Ask me anything

I have nil interest. So probably not.

You can find it over on my Galleries page, under the Games section. Click the game, then scroll down to the bottom of the pop-up and click "Play Game" to spin it up into a new tab.

Check the $basetexture path, make sure it's valid and points to a file that exists.

Each has their own unique challenges.

The most obvious challenge in working solo is you have to wear lots of hats. You need to know how to animate, obviously. But you also need to know how to scenebuild, how to light, how to choreograph. And then you have to know how to write. How to 3d model. How to texture. How to video edit. How to do VFX compositing. How to sound design. The only skill you don't really need when working entirely alone is how to direct, because you don't have anyone to direct. You have to be an entire production studio, all by yourself.

Working with other people lessens that burden, but also introduces unique challenges in its own right. The most important challenge is directing. It is a skill being able to communicate with people what you need, how you need it, and when you need it. Making sure everyone knows what is expected of them, and what to do and who to talk to when things go wrong - and things always go wrong. And as the director, you are responsible for everything that happens. If a voice actor or a video editor delivers something that isn't to your satisfaction, then that is your fault, not theirs. You didn't clearly communicate to them what you expected of them. And if it turns out that what you're asking for is just outside of their skill set, it is something they can't physically deliver, then that is also your fault as director, because you made the executive decision to work with them without properly vetting that they can provide what you need from them.

Another challenge unique to working with other people is the release of control. When you're working alone, then you have total control over every aspect of the production cycle. But once you hand work off to others, then that work is out of your hands. You are now at the whims of their production cycle. Bring in multiple people on a project, and suddenly you're now having to manage everyones' time schedules on top of everything else. If it's going to take a week for audio to be recorded, then that means you can't animate lip-sync (you don't have the audio), and it means that your editor can't mix the audio (it doesn't exist yet). And so now you have to organize the rest of the work around that, allotting work that can be done with the material you have while waiting for the material you offloaded to other people.

Ultimately, I find it's a trade-off. Working alone gives you total control over everything, but you also have to do everything. Working with others allows you to focus on the things you know how to do well, at the expense of now your production schedule is caught up in the tangle of other peoples' lives.

There is no objectively best solution. It all comes down to what you consider most important to you and your project.

I've answered this a few times in various places, but I really should look into a way to sort of have a pinned note at the top of the blog for posterity.

Before I answer your question directly, I want to briefly explain my work schedule:

The way it works, my schedule is split into two (shifting into three) categories: Longs, Shorts, and Micros. The way they work is that Long projects are singular videos that are massive in scope, such as Blue Star, roughly anything that's 20+ minutes in length. Short projects are videos that are between 5 and 20 minutes, with the goal being 8 minutes. And then Micros are videos that are under 5 minutes, aiming for 90 seconds.

The schedule, then, is that Longs are split up into segments, usually separated out by production milestones and ideally spaced to be 30-day segments. Shorts are worked on start to finish in one sprint, and ideally take one month to build (though realistically it's been taking at least two, I'm not happy about that but it is what it is). I do work on a Long segment, then shift to make a Short to release, move back to do another Long segment, then make and release another Short, so on and so forth. That way people aren't waiting years without any releases while I chip away at Long projects. The Long projects themselves take longer to produce, but the trade-off is more video releases overall.

Micros are a new experiment I only started on earlier this month, and they are worked on basically as a side-project. I put an hour or so into them before bed after I call it a day on the formal work. The goal for the Micros is that they are something that I can assemble, start to finish, in under a week - discounting the delays waiting for voice actors and sound design. Their goal is to have even more content being put out, as the Shorts end up spanning several months, without significantly affecting either the Long production schedule or the Short production cycle.

With all of that in mind, the current production cycle looks like this:

Long - Overbreed Episode 1, then Blue Star Episode 4

Short - Batcat, then a month to finally get the Frozen video finished and rendering as well as make progress toward moving over to Blender for those sweet, sweet cloth simulations, then undecided

Micro - Marie/Honoka Micro (just released last week), then Witcher Ciri Micro, then Claire/Jill Micro, then undecided

So Blue Star Episode 4 is still absolutely on the table. It's been staring at me, unflinching, drilling its gaze deep into my soul, watching me as I sleep, ensuring me that I am never truly alone. So basically it's been a Furby.

Overbreed Episode 1 is the current Long production. It's about halfway done as it is now, and I expect it'll probably take another 3 or 4 cycles of the production schedule to get finished. Which means at least another year. It sucks, but it is what it is. As a wise gaben once said:

Because if you're going to do something, you might as well go all-in. No point half-assing it.

This is what the DazV5 Bodygroups script, accessible in the main Scripts menu across the top, is explicitly built for. Select the character you wish to adjust, and then uncheck both the hand and fingernail materials.

By providing a texture.

$detail requires a string texture path. You can read about it and its correlated parameters on the Valve Dev Wiki.

Be aware that SFM Material Overrides behave oddly when adding parameters that weren't already in a VMT. If you're changing an existing detail texture you should be fine, but if you're adding a detail texture to a material that didn't already have one, it may not work as you expected. You may need to modify the existing VMT to add the parameters you're trying to override, and then use mat_reloadallmaterials in console to hot-reload the VMT in SFM (or just restart SFM).

You can follow my Bluesky for daily updates on my happenings. I think you'll find the answer to your question rather quickly.

*cries in not having a good Asari skin texture*