 10-25):

Faustus spent a couple months in hiding, avoiding anyone he deemed as untrustworthy, which due to his paranoia from the entire situation beforehand and being separated from his parents and brother, was just about everyone. Genn, Mia, Krennan, and Krennan’s charge and family friend Felicity would try to go looking for him after getting a letter from Kul Tiras stating that Pheles was found and safe. Felicity herself found that she could get glimpses of Faustus and the directions he went off to, but due to him using his arcane abilities to get away, and for him himself discovering he could hide himself using magic, making him difficult to hunt down.

After awhile, as Genn, Mia, Tess, and Liam were taking a trip through the city, Liam finds that the bracelet given by his mother was gone from his wrist. Knowing that it hadn’t had fallen he looked around, spotting Faustus backing up and running away from the group. Offended at the theft of his heirloom, Liam went after him, Tess immediately following her brother and making Genn and Mia panic for a moment before running after them. The siblings managed to chase him into an alleyway, and nearly succeeded in cornering him had he not tried to blink away. He was quickly caught by Genn when he and Mia caught up, and with Mia’s help they managed to calm him down enough to be able to bring him to Krennan. There the siblings and Felicity stayed with Faustus as the adults talked, and for the first time in a while, thanks to three cracking small jokes trying to get Faustus to at least laugh, they actually succeeded, and while they couldn’t get him to talk he at least accepted staying close to them. Faustus gave Liam his bracelet back as a silent apology, and after a bit of discussion Krennan came to him offering to take him in and adopt him. Faustus gave it some thought, grabbed Felicity’s arm and nodding with a quiet yes.

Faustus had a relatively normal rest of his childhood, though he continued to have paranoia and nightmares about Hex. This also started his and Felicity’s close friendship after they started living in the same house, Felicity thought that she was basically chosen after Faustus agreed to stay, and they bonded over their studies in magic, which Felicity was able to share her resources about it with him. They both also bonded with Krennan, often helping him around with his alchemy by going to the market to get herbs and having him teach them both their general education and alchemy. These two also spent time with the royal siblings thanks to Krennan often visiting Genn for both personal and professional reasons, Tess herself found it fascinating that Faustus was able to pickpocket Liam without anyone noticing, and Liam himself wanted to learn about Faustus more, as he often remembered seeing Cedius come to the manor once in a while but never really got the chance to talk. Felicity herself already knew the siblings well due to the amount of time she had already spent with Krennan beforehand.

As time went on, with Faustus reaching his teens, the four became a very tight knit group. Liam trained under his mother in becoming a hunter, finding after a good amount of training that he was quite a remarkable marksmen. Felicity decided not to focus her studies towards the offensive uses of magic, and instead aimed to one day improve the kingdom itself through her own inventions and such. Faustus found that he had a mark for design and engineering, often helping Felicity with her plans, but he also aimed to become a Greyguard after having an opportunity to watch them train, as well as him watching Genn and Darius train with each other several times before. Genn agreed to help Faustus train, as well as introduce him to some of his spymasters so that he could learn the ways of a rogue, considering how he was built he was suited for it. This also led to Faustus passing off the knowledge he had to the younger Tess, helping her start down her path of roguishness without, for the most part, Genn knowing, until she started training down that path as she got older.

Faust devoted himself to earning his place among the Greyguard, as with the more time he spent with them he found his own purpose with them. As the Greymanes had given him their time and effort to look for and out for him, he found that the only way to repay that in a way he would be satisfied with was to devote his life to giving them the protection that he was never able to give his parents and brother because of his inexperience and young age, In that way he could set aside the feelings and failures he felt as a child and instead had the opportunity to spend time with those he really cares about and be at peace with himself. His devotion eventually earned him the position of being Liam and Tess’s retainer, passed off by his main mentor Sibran, and it gave him the ability to just hang out with them while helping his superiors out on their duties when he could as a decision made by Genn so that the boy could still have a generally normal youth without having to worry about issues that brought him into constant danger or away from those close to him. Liam and Faustus also started getting even closer around this time, often found training with each other, working together to create new weapons and rifles, or were out hunting and patrolling around Gilneas.

There were issues however, as after Genn made the decision to secede from the Alliance and wall off Gilneas from the rest of the other kingdoms issues began to arise that actually called Faustus’ attention, starting with an event that happened not long after the construction of the wall started and in an attempt to get everyone's mind off of it they held a winter banquet, where an angered objector tried to get retribution for losing his land to being on the other side of the wall by attacking Liam, as he was the first Greymane he saw. Faustus managed to take the hit instead, earning him the scar across his eye and a scar on his left shoulder. This started the trend of Faustus having to watch around him more often than before, especially after the rebellion started taking more of a hold and the scourge started attacking the finished north gate wall. In addition due to his talents Faustus was also tasked with trying to root out the rebellion members and finding out who was leading them, in which his attempts tended to get him in a lot of trouble when he got too close.

Though despite all the struggles that came with this era Faustus and Liam found solace in each other, a couple close calls including the attack on at the banquet pushed Liam to actually admit his feelings to Faustus, feelings Faustus shared and that they had both developed from the time they had spent at each other’s side. At first they kept it hidden, in one part knowing that if any of the opposition knew it would be easy for them to use Faustus against Liam, and by extension the other Greyguard and Genn, in another part due to general royal upbringing Liam wasn’t entirely sure how his parents would really feel about the relationship due to the standard of marrying for political benefit and the state of Gilneas’ political climate was difficult to read at the time. However, Genn and Mia are neither foolish or oblivious, and were quick to understand their situation, leading to Genn having to pull Liam aside and quell his worries that he had married Mia out of love, not out gain or political pressure, and that if he truly found that he loved Faustus that he should go with it, especially since with Gilneas isolated there wasn't really much to get political gain for. Even if their relationship didn’t become public, some still found the pair as quite an intimidating duo, as Liam was a natural born leader and a major inspiration to those who came in contact with them, and Faustus became known as a creative inventor with a knack for detective work, who got the title of being an anti-assassin.

