Soulty's Yapping Corner

These past few weeks, I’ve been fully locked in. The heat’s been so intense that I had to switch back to a night shift schedule. I just can’t get anything done during the mornings or afternoons. Despite that, I managed to finish rigging three commissions and an add-on from a previous client, so it’s been productive.

That said, I really want to share a model I’m super proud of! I recently finished rigging it, and it included some features I’ve never worked on before.

It’s actually my first time rigging hair like this, and I’ve got to say, the artist, Noto_2D, did an amazing job adding the back hair parts I requested.
I gave her a visual guide to help her just in case!

I didn’t want to make compromises on the parts the model originally had before adding the back hair because, first, I didn’t want to misrepresent the artist’s work, and second, it wouldn’t reflect my rigging properly if I went ahead with it. Stretching the hair parts would’ve looked unrealistic, so I avoided that.

_{Sometimes you’ll encounter artists who refuse to cooperate and revise the parts and don’t allow cutting, which can be frustrating, so I appreciate and will always recommend artists who work alongside riggers to make sure the model gets all the love and care they deserve!}

Another thing was the Kabedon toggle. The model has a Body Lean paired with the Kabedon arm toggle, and I’m pretty happy with how it turned out! Huge thanks to Noto_2D for sharing reference images beforehand. She has been super helpful, and I really appreciate it.

My client, Kailyle has also been very kind throughout the process, and I truly appreciate both of them.

After wrapping up one model, I jumped right into working on another client’s project during my stream.
https://www.youtube.com/live/oCVYAVHhMJ8?si=YutfSsMNGVHTeSiY

It was pretty frustrating to realize that the rigging process hit some problems due to the clipping/masking limitations of Live2D Cubism 5.2.02. I had to let my client know I’d need to make some compromises for features like clipping masks. Once Live2D Cubism 5.3 officially comes out, I’ll revisit those areas.

The main clipping issue I ran into was with the model’s pants. The pants pattern needed to be clipped to the pants, and the shine texture had to be clipped to the pattern. The problem came up when I tried to move the pattern on the pants to create a 3D effect, making it look like the leg was actually turning. This caused the shine to start showing outside the pants, which wasn’t ideal.

Thankfully, my client was super understanding, which was a relief since it’s really important to keep clients in the loop about these kinds of challenges.

I’m also happy to say that I’m almost finished with this model! Just need to rig and animate the last few arm toggles to wrap things up.