Well of Souls Forums

I don't have any "plans" to change the format; I merely said that I wouldn't consider changing it before the end of chapter 2, in the worst case scenario. There is reason at present to be optimistic about the prospects for a productive 2018.

Siber wrote:The idea of breaking away from the comic format at the end of chapter 2 was, if I recall correctly, proposed at a time when the update was at a low(I made a graph because that's just what I do). Personally, I'd love to see the comic continue to be a comic if the current update rate can be maintained.

That graph is trending in the right direction
Also, the story is getting up to speed with our highly sympathetic protagonists almost marooned in a bug infested system...

Arioch wrote:I don't have any "plans" to change the format; I merely said that I wouldn't consider changing it before the end of chapter 2, in the worst case scenario. There is reason at present to be optimistic about the prospects for a productive 2018.

So glad to hear that Keep 'em new pages coming, can't wait to see what happens next.

Arioch wrote:I don't have any "plans" to change the format; I merely said that I wouldn't consider changing it before the end of chapter 2, in the worst case scenario. There is reason at present to be optimistic about the prospects for a productive 2018.

If we ever got weekly updates on a regular basis, I would be on cloud nine.

You know, if there is any non-creative grunt work that can be distributed out to the fans to improve the speed of updates, I'm sure some of us would be willing to help. I think I remember you saying that the 3D modelling was one of the biggest time-sinks. Would it be possible to crowd source some of that without affecting quality?

orion1836 wrote:You know, if there is any non-creative grunt work that can be distributed out to the fans to improve the speed of updates, I'm sure some of us would be willing to help. I think I remember you saying that the 3D modelling was one of the biggest time-sinks. Would it be possible to crowd source some of that without affecting quality?

Not really. The 3D sets take a lot of work, but the design element can't easily be removed from the 3D building part. It would probably take more time and effort describing exactly what I want to someone else than just building it myself.

The only task that could reasonably be farmed out to someone else is flatting (filling in the linework with flat colors prior to shading). That would require me to be a) several pages ahead, and b) more organized than I currently am. It's a possible option for the future, but more of a "stay ahead" option rather than a "get ahead" option. And I would insist on paying a fair wage for that kind of work; it's very tedious.

I have the situation pretty well in hand at the moment.

Oh Clearbrook is going for jump point to warn the next system, trapping our hero's in hell.

i can't blame them but its still a punch to the gut.

Zarya wrote:That graph is trending in the right direction Also, the story is getting up to speed with our highly sympathetic protagonists almost marooned in a bug infested system...

second the above

Arioch wrote:The only task that could reasonably be farmed out to someone else is flatting (filling in the linework with flat colors prior to shading). That would require me to be a) several pages ahead, and b) more organized than I currently am. It's a possible option for the future, but more of a "stay ahead" option rather than a "get ahead" option. And I would insist on paying a fair wage for that kind of work; it's very tedious.

That reminds me of "cell shaders". Modified shading algorithms for 3D rendering to give the resulting images the 'cartoonish' look: Dark outlines around the objects (with varying thickness), flat colors and visible 'steps' for lightened and darkened portions.

While it may not be the proverbial silver bullet, it does sound like something to reduce the workload of postprocessing the 3D imagery.

Flatting is a step in coloring hand-drawn 2D linework. It has nothing to do with 3D.

The 3D background renders do not use a cel-shaded style. The only real postprocessing is in compositing the 2D elements (matting characters behind rendered objects, adding character-cast shadows, matting in background elements like starfields). Shaders are of no help here.

The only thing that a cel shader might be useful for is the ships, but if I had ship models that were polished enough to be rendered, I'd probably just render them using a normal style. Most of the ships are hand-drawn based on very crude 3D models that could not be used for rendering. I might spend some time in the future polishing up some of the models for the most-often-used ships so that they're more directly usable, but thus far drawing characters tends to take up far more time than drawing ships.

I'm pretty sure Lightwave has some built-in cel shaders, but I haven't investigated them recently. At the time that I started the comic, they looked pretty bad. I assume they've gotten a lot better (the ones used in Yamato 2199 look pretty decent), but my Lightwave version is not particularly new.

Arioch wrote:

orion1836 wrote:You know, if there is any non-creative grunt work that can be distributed out to the fans to improve the speed of updates, I'm sure some of us would be willing to help. I think I remember you saying that the 3D modelling was one of the biggest time-sinks. Would it be possible to crowd source some of that without affecting quality?

Not really. The 3D sets take a lot of work, but the design element can't easily be removed from the 3D building part. It would probably take more time and effort describing exactly what I want to someone else than just building it myself.

The only task that could reasonably be farmed out to someone else is flatting (filling in the linework with flat colors prior to shading). That would require me to be a) several pages ahead, and b) more organized than I currently am. It's a possible option for the future, but more of a "stay ahead" option rather than a "get ahead" option. And I would insist on paying a fair wage for that kind of work; it's very tedious.

I have the situation pretty well in hand at the moment.

Well, if it involves the paint bucket tool in MS Paint, I could probably do that!

Would 2D backgrounds be an option if necessary?

Hālian wrote:Would 2D backgrounds be an option if necessary?

I do use 2D backgrounds in some cases where it's not worthwhile to build a full 3D set (as in some of the viewscreen backdrops, the Bellarmine bridge, the Tempest hangar, etc.), but painting all the backgrounds by hand would take longer than the current process.