The scourge continued to become more and more of a problem, more so than the rooted rebellion as attacks would get collectively worse, leading Genn to call in Arugal for a solution, which came to be reawakening the worgen. Faustus, Sibran, and the other greyguard found themselves as the last line of military defense against the undead. An experience Faustus almost immediately regretted when he first came in contact with an abomination, but when the worgen came to aid them, and ended up turning against the front line, Faustus ended up getting bitten in the process. Not knowing that the curse was spread by the bite, he was cleared by Sibran to return back into the city, only to fall ill and turn once he got home. Felicity was able to restrain him, and Krennan was able to make him drink a potion to knock him out, but they only had a little time to bring him to Stormglen and restrain him, away from the city in a way to keep him from hurting other people or getting himself killed by the guard or hunters. Felicity had to keep a close eye on him, and after admitting to Genn why Faustus had gone missing the three worked towards trying to find a cure or aid to the curse, their working going double time once Genn was also bitten, but with the help of Krennan and Belyrsa found ways to keep him from turning. 

Faustus was thought dead due to his absence and the fact that if they couldn’t restore his will and mind he would basically be such anyways. Liam, though distraught, wasn’t entirely convinced, and had a hope in his mind that he was still somewhere out there. Instead he put on a brave face and told others that Faustus had instead fallen very ill, which many of the Greyguard were skeptical about, but kept quiet for the sake of their prince. One day however, Tess and Liam trailed Genn and Krennan to Stormglen, waiting until they left the abandoned building they were frequenting to try and find what they were hiding, only for them to get tracked down by feral worgen. Faustus, upon hearing Felicity call out for the siblings, as well as hearing them yell out, broke from the chains keeping him from escaping. He managed to intercept the worgen before he could attack the three, holding them off until Genn was able to handle it himself. They found that after the attack was deterred, that Liam and Tess could actually calm Faustus down enough to get him to focus on them, though even if he could focus and understand what they were saying he had no way of communicating back with them. Liam and Tess, however, were relieved to find Faustus alive, even if this experience changed him in the long run.

Eventually Sarath, Hugrim, and Drulos came to investigate Cedius and Ilaise’s disappearance, as Sarath and Drulos hadn’t heard from them in a while. They found the farm, and Ilaise’s spirit ended up guiding them to Faustus where Cedius was already waiting in Stormglen. After gathering enough energy due to the direness of the situation, Cedius and Drulos were able to call upon and bargain with Goldrin. If Faustus managed to prove himself to Goldrinn, and Cedius and Ilaise agreed to act as agents of Goldrinn as they continued to traverse the mortal plane, the wild god would agree to aid Faustus in returning to being himself. As Goldrinn tested Faustus, though the man had a strong will, he found himself unable to keep his own fear and rage in check when faced with visions of Hex and the Scourge. Sarath pleaded to Goldrinn that they didn’t just leave Faustus to himself like this, and though the wild god wasn’t going to do so in the first place, he instead allowed Ilaise to separate Faustus’ rage and fury into another section of his mind and make it temporarily dormant, giving Faustus control over himself again and allowing him to return to his human form, as well as letting him have a more intimate control over his worgen form. However, as a side effect Faustus had to constantly manage his rage, as due to this separation this feral anger could manifest in both forms instead of only his worgen form, which when he was armed made him highly dangerous. The solution wasn't perfect but it gave Faustus the opportunity to one day, possibly, be at peace with himself and learn to control that fury where it mattered, rather than letting it control him.

Before going on their way to hold their end of the deal, Drulos and Sarath were able to say their final goodbyes to their old friends, the three remained to help care for Faustus as reverting from worgen form, as well as the general exertion he went through over this period of time, left him rather weak and disoriented. After they made sure their technical ‘charge’ was cared for, Sarath flew the two out the way they came, but not before Faustus came to, learned of the situation, and made Sarath promise to one day teach him orcish due to meeting Drulos and learning what the druid and two shamans did for him that day, out of respect and thankfulness.

Felicity found him not long afterwards, surprised to see him suddenly back to himself, and was in fact rather skeptical about it at first. But after finally getting himself situated, and Felicity retrieved him some clothes for him, he was finally able to return to Gilneas, luckily being able to pass off his disappearance as an illness he had to be taken to Dalaran/be under Felicity’s family’s care for. As time went on he understood how this other side of himself started to manifest, namely that it tended to appear if he couldn’t control his emotions in general, or if he went too long without giving it control. He struggled to keep it under control at first, and knowing that he was struggling with it he found himself both talking less and keeping himself away from anyone that wasn’t the royals, Sibran, or Felicity and Krennan.

Liam was a major factor in helping Faustus get back to normal, and it helped that the other side of Faustus was still Faustus at the end of the day, and even as ferocious and hard headed the beast was he still cared deeply about the same people, and will take control if he feels the way Faustus acts normally is ill-equipped to handle protecting them. Liam was commonly the person Faustus was able to vent to besides Felicity, and when Liam knew it had been a while since a manifestation he and Faustus would often go hunting, whether it would be deterring worgen or just hunting normally to bring resources to the market. It also helped that the other side also respected Liam and his ability to remain calm in the face of adversity. Eventually Faustus started meeting with Sarath and Hugrim out in the old abandoned far, and from there he started to build connections with the Vanguard, and he learned to start meditating as a way of communing with himself and starting to pull himself back together.

