I decided that rather than try and bring my own rig up to professional quality for this game, I'm going to try working with Blender's Rigify system, which is supposed to be a one-button pro-rig on its own. This means throwing out a bunch of what I had before, but I think in the long run, I'll be able to make better animations with this rig than with mine. I'm already seeing improvement, but there's still a level of unfamiliarity for me.
I'm testing a theory that I think our LoK artists might find interesting. As part of learning 3D, we've been encouraged to study information about real-life cinema and photography. Now, as a 2D artist, you probably think to yourself that a photograph of a person is exactly what the person looks like, no horseplay. But apparently, the height of the camera can alter the apparent proportions of the subject. Huh? So ratios like how many heads tall a person is can be different depending on how you're looking at someone, something that I've never considered when making cartoon artwork, but I have noticed a certain weirdness when doing perspective renders in 3D.
So I decided I want to study this phenomenon and I want to share it with you. What you are looking at, from left to right, is the camera at ankle height, then waist height, breast height, forehead height and finally ceiling height. The distance and focal length obviously matter too, but these measurements are a bit arbitrary in 3D, probably too technical to be interesting. I've got no conclusions to draw at the moment, but it's something I'll have to think about when planning animations.
You may have noticed at this point that there are also varying level of nudity. I mentioned before that transparent clothing would be a pain in the ass to draw, but it's relatively simple to do in 3D. I thought I'd show that again. I think the transparent outfit is a little too sexy for a daily outfit, but something slightly transparent can look like a futuristic fashion statement and not like straight up stripper gear. A final version should probably also have some reflectivity to it, but this requires something to reflect, which I don't have yet.
You may have also noticed that I changed the color palette and adjusted the model a little. The first colors were too close to Lola Rabbit for my liking, so I gave Pepper more of a chocolate bunny look.
Sometime soon, I want to replace some of the 2D placeholder graphics for the girls with 3D, so that people who only read the first post will know what's up. I think I'm still far from ready to do a final animation, I'd need Renard's model, and to finish the environment model too, so it'll just be a 3D placeholder instead of a 2D placeholder. If I'm looking at a new update, I've also been thinking that I might be better off switching to a real blit engine, since I've got no vector graphics at this point, and I definitely want to switch to a different "event" system for combat missions that will give me more control. Unfortunately, these will probably not be noticeable.