Character rebuild (1/???)

Sorry for the lack of updates, the past couple of weeks have been a bit weird for me. I kinda ran into 2021 thinking that I wanted to do something completely different for a change, but after much time and consideration I decided that probably wouldn't be the best way to go. I couldn't quite get past the idea of abandoning everything I'd already done (especially when there's so much more to do), and it didn't sit well with me that I couldn't come up with any sort of sane backstory for the new stuff I thought I wanted to build. I don't think it was a complete and utter waste of time though, since a lot of the ideas that I did come up with are probably going to get remixed and serve as the basis for some image packs in the future.

Anyways...

As a result of all of that, I've sorta been stalling on posting anything because I wasn't sure which way I wanted to go. I think a lot of that is behind me now, so I guess it's time to start working on stuff in Houdini. I should probably note that I don't want to just copy over all my old work into the new software- I want to rebuild everything to take advantage of the new tools I have access to, and fix a couple of things along the way.

This coincides with a few new goals I have moving forward:

1) All characters *must* be fully inflatable. I'm really tired of not being able to do expansion/inflation content where the characters aren't getting bigger in some super obvious fashion. Most of my old OCs were trapped at a specific size due to technical limitations in CINEMA 4D, but this is something I need to fix moving forward in Houdini. The recent 3-pose renders I did of Jessica and Vanessa ("Jessica/Vanessa go Fwoomp") are a good example of the shapes and sizes that I want to be able to seamlessly shift between.

2) I want to start leveraging Houdini's procedural tools to build bigger and more complete environments. Before, my camera angles were a bit limited since the scenes I had were not complete, and thus there was absolutely nothing but an empty void behind the camera. I want to change this so I can start experimenting with some more dynamic camera angles, but also so that I can start rendering out a few more VR-ready pictures as well (yeah, I heard that- you know who you are).

3) While swimsuits are still my favorite outfit, I realize I need to start doing other stuff as well. I want to start targeting some alternative clothing (mainly sports bras + yoga pants, office attire, latex catsuits, dresses, wetsuits, etc)- but also exploring different kinds of scenes as well (living spaces, night clubs, beaches, offices, etc). I'll probably land up building out a reasonably complete pool side scene first just because that's what I'm most familiar with, but I don't want that to be the only scene I have access to either.

Anyways, yeah.

I'll probably be documenting some of my rigging process as I work through everything again, so expect to see some more technical oriented viewport screenshots for the next couple of posts. Hopefully I'll get back to rendering stuff again soon though.