Years went on, and the north gate rebellion came and went, Faustus did what he could to prevent as much bloodshed as he could, but the uprising and battle took a heavy toll on both sides. Faustus himself was heavily injured when he came into contact with two of his old childhood friends from Emberstone, Elicia and Jean, who had sided with Crowley, and though he was heavily injured, he was able to get them to put down their weapons and let him help them leave the battle under the promise that he wouldn’t get them arrested, and learning that though Faustus didn’t agree with all of Genn’s actions, that he understood the king was stuck between a rock and a hard place due to his pride, his stubbornness, and the pressure of the surrounding events. This injury, an axe wound to his side, did end up restricting him for a while. It required a lot of bed rest and he was designated to playing messenger while Sibran took his role as retainer back for the meantime. Afterwards, besides the small scale worgen attacks, things went back to normal and Faustus was able to return to his duties. That was until the large scale attack on Gilneas, and as the city fell and anyone not turned was pushed back into the outskirts, it took a heavy toll on everyone involved.

Faustus was tasked with helping the Greyguard get back on track, and as Krennan actually put together the potion that was meant to aid the feral worgen, he was also tasked to aid in capturing what many came to realize as their own friends, family, and peers. Liam however took the fall hard, feeling as though he had failed his people, and with Faustus’ near constant absence, he turned to drinking away his problems (as seen in the game, holy shit Liam why), something that Faustus and Tess tried to steer him away from but the prince was too caught up in his own head to listen. Felicity herself was occupied and gone from Gilneas from helping Dalaran alongside Ashton where she could during the events in Northrend and the ensuing aftermath, and the start of the cataclysm. After the Horde’s attack on Gilneas, and Liam’s subsequent bounce back onto his feet after being in a position to help his people again, Faustus stayed by his side and supported him where he could, the future of their city looking up. Until Liam took the arrow for Genn.

Losing Liam twisted something within Faustus, and though he and the separated side of him came together enough to cooperate, he gained this silent rage and ferocity that took a while to ever go away. The anger at the attackers, and the anger at himself turned him into a ruthless machine, pushing him to retaliate hard against the forsaken not long after the initial battle. He found refuge in Tess’ sympathy and hope, and with Felicity gone and busy elsewhere she was all he had left to bring him back down to earth. It was under her guidance that he came to focus his anger towards what mattered, pushing him towards the path of becoming one with himself again. He also had help during this journey thanks to his encounters with Anduin Wrynn, who he had initially met before the summit of the alliance in Darnassus. They got along, and were able to bond over learning about the events that had happened that they were unaware of. Anduin found that Faustus was a person he could vent his worries to without judgement of ability, and Faustus found Anduin as someone he could both look up to and protect. Though Faustus struggled with the loss of someone so close to him, and the loss of his homeland, he was able to find others that would help guide him back onto his feet, and push him to keep fighting for was he thought was right.

The Alliance and Azeroth (Ages 25-Present):

Faustus mostly found himself at Genn’s side after joining the alliance, and when he wasn’t, he was running messages and errands thanks to his affinity for teleportation and portal creation. He busied himself, and almost never gave himself a break initially in order to keep his mind off the events that had happened prior. Upon some of these errands he came across people who he would aid and build connections with. He reconnected with Elicia and Jean during and after the battle for Gilneans, helping them come to terms with the worgen curse. He met Baltor, a priest known for aiding the lost and wayward spirits, when they encountered each other in the rest area of an arena ring, after Faustus was captured by pirates during a trip back to Stormwind with some of the other soldiers. Finally he met Tyraanas, a Draenei paladin, on the front against garrosh’s horde in Ashenvale. This was also the time Faustus was introduced to the Vanguards, their leader Enahlien, and the figures that led the multiple sectors of the settlement. The era of the Cataclysm was primarily providing rushed aid to the front fighting Garrosh’s horde, protecting Stormwind when needed, and providing a connection of the alliance to the Vanguards as a defacto emissary.

It was around this time that Faustus started to form his own squad, with himself, Tyraan, Baltor, Elicia, and Jean. This team was some of the first sent to look for Anduin during the start of Mists, mostly due to personal request on Faustus’ behalf (because he was both incredibly worried and anxious know that Anduin could have been in danger). It was in Pandaria that Faustus was forced to pull himself together, as at that point he risked being consumed by several of the sha, and due to his determination to work alongside his anger and be at peace with it, rather than wrangle and control it, it gave him better control over himself in general and let him aid his team in combating the influences of the sha as well. The only time this nearly fell apart during the expeditions was when he discovered Anduin’s injuries after being crushed by the bell, his doubt and anger nearly getting to him until his team was able to, in payment for him helping them in the first place, help him calm himself to prevent the sha from manifesting.

From there Faustus and his team continued their work while Anduin was recovering, but knowing that Varian was already fretting over his son Faustus instead decided to support his decision to continue to encourage his people and his allies, being overbearing was likely only going to be a detriment anyways. As the events in Pandaria progressed, Faustus bounced between aiding the front with his team where he could, and introducing his team to the Vanguards and beginning to integrate himself with them more afterwards, building connections with Adonis, Hugrim, Hugrim’s family, as well as his crew aboard the allegiance who offered to aid the efforts in Pandaria so long as they weren’t caught up in the war itself in the process.

The issues in Draenor and all the events that take place during that time was actually the period where Faustus takes a break from the front and works on his connection outside of the horde and alliance. He was able to meet the horde emissaries, a forsaken monk who merely introduced himself as Ederi, and a goblin shaman named Glekkle. A lot of what this community was working on combating was the rising influence of Hex’s cult, as well as the threat of the Legion invasion that was starting to be known as an inevitable event. Hex wanted to pull apart the Vanguards, knowing that the cult would be destroyed upon them learning of their efforts to extend the reach of Thros. This issue for Hex became even more apparent when he discovered Pheles had started working with Felicity, Sarath, and Hugrim to combat the reach of the cult, and Tul’s own covens, in Kul Tiras itself. 

