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Also, an apology.
🕑 Added 2020-03-25 18:35:05 +0000 UTCOk, so while I'm at this, I need to come clean with something that has been gnawing at the back of my head since I was building Symmetra's Textures.
In my current working Worfklow, texture build is the last step. This means I've rigged, bodygrouped and compiled the model. I always do a simple Rig Test in Blender to see an approximation of how will the rig behave in SFM (3-weight limit.)
Long, long ass time ago, I got a message from a patron. This patron was telling me that the position of the head bones in my models is wrong.
I shrugged it off. Honestly, I shrugged it off. Days go by, and then another message. Same guy. Same message. This time, it said I keep messing up the head bone position somehow (or something around those lines, not exactly that.)
I'm going to be honest. This was annoying for me to read. I couldn't help but think Who is this guy? Why the hell does he keep saying that? I have built many models with that same setup and then he's saying this crap?
I decided to just leave it be, and dismissed it as nitpick issues.
More models go by, and then Karin model happens. This same guy, yet again, saying stuff about the head position. I didn't take it well. Whenever I feel annoyed and I will begin to type stuff, I take a step back, sit down, take a cigarette and relax. Nothing good can come from anger.
While I was sitting down, I thought Maybe the guy has a point. Or maybe he isn't. If you truly want him to stop sending you messages about it, why don't you just do it and be done with?
Because of the nature of model building, modifying bone positions on already built bones is tricky and can lead to weird issues. Because of this, I mentioned I will try it with Symmetra.
Symmetra's base model preparation (change heads, fix rig and merge bones) was the fastest model preparation I've ever done. It normally takes me something around 2:30 hours. It took me 30 minutes. All I wanted to do is to run this test and be done with it. In the middle of the process, I made a duplicate of the original armature, so I could use both armatures to test.
The test was pretty simple:
- In one Armature, I was going to have the same setup I've used since I began doing this.
- In another Armature, I was going to change the location of the head bone to an approximation of the location of the original model head bone (in this case Symmetra's Head Bone, not Daz's)
I rotated the bones to the same angle, and then just changed between them with the Armature Modifier, already squinting to see, according to me, if there's any visible difference. There was. And holy shit it was visible.
I went back to the previous models I built and rotated the head bone. They all look the same, the weirdly same. And rotating the head bone in Symmetra looked natural.
Honestly, I couldn't believe it. I've been doing this for so, so much time. I've built more than 50 models in Patreon alone. And god knows how many before them. And all this time, I've been doing a fucking garbage job.
I felt really fucking horrible. How could I do that? Why did I shrug off this guy who was right about this issue? How could I be so fucking blind to not even notices how the head deforms? And more importantly, how could I fucking dare to charge people for that?
Lapinedours, I'm sorry for dismissing your advice. I'm sorry for all the frustration I made you pass of having the right answer to an issue I was too damn blind to see and was too damn stubborn to even think of trying. I'm sorry I called your rightful complains about glaring issues as "nitpicks." Your "nitpick issue" is the reason why I'm happy with Symmetra's head rig.
To everyone, I'm sorry for being such a fucking garbage model builder who can't see the issues on his own models.
Fortunately, the really bad time of self-loath with destructive self-esteem remarks has passed. I had a really rough time against myself, but thankfully, I recognized that I was horribly wrong but there's still a place to change, and the best way for me to truly be sorry about this, is by actually learning from this mistake.
By the way, just in case someone misunderstood: Lapinedours has been trying to help me with the bone location for I don't know how long ago. At first, I ignored him. This is what prompted him to keep mentioning it. He did the right thing, and I was doing the wrong thing. I owe him a lot, and this apology post will not even suffice that. I'm the one to blame, and I know for a fact he never said it in destructive way because otherwise he would have removed his Patreon Pledge and be done with me. He didn't. He kept supporting me even after downright ignoring him, which tells me his intentions were truly honest positive and for the best interests for everyone.
When you are doing this (or anything really,) you should never think you already have learned enough. If you have nothing left to learn, then you clearly haven't learned enough.
