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2B Tickled in the Machine Breakdown
🕑 Added 2020-03-12 23:07:04 +0000 UTCFirst off want to say hello and thanks to all my new Patrons! Looks like we got a good influx from the tickling community, and I'm happy to have you here. While there will be a variety of stuff here, tickling will always be a core part. I'm still pretty darn early into this journey, so I'm excited to have you along for the ride.
Let's get into it!
This one was a bit of a monster to get through, as towards the end animating and keeping track of 12(!) tickling devices became cumbersome. Thankfully I had a goal in mind from the start, and relied on having everything blocked out and a clear plan of action.
The main challenge was to keep the tickling devices (mainly, the hands) in consistent contact with 2B's increasingly writhing body. To do this, I used over two dozen empties parented (with the Child-Of Constraint) to the various parts of 2B's body. I then parented the hands/devices to these empties, at varying levels of influence.
Having two constraints, one to the chest and one to the (tight!) tummy, both set to 50%, helped to keep the hand in consistent contact. At the end of the day, there's no real way to avoid some clean-up, which I ended up having to spend a considerable amount of time brute-forcing my way through.
For the actual grabbing of flesh, I used shapekeys. This was easy when the hand was stationary, but when the hand moves across the body (such as on the inner-thigh), the challenge became how to animate a "moving" shapekey, or at least create that illusion. Using the inner-thigh as an example, I ended up creating 3 vertex groups (loop selections on the thigh) and 1 shapekey duplicated 3 times, and then assigned to the vertex groups. So, I would select an edge along the inner thigh, pull it out a bit under a shapekey, duplicate this shapekey 3 times (giving me thigh.1.L, thigh.2.L, and thigh.3.L) and then assigning vertex groups to these shapekeys. This gave me some consistency in the deformation.
For the hands I ended up going with basic IK rigs. The foot scrubbers used a different method I learned about while making this video; "bone hooking." Using a curve aligned with the tubes of the foot controllers, I "hooked" the curve object points to bones, giving me the ability to animate them all squiggly like (select bone in pose mode, shift+select curve, tab into edit mode, select curve point, Ctrl+H "hook to selected bone").
My original plan was to use this same method for the hands, but I'm thankful I didn't, as while it represents a "tube" a bit better, it's very time consuming to animate, as every bone needs to be animated to be convincing. In the end, I got the best of both worlds (though I will continue to investigate methods for future tickling videos).
The set itself became a bit of an issue later on as render times began to increase. The "beams" that go all the way up (using an array+mirror modifier) became very memory intensive (adding a million+ faces when turned on). My solution was to do something I've never done before; animate the visibility on/off in accordance with the shot. This was a bit tedious to do, but it let me keep my render times under 20 seconds a frame (necessary when you have 6,000+ frames).
In looking at tickling reference video, I discovered that the face doesn't actually move that much when laughing. I wanted to have movement/dynamism in the face though, so I decided to focus on the lips, making sure they slid up/down convincingly, exposing the gum-line (which really sells the effect of painful laughter). I used this technique all throughout the video, increasing it towards the end.
I had a choice to make on this last shot of 2B being tickled. I had already animated most of the movement and then had the inclination to... put it out of focus. Normally I ere on the side of clarity, as no one wants this kind of work to get TOO artsy, or at least the art should support the purpose (S M U T). In this case, though, I figured I could give myself some leeway. I felt the shot being off-center and out of focus made it feel as if the machine is impartial to 2B's predicament, and that it will continue to go on-about it's business no matter how much noise and writhing the poor robot does. What's the term for this technique? It's, uh... (*googles it*) "Mise-en-scène."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mise-en-sc%C3%A8ne
Finally, for this last shot where the building lowers into the ground, I really didn't want to parent everything to an empty (the rig, the building, the 12 tickle devices, etc). Not that it wouldn't work it just felt... finicky. So, I simply raised the whole landscape UP! With the camera parented to the land, I added two keyframes on the Z-axis. The best solutions are often the simplest.
I hope you enjoyed this video! Feel free to ask any more questions in the comments or on my Discord. I've been very happy with the response and again, welcome all the tickle lovers to this community.
Succubus Doms Elf is on the way, and I'll have another foot-club video out fairly soon (along with a loop at some point this month, when I need a break from the big animation).
Take care!
Comments
BaronStrap
Definitely possible but oddly enough she didn't affect the render time that much. Blender is inconsistent in what affects render time, to be honest.
Kocho-kun
would it have been possible to remove 2b from the scene entirely and just keep the sound going when shes out of frame completely at the end to save rendering time? (maybe u did that though if u said u already started doing that kind of thing earlier)
BaronStrap
Thank you, Lordmod! Happy to have you here. There will definitely be more tickling; I've got plenty of scenarios I want to bring to life.
Lordmod
Well, I can only say this one was a GREAT JOB SUPERB DONE!!! It includes two loves of me in one installment 2B and TICKLING!!! C'est parfait! I stumbled upon your vid on PH and immediately found my way here to become a Patreon! Keep the tickling going and
BaronStrap
This is the only one at the moment, but she will certainly be re-visited at some point!
Do you have any other videos about 2B.?I think 2B can be added to the next vote.
BaronStrap
Maybe someday! No plans at the moment but who knows.
I sincerely hope that another version of the video can be sent out. The Darker, Moodier one.
I think it's the best work in the world. I believe that everyone hopes that it will have a follow-up.
BaronStrap
You got it! That's the idea, sort of like an injection but electronic. Increasing sensitivity with every stage.
GravityShade
Thanks for the breakdown, its really interresting to see how everything works behind the scenes :D
This work is so wonderful that I want to know more details
I like your work very much.I hope you can tell me the story of this video. I'd like to know what the tube on her navel does. Does every digital change make her more sensitive?
I want to know what the tube in her stomach does. Could you tell us the story in detail. What's the meaning of the data sheet she saw?
Phil W
Masterful work bud! I love how much time you're putting into the explanation as well!
BaronStrap
It is! It's often very fun but there are definitely times when you have to just grind it out.
Kocho-kun
porn is hard work