So, taking this opportunity now that several of the major Vanguard leaders were absent from the citadel itself Hex waged an all out attack against the citadel, catching everyone within off guard and forcing a large scale evacuation that drove the citizen’s living within to Dalaran, and brought Faustus, Ederi, Enahlien, Verelyn, an undead priestess that constantly worked with Sarath and Hugrim known as Ainade, to stay behind and attempt to prevent the cult from taking over the citadel. The position within Arathi and the research that could be used to breach the blighted lands into Azeroth was far too important to the vanguards to just give it up. After the five were swarmed with aberrations and found themselves in a losing fight, Ederi and Ainade locked themselves within Hugrim’s garden/research building, and did what they could from keeping the thankfully fireproof building safe, the other three were urged to leave and gather their strength until they could reclaim the citadel once more. In their attempted escape the three were captured, Hex himself was the one to do so personally as his members were tasked with raided the other buildings and preparing themselves to settle there. Hex’s use of fire and wicker abominations gave Faustus little time to get the other two out before they were seriously injured, and knowing that the Vanguard needed their leaders he elected to use most of his strength to break out of the construct’s grasp, and sacrifice his arm in Hex’s attempt to behead Enahlien so that Enahlien and Verelyn could gather enough of his strength to break free and run away.

Faustus used whatever time he had thought he had left, as he was bleeding out and knew that he likely wouldn’t have enough time to escape, was able to take his pistol while Hex was distracted by the two running and shot him in the knee so that he couldn’t chase after the two, before killing him for killing his parents, ruining a large part of his life, and attempting to break apart a people whose entire foundation came from pulling together through the turmoils of separation, loss, and exile. He knew, from the fact that his father persisted after his death, that this wasn’t going to be the last of Hex, but he was dying knowing that he was either going to combat him himself if he was unable to move on, or that he had broken the Cult’s leadership down enough to give both his team and the rest of the Vanguards enough time to regroup and mount a full attack against them to get the city back.

But it wasn’t like the Vanguards to leave their allies behind, and as Praeragos and Sarath managed to temporarily drive the cult from the citadel, giving them enough time to let Sarath rescue and take Ederi and Ain to Dalaran, Praer brought the remaining three to Stormwind where there was just a slim enough chance that Faustus could be saved. After magically locking the gardens, the mage tower, and the keep so that important information that was already guarded by other means couldn’t get tampered with further, Praer had carried and flown them back by opening a portal after he broke free of the cult’s vain attempts to restrain him with briar thorns. Baltor had felt the surge of energy from the portal from his room at the old town inn and from Praer’s spirit, and urged the rest of the team to follow the dragon as he landed in the fields not far from the keep, the team keeping the guards from targeting the blue dragon as they found they had to prioritize stabilizing Faustus and figuring out what the hell had happened to have caused this in the first place.

Thanks to Baltor’s, and later some assistance of Anduin’s, healing, Faustus had survived. However his injuries had forced him to retire from his position in the greyguard, as he had to focus on his recovery, and any extensive use of magic was out of the question due to his weakened state. He instead found himself staying in Stormwind, using the empty barracks next to the embassy to organize his own team on their missions, giving them aid in the only way he was able to at the time. This barracks was also used as a temporary gathering place for the Vanguard leaders, who either worked to be granted pardon or disguised themselves so that they could walk around the city easily. From here on Faustus, his team, and the vanguard’s worked to reclaim the citadel and also prepare for the impending legion invasion once they got word of Gul’dan’s freedom. Under Faustus’ and Enahlien’s planning, the efforts towards reclaiming the citadel was a success and they were able to start pushing their efforts towards rebuilding and reinforcing their position to prevent anything like this from happening again.

About a month before the invasion several of Faustus’ peers, a gnome named Lania, Felicity, a dark iron mage named Yvena, and Ainade proposed their latest work, which was a prosthetic arm meant to be attuned to his own abilities with magic, most of which he was able to use due to actually taking the time to recover and then train himself, making sure that he was still on par in that way while also learning to defend himself with only his left hand. While it was difficult, Faustus was lucky that he was left hand dominant anyways, and after giving it some thought he accepted getting the prosthesis. He also accepted the risks of getting it, as there was a chance that his body would reject it, and the impending realization that it would hurt, and he would have to give himself time to recover again. He trusted his team however, and he had gone a long way to trust Ainade, giving that she was known within the Vanguards for her research and talent with prosthetics and replacement given her situation as an undead.

Faustus played a similar role to before after he did what he could to aid Anduin’s ascension to the throne, ignoring his own feelings to losing Varian until he was away and able to express such without impacting others. His primary contributions came from sending aid to wherever him and his men were needed, and he spent a lot of his time fighting the legion in Stormheim, while working alongside Genn during that campaign for multiple reasons, Val’sharah, aiding the druids, his brother, and Sarath against the emerald nightmare, and on Argus, fighting demons head on once he firmly established his ability and the improvements granted to him by his new arm. Faustus proved to be an accomplished leader among his friends, and his ability alongside Enahlien’s own tactical prowess made their group a force to be reckoned with against the Legion. Upon the legion’s fall and things started to settle down, Genn welcomed Faustus back into the greyguard now that Faustus was back on his feet, and he proved to be more open, happy, and out there than he was before. 

Yvena, Tyraanas, Baltor, and Elicia urged Genn to name Faustus as the commander as their slowly growing team started to expand into a small army, and as the war with the horde started to pick back up, he considered it. It wasn’t until the war of thorns, and Faustus and the Vanguard’s efforts to aid in the evacuations, that Genn considered it and accepted it once the Vanguard’s pledged their aid against, and see specifically, Sylvanas’ path of destruction. 

