Mudtato
Together at last
It’s taken a while, but here are the two main characters finally together at last.
I feel like I spent a few hours massaging an onion and this is where it’s at now. Along the way there was a particular shape that looked really good, but was a bit too mushroom-like.
I’ll probably still tweak it some more. The eyes on there in the image below are smaller than they should be, and the legs have more detail in the concept art.
It’s a bit tricky to have more detail and not destroy it when animating them, but I think they at least need to be a bit chunkier.
A Blessing in disguise
I’m quite happy with the latest iteration of the sausage using the new clay/plasticine mix. I think it’s an improvement on the previous version.
The shape feels more dynamic and I prefer the new proportions.
Late edit - Here’s a clearly reluctant shot of the onion, on a makeshift stand until its legs are made.
Just a test shot with the same sort of hybrid clay. I realised while doing it that I’d already tried the hybrid clay with the onion, and it was cracked pretty bad. Hopefully I have a better ratio now and it holds up.
Two steps forward…
One step back.
I realised my previous setup wasn’t accessible enough to allow easy animation, so I changed it up:
- I got rid of the photo box and replaced it with a simple white background
- I was now down a light, so I got a cheap “influencer” ring light that works pretty well
- I realised that my floorboards were moving my camera tripod slightly when I stepped on them, so I fixed the camera to the table instead
- I fixed everything in place with my new favourite thing - Tack-It
- I got some black fabric to cover the windows to keep the lighting consistent
Those are all the positives…
I was really happy with Sculpey III when I was sculpting the models, but after a while the clay hardened to the point where it’s not malleable enough to animate and cracks easily.
So I mixed some Plastilina in and it’s much easier to work with. I don’t like how it feels, and it’s harder to sculpt, but it’s more important to be able to animate it.
Unfortunately this meant destroying my existing sausage model. Fortunately it’s not the most difficult shape to remake, and I only really need to add “skin” to the armature.
Hopefully it all works out, because it’s a real pain to get everything set up to animate and not be able to.
Here’s how the lit sausage was looking before destruction: 
So hard…
This project is so much work. Even “simple” animations like an idle take a lot of work.
I’ve been working on making and baking some parts of the main characters that need to maintain their shape. For example, I’ve made left and right open and closed hands for the sausage, so I can easily swap out hands depending on the pose, and don’t need to worry about deforming them. I also made some more eyes, mouths, sprouts for the onion and a few other bits and pieces. I also mounted some magnets on the character and the animation rig so I can easily put it on and remove it.
That’s the fun part, but when it comes time to putting it all together I have cracking clay, bits falling off, things being dropped and somehow disappearing from existence and all manner of other obstacles to deal with.
This embarrassingly simple, hastily edited blink animation is all I could manage tonight. It’s not much, but it’s something not much…
And here’s how it looks set up for capture: 
I’m running out of simple, fun tasks and need to work on the hard stuff now. The battle with procrastination is only getting harder.
Where do I even start?
I’ve been busy recently and haven’t touched the game at all. In fact when I sat down at my workshop last night I realised that some of my models had cracked for some reason, and others had succumbed to gravity and were a bit warped. Good things to see, actually, so I can be prepared for what may happen later on.
Coming back after a break means that yet again I’m hit with the overwhelming bulk of work that needs to be done.
Planning is a real skill, and executing on a plan is another thing altogether.
My plan is to build out a demo level, in the swampy depths of the sausage factory, which will need the following:
- A playable character (ideally both of them)
- An environment set
- A collectible item
- 3 enemies
I’ve already built a good amount of the environment, and have started on the characters, but as a percentage of completion it’s probably only at about 5%.
It’s no wonder I’m feeling overwhelmed.
From next week I’ll hopefully be able to start spending 1-3 hours a day on the game.
Here’s a pipe. 
Here’s a panel. 
Here’s some glowing fungi. 
Might not look like much stuck here on the page, but it looks pretty awesome in Unity.
New Camera, New Setup
I got hit with covid and it sucked.
Now that I’m feeling better, and out of isolation, I’ve been able to pick up my new camera and a table to animate on.
I got the Canon RP and had the stop motion firmware installed, so that’ll work nicely with Dragonframe 5. I’ve tried out the high-res live view but still need to work out the nuances of focus peaking and aperture control. The quality of the images is impressive so far!
I wanted to get a sturdy square table to do the animation/image capture setup on, so I went to Ikea and thought I’d check their discount area first. I managed to pick up a high outdoor table and a plain tabletop which are working perfectly. It’s nice to have a table I can use standing up.
Pretty much all set up and ready to go now, just got to shake this covid fatigue…