Getting off the topic of Faustus briefly, it was also around this time that Liam was resurrected by Alonsus after Calia herself was resurrected. As Alonsus was standing on neural ground, but saw what Sylvanas had done during the gathering, he saw it fit to send some of his priests, Baltor, Ainade, Jean, and several others, as well as several aiding paladins, to recover Liam’s body to prevent him from being used against his own old friend and the alliance as a whole due to Jean’s accounts of the prince’s marksmanship itself. A pleasant surprise however came in the form that for one reason or another Liam’s body had not decayed since his death, and whether it was true or not, Jean had proposed that it may have been from the extent of the prince’s faith in both his people and the light, while Ainade proposed that like Calia, it may have been for the purpose of the light still needing them, and that his faith itself powered that. Liam went into a form of hiding after Faol had him ensure that he would return should anything go wrong, he rejoined the alliance, making himself known to aiding the soldiers as just merely being ‘the traveler’, a masked bowmen who seemed to appear in a time of need.

Back on topic, Faustus led said group during the battle for lordaeron, offering routed support as well as acting as the extraction soldiers for the horde prisoners. They also led the retreat once the main group had went to go confront Sylvanas. Upon returning to Stormwind, Faustus set out to help set up the Vanguard’s outpost with his friends, and they were organizing their supplies and working up until Nathanos had set fire to the city and the group had to turn their efforts towards putting the fire out. An attempted assassination on Enahlien turned into a near death experience for Faustus, as he had taken an arrow meant for him by one of the diversions, but due to the amount of aid the worgen were giving to the alliance, the most arrows in the assassin’s quiver was tipped in wolf’s bane. The assassin got away, and Faustus made his team focus on putting out the fires before he almost succumbed to the poison, narrowly getting saved by Liam as he had worked with Baltor beforehand over the possible issue of wolf’s bane being used against his friends and family. Liam left Stormwind for a while after that, getting too close to being caught before his evaluation of his situation was complete. The last thing he wanted to do was give those he cared about a false hope of his return if something suddenly went wrong.

Faustus instead went with Genn to Kul Tiras as he recovered, reprising his role briefly to work as an advisor to his team, to Genn, and to his brother as the alliance worked to bring the admiralty back into the faction. After a while after the incident and Liam was cleared to be alright for the time being, he returned to Faustus and his family to reveal his resurrection, Faustus being more than ecstatic to have an old friend and long time love back, and Genn quite frankly just being glad that he can, in fact, hold his son at least one last time before anything else happened. From there Faustus and Liam became a rather terrifying due who worked together to help clear the turmoil where they could, and Liam joined the Vanguard’s and became a major inspiration and leading force against the darker reaches of the time, working instead to fight against Azeroth’s deterioration and against the horrors of the deep.

———

So, there is everything I have so far, anything else as the story progresses will be updated onto this document, and I’ll have works, stories, and art pieces to go along with all this. If the read more didn’t work, I’m sorry, but I just wanted to have this all in one comprehensive place for my own reference as well. Thank you for reading :D

[trainerv]

Astroforce

More on the Astroforce because someone @saki-noir was curious and I really needed to work more on them, anyhow. It’s kinda long with individual facts on each one, so I’m putting it under the cut. Subject to edits.

The Astroforce are five earth-made trains under Astrotrain’s command and care.

-At least 2 out of 3 of their alt modes were possibly based off of train models that, in reality, had been retired long before the 1980’s, when the first 2 season of G1 took place. This in mind, I imagine that the trains Astro had used to make the Astroforce were either off in a corner somewhere, waiting to be turned into scrap metal, were being preserved or were completely forgotten. With this in combination with the water damaged caused by the flood left the five a complete disaster when brought in. Dirty, damaged and uncared for, there was little hope for actually bringing them online. Then, the Decepticons found the key to vector sigma (the episode The Key to Vector Sigma part 1 actual premiered only a few episodes after Triple Takeover). Once it successfully brought the Stunticons to life from regular cars, it was used on the Astroforce because Megatron wouldn’t pass up the chance to have something Optimus doesn’t. Their bodies were still in terrible shape, but it was a start.

-While work was being done on the Stunticons on Earth, they were moved to the head Cybertron base and put under Technis’ care.  It took a lot of time to get them functioning “properly” – even now they still show numerous defects and parts of them were completely outdated, but can’t be replaced without overhauling their entire frames. Plans are being made to give them proper Cybertronian bodies, but this will take some time. Until then, they are given frequent check-ups. It is done before the 20 year gap between seasons 2 and 3. Possibilities of a combiner have been thrown on the table.

-None of the members of the force have any real memory of their “lives” as actual trains. Their first memory, albeit as drones, was of Astrotrain and, in a way, they sort of imprinted on him. They follow him around and really only listened to him, at first. They can communicate with each other via a sort of Morse code that consists of blinking their lights and whistle-blowing.

-They’re much smaller than Cybertronian train-based transformers typically are, given that they’re from earth. Their robot modes are based only of the first one or two cars of their original train forms, as the rest were needed for spare parts to make some repairs or were too damaged to work with. New cargo holds for energon/weapon storage are attached to them when making rounds.

-They share their own room and enjoy a big cuddle pile when recharging Astrotrain included whether he likes it or not, telling stories of their individual jobs, and playing board games together. Some of Trackside’s stories may or may not be slightly not true

Injector is the only steam engine of the crew, her alt possibly being based off a DRG 01 1102 or possibly some form of Pendolino model (though I don’t think there are any close enough in design that were built at the time).

-She’s considered the oldest of the 5 given that she was the first to be brought online. She was frightened and overwhelmed and didn’t know who those strange people poking her where and why they were asking her all these questions. She panicked and hid behind Astrotrain, the only familiar bot in the room. After being “ordered” to let the doctors do whatever they need to do, she was more docile, though visibly nervous; her answers to questions were simple head nods or shakes and a ‘mhmm’ or ‘mm mm’. Once she was cleared, she returned to Astrotrain’s side and waited quietly for the others. Seeing them be as calm as they were by comparison, she felt embarrassed and promised to be a better example next time.

-Her boiler was the most damaged part of her (it wasn’t in the best of shape to begin with and the flood and years of not being used didn’t help) and had to be replaced with a new one. While still able to consume energon, her body is still fully capable of running solely on coal and water. Her steam engine makes her the warmest and the center of nighttime cuddle piles.

-The dual antennae on the side of her helm are very sensitive to vibration and she hates having them touched. They can make only minor movements.

-When angry or flustered, she’ll blow steam out of her chimney. She’s very sensitive about it. Don’t laugh! It’s not funny! She also has a habit of holding people’s hands when nervous.

-The metal making up her body isn’t particularly durable and needs to be checked on often, so she spends almost as much time in the med bay as Switchman does.

-What looks like a visor is actually a part of her face and can’t just be removed, though she has two optic scanners behind it, like a regular face would. She has the best vision and is capable of seeing little details and movements that might go unnoticed by others.

-She feels sympathy for any abandoned trains or other vehicles she sees. While she can’t take every one home and get them fixed up like she was, she does quick sketches of how they look then redraws them all fixed up when she has the time later. She keeps them in a little secret drawer and lets no one see them.

-Given her ability to run on alternative fuels, she’s spent the most time on the tracks of the 5. It also helps that she is the fastest. She – and sometimes the others – helps bring energon from mines to bases on earth.

Switchman was the second. Possible Alt: ETR 401 [which had actually been in use at the time] or the M-10000 [which would be the oldest model on here]

-He was much calmer than Injector was when brought online, though opted to stay close to her and Astrotrain. He watched curiously as the doctors worked on the others, though he’d pretend not to be when asked if he wanted to get a better look.

-During his stay in the med bay, an issue with his back strut was found, causing him to occasionally slouch and minor pain. A brace was put on to help it, but he finds it uncomfortable and hard to transformer with, so he’ll loosen it or will take it off completely when he’s out. He’s slightly taller than Rail Grinder when standing straight.

-Like Injector, he’s actually very insecure. The others can run and jump and do things so easily, and he’s in the back, having trouble doing sometimes the simplest physical tasks given his bad back. He uses most of his energy trying to stay up straight and ignore the pain, but he tires himself out quickly.

-He finds himself fascinated by how things work, and will watch curiously as other do things. 

-Being the passive type who prefers to watch and listen, he tends to remember the little things people say and do. Example, he knows that when Injector’s antennae stick up and/or twitch, she’s about to have one of her anxiety attacks and will hold her hand to calm her down. If one of the others is closer, he’ll signal them to do it.

-He enjoys movie nights with a few of the other cons. He’s fond of film noir and mystery movies. He usually figures out who-done-it before long, but enjoys them none the less. He also has a small collection of mystery novels.

-He can and will sleep just about anywhere. Don’t underestimate his ability to find a nice groove or hole in the middle of a battlefield to rest in. He’s also the best cuddler. Watch out when he gets tired.

-I’m aware he’s the only one without a headlight. I have no excuse. I forgot it.

Rail Grinder is the third and has the same alt mode as Switchman.

-Rail Grinder was the calmest, letting the doctors do whatever to him. Nothing bad happened to Switchman and Injector, so what did he have to worry about? 

-The doctors weren’t too fond of having him around, though, given he wouldn’t stop touching everything and asking questions. He almost took off one of the nurse’s hands messing with a laser scalpel.

-Testing showed most of his body is surprisingly sturdy; however, the joints are very weak. Too much heavy physical activity at once can result in, at worst case, the breaking of a joint and the possible loss of a limb. A bit of rest during work and constant maintenance is all that’s really needed prevents this until his new body is ready.

-He stays with the Cybertron crew going around and helping everyone in the base. He hangs around with the grunts and “drones” (like the vehicons), mostly, having a good chat and doing menial tasks, like unloading energon cubes. He can carry quite a lot, as it turns out, and likes to paint things on the vehicons to help tell them apart.

-Second to Switchman, he spends the least amount of time in alt mode.

- He’s a curious child and can’t help himself from doing whatever his impulses tell him to. The world is new and there’s so much to explore and do. While his enthusiasm for life and living is much more subdued than the likes of High Rail, he’s made a habit out of trying everything at least once. Often the two will go out and find trouble to get into something interesting to do or he’ll partner with Trackside on one of her schemes.

- His catchphrases ‘it’ll be fine’ and ‘I got this’ have gotten him and others into more trouble than you’d believe. He’s not the master of everything he believes he is, but he tries. He doesn’t always succeed, but, still, he tries.

-He’s one of the few mechs, if there are any, who can handle gross, squishy, human gore (he doesn’t enjoy it, but can stomach it) and stuff and loves horror movies, black/dark comedies especially. No one gives him the remote at movie night, anymore; not after the Zombieland incident. He also enjoys slapstick and likes most comedies in general. He’s a big fan of Groucho Marx and the Three Stooges.

High Rail is the fourth. Her and Trackside’s alt mode are based off of the Pioneer Zephyr. [I’m retconning some things from my 8-facts post]

-High Rail was the most eager to get out of the med bay and get to living, upon hearing all the great things being explained to her and the others. It took a while to get her to stop bouncing and sit still for her checkup. Once cleared, she practically ran out of the med bay. She wouldn’t stop asking questions – much to everyone’s annoyance – and ran ahead of the group, touching everything they passed and greeting they met. No one knows where this energy came from, but it’s there.

-While her vision is less than perfect, the sensory organs hidden under the series of finials under her helm are highly sensitive. She can hear even the faintest of whispers from several feet away. She’s highly aware of other’s EM fields and can become overwhelmed when around too many other mechs. When this happens, the finials clench up to lessen the effects. Conversely, when under-stimulated, they’ll puff up in an attempt to pick up any sort of feedback. It’s pretty adorable. She, like Switchman, can tell when Injector is going to have one of her attacks, but is much less subtle about the matter and will try to talk to her to calm her.

-In fact, subtle is one of the many things High Rail is not. She wears her emotions on her figurative sleeves and doesn’t understand when people try to hide them or when they can’t tell how others are feeling as well as she can, sometimes forgetting her own hypersensitivity to others’ emf is an anomaly.

-She’s not particularly sensitive about her single optic, but will become offended if it’s mentioned as being anything odd or unusual and, naturally, her siblings will defend her. There’s nothing wrong with her face at all; she’s beautiful and they will fight you.

-She spends the most amount of time in alt mode of the five. Usually she’s seen alongside (or just behind) Injector on deliveries around earth if she’s not racing Trackside to see who’s faster. So far, Trackside has her beat 10-13. She wants her new body to be faster than ever.

-She’s the only one who knows of Injector’s hobby and has tried, more than once, to get her to show the others and while out on her own routes, will takes pictures of broken down vehicles for Injector to draw. She also takes photos of other things that capture her interest while she’s at it.

-She strongly dislikes high grade as the resulting overcharge messes with her senses and confuses her.

-She’s a sucker for sappy ‘kids’ movies and anything that pulls at the heartstrings.

Trackside is the youngest of the crew, but only by so much, so don’t mention it. She shares her alt mode with High Rail.

-Trackside was very vocal of her dislike of being touched and questioned by the doctors and would complain and push them away before being told to knock-it-off. She put on a fake smile and begrudgingly let them work. Once finished, she was more than happy to get away, but not before swiping a few extra treats that are usually given to the good little bots after checkups. She shared some with the others, but not all of it.

-Her body is surprisingly sturdy, but can cease up from time to time, causing her joints to tighten and making movement difficult. Constant lubrication and bolt loosening are required.

-Her large, flat optics aren’t just for show. Similar to Injector’s, they’re very adept at picking up movement. This – combined with her quick reflex and fast processor –makes her great at both firing projectiles and taking out moving targets. Of course, she uses this more for firing paint balls at people via slingshot than doing anything on a battlefield.

-Meeting Uncles Blitzwing and Octane for the first time, she questioned whether or not she had “to pretend to like these ones, too”, though she claims she was only joking and does she look like the type to lie?

-Of the five, she’s probably the most cunning, or, at the very least, the most likely to take advantage of any given situation. If it means getting something she wants, she’s more than willing to play dirty and doesn’t get why her siblings (who know her well enough not to be caught in her lies) don’t more often. Sure, she’s the cute one, but they’re not too bad. She tends to stick closer to Octane after having once assisted him in one of his lies and being called his ‘favorite’.

-Unlike her favorite uncle, though, she’s not afraid to be out on the battle field; in fact, of the 5, she’s the most likely to deck someone in the jaw for insulting her family. Only she can do that. She also has an interest in baseball and has a killer swing, something most anyone who knows her well enough, knows not to be on the wrong end of.

-She is a member of a Deception sports club, one that started up recently. A few of the cons had gotten into earth sports after having seen them on tv or while out on earth and decided it would be fun to give a few a try. It’s more a way to boost morale and practice team-building, something the cons could use.

-Trackside’s name comes from the actual term, Trackside, but is also a play on the phrase “side track”/”side-tracked”; fitting given her tendency to distract others while pulling pranks. I’ll be honest, that was an accident, but it works, so…

[lorenzosbonnie-blog]

Latest Autodesk Maya 2017 in Review

If you can't choose, you are able in order to go for the Greatest Edition, which contains each 3ds Max and Maya. The Ultimate Edition furthermore includes Softimage, that will be being phased out. I am a long-time Maya man which is a Maya review. You are capable to probably guess exactly what we'll be talking regarding. Autodesk Maya. What precisely is it? In their own words:

"Maya® THREE DIMENSIONAL animation, modeling, simulation, making, and compositing software provides a comprehensive creative function set on an extremely extensible production platform. Maya provides high-end character plus effects toolsets along with increased productivity for modeling, texturing, and shader development tasks. inch It's the particular "go-to" tool for almost everything and the main hub of countless manufacturing companies. This year the particular Autodesk Maya 2017 version has seen some main upgrades and enhancements. Main among them we'll become taking a closer get a look at exactly what I consider the best 3. Bifröst Bifröst will be a fluid simulator. It can advantage over Fluid Results is its performance plus ease of use for several types of effects. Splashes, surf on the seaside, stuff like which are usually all trivial to accomplish using Bifröst. It works like a separate process outdoors of Maya, but will be fully integrated. That will be to say the real computation occurs as the background process so Maya remains fully interactive whilst computing frames. Users may keep working on some other facets of the simulation while the fluid movement is calculated and scrape cached (first to memory space, then the cache overflows to disk as the particular user specifies). As structures become computed, they change green in the schedule when the Bifröst box is selected. (Frames may also be baked away to a conventional disk-cache and later reloaded. ) Bifröst fluids are adjustable resolution. One can start with a low quality container that produces the more lumpy fluid yet does so rapidly, a person can later ramp upward the resolution of the particular container for final makes as high as your own workstation and your persistence can tolerate. Bifröst provides the user full manage over not just the particular physics aspects of the particular simulation, but also more than the artistic aspects because well, such as exactly how easy is it with regard to the liquid to divided up into splashes. 1 can really go crazy here, it's totally upward to the user. Within my personal experience actively playing around with it, Bifröst felt faster and easier to manage than a traditional Liquid Effects simulation. It furthermore made larger scale liquid effects possible, like browse on the beach. This was also nice that will computing a simulation did not bog down Maya. Along with Bifröst I could maintain directly on working. That will said, Bifröst will not really replace Maya Fluid Results. It's just more useful for rapidly simulating splashing type liquids. Fluid Results continues to be king for every thing else. Finally, Bifröst may also generate a polygon mesh of the liquid (the fluid's isosurface might also be rendered straight, but with less control).

This means it's feasible to shade and provide it similar to some other surface using any shaders, combined with the renderer of the choosing. It can quite a flexible component, and given an adequately small voxel size, may produce some very persuading splashing type fluids. Most likely the best benefit associated with Bifröst is that it can pretty quick! Granted, it can fluid physics, so the good simulation is heading to be slow in comparison to most things, but amongst fluid simulators I has been very happy using the overall performance. It's a very functional tool for even the single artist. Bifröst simulations were also very simple to control and arrived with sane default configurations. Getting a halfway good fluid simulation of the particular glass above took simply a few clicks plus less than about five minutes of simulation with regard to 100 frames on the modest workstation. The lower resolution version was actually faster. Definitely a large like this comment with regard to Bifröst. XGen XGen will be an advanced geometry instancer that originated out associated with paper at SIGGRAPH the year 2003. It had been selected up by Disney plus used in several movies. In circa 2011, Autodesk signed an exclusive contract with Disney licensing the particular use of XGen. This now ships with Maya 2017 with the capability to do everything type forests to fur.

Essentially, anytime you need the zillion copies of some thing along a polygon surface area, you utilize XGen. Plus yes - your situations will indeed stick in order to the surface as this deforms. Common examples might include hair, grass, small stones at the sea, the forest of trees, and so on. However, XGen goes the step further than simply native instances; It offers an extensive group associated with attributes, modifiers and expression to control the precise placement as well as animated conduct of your instances. XGen basically calls your situations "Archives, " in this these people contain more than simply the geometry. They may also contain shading systems and animation data. A person can create an XGen "archive" from the present scene file via the particular XGen menu. XGen will get very deep, very fast, but continues to be very simple to use. That will be to say, it provides some very advanced abilities. If coding is your own thing, it even offers its own expression vocabulary which provides the capability to get precise plus complex behaviors from your own instances. The workflow within XGen is pretty simple. You select a polygon surface to populate along with your instances. You after that select XGen -> Create Description... which offers you this window: You fooled by the obvious simplicity. We're just obtaining started. We are capable to open the XGen window via XGen -> Open the XGen Window. We can after that add models towards the particular Archive List. We may have one main XGen node control a range of instances, i. electronic. "archives. " For instance, 10, and even 100 or even more different variants associated with a rock for the beach shot: We finish up with a million things - or nevertheless many we want within line with the Denseness attribute if they're arbitrarily spaced, or the Space attribute if they're equally spaced, or maps, or even expressions, or... there's the lot of methods in order to control just about every thing. Our "archives" can actually contain some traditionally a lot more tricky things, like subsurface scattering networks, vector displacements, etc. and it appears to work just good. These each have the vector displacement as produced in Autodesk Mudbox used which produces around a few million polygons per mushroom. There's over a 1000 mushrooms, so that's the cool 3 billion polygons within the rendered framework. No sweat. That stated, XGen can make Maya easy to accidently accident nearby know what if you're doing. It's simple in order to get carried away plus quickly end up along with a bazillion instances, therefore many that the redraw speed becomes unresponsive, based on your GPU. Luckily, this is easy in order to prevent. There is the Percent attribute under the particular Preview tab that decreases the number of online instances drawn. We may still have several points at rendertime, but all of us don't need to observe them in the viewport all at once. XGen provides a lot associated with control to cope along with a huge number associated with instances, both at rendertime, and in the online viewport. And yes -- the instances do display up when using viewport second. 0. Rendering great of polygons is the trivial thing with Xgen. Speaking of control... There are a whole bunch of "behaviors" you may use in order to modify your instances. Actions such as clumping, coiling, forces, control wires, sound, etc. When utilizing XGen in order to create fur, there's actually brush-based tools to brush the fur or change other attributes utilizing the particular brush-based toolset. We may come with an whole stack of modifiers that will alter the end outcome, including guide curves that will we can modify making use of CVs and lattices, and so on. XGen is huge. It can not just an angles instancer. It's like this particular totally new module, plus like everything Autodesk Maya, they tend to visit insane with the number associated with ways one can fine-tune, control and modify some thing. It's like trying in order to explain all of Color Effects or all associated with Fluid Effects in the single review article; It can simply impossible. I possibly could create a book about simply XGen. Suffice it to express, it's a very versatile, usable tool and will be really, awesome to perform with. Go crazy, create a billion or 2! The goal of XGen was to supply artists along with easy access towards the particular kind of tools that will were previously only discovered among Technical Directors plus programmers and i think they have succeeded. It can an extremely tool! Last Thoughts There were the lot of awesome brand new features inside a lot associated with areas, from basic bugfixes, enhancements to new playthings. This review only protected a tiny fraction associated with these and so much they've all been fairly slick. Bifröst, XGen, Geodesic Voxel Binding, OpenSubdiv... (this could carry on for pages) I've been using Maya since version 4. five and it's come the long way. Autodesk Maya 2017 is indeed the significant improvement over the particular previous generation and nicely worth looking into!