Update 10/15 - Sorry for the Late-Night Update, today was blood-clot inducing and was of garbage (Patreon)

AY

Okay, sorry, this update is going to be garbage.

Not because work hasn't been done, but because I am exhausted by recent events, I am very sorry. It is going to be very unstructured and very 'stream of consciousness'-y due to both my tiredness and the italian greyhound continuously scratching at my foot while I'm writing this.

I will go over what we have done in a fashion mildly shorter than in all previous posts because, honestly, my brain is like a mire with a shovel slowly sinking into it.

So, starting off... 

I was going to show you a new, fun little clip of Hunter today since we have honestly made an incredible amount of progress on it, but the render just kind of... didn't work?

I have no clue what happened but the file just... sorry for the wretched choice of word, but kind of perished at its very conception apparently?  

The file was just dead immediately after it was done rendering for no discernable reason, and I realised this after the 4 hours it took to render, just before I was supposed to write this thing.

Again, sorry about that, I will make sure to post something later, perhaps even before the next update.

...

Anyway, both writing, animation, the illustrating, even music-creation for the projects is going very well by all accounts.

We are more organised than ever, the workflow is more streamlined than ever, the creation process is more fun than it has ever been and we are currently planning on employing several more people to help make everything go even smoother.

We're all sitting in conference calls on Discord with eachother all day, the full 8 hours, working parallel to one-another to try to create this feeling of 'work-time' for us all.

It has increased efficiency tremendously and it has also just made me appreciate work a lot more since I get to hang out with people I like all day.

We give eachother constant feedback on what we work on like a proper studio and it's just an incredibly good time all in all.

Except for when things go horribly wrong.

The last two days have been like evil gremlins intentionally leading my toes into doorframes and guardrails to cause me mild pangs of intense suffering for a prolonged period.

I will now spend time whining about it because that's what you want for an update right???

I give you insight into this brand of mundane daily pain, who cares about Future Project, we must Talk About The Blood Clots (Coming 2022).

First, in conjuction with my adventures into employing more people, I have learned about a new tax. 

One I hadn't discovered before (like a new pokemon!!!)

One that, due to it not quite being known about by me, or at least how it truly functioned, wasn't really included in our budgeting and has thus made things a tad bit more awkward and uncertain in many regards.

So that was fun (no).

Learning about new, convoluted taxes that no one really informed you about properly is like learning that, yes, actually, witches ARE real and there is one that lives in YOUR potato cellar --->>>RIGHT NOW<<<----!!!!

Italian greyhound is STILL scratching, by the way, thought I'd give you a heads-up, it is maddening and she will not cease.

In addition! 

Earlier in the week, I finished 7 panels worth of animation whilst at the same time introducing a new potential employee to our process. 

I was very proud with this my accomplishment, production had been produced, progress had been progressed.

Then I discovered a fun new After Effects glitch (like new pokemonb!!!!!!!!!!!!)

None of my work had been saved in 20 hours.

Fortunately, I am an enemy of nature and good and household budgeting and leave my computers on during the night, so my progress still remained intact. 

However, it was just not possible to save properly.

This bug prevented AE from saving, simple as.

I looked up solutions to this and found a few. 

A lot of them made sense, but none one of them worked for me specifically.

I had to find my own solution through intense brain power (of which I barely have).

Eventually, however, through sheer fortune of the neurons, I came up with an idea!

If I can't save the stuff in the file, but the file is still open...

Perhaps I could copy and paste everything over to an old version of the file?

And so, I figured out a way to open up two instances of After Effects at once (Adobe, for whatver reason, refuses to have this be the default).

I opened up an old version of the file, made sure it could save, and then started copying and pasting.

OOH OOPS! FUCK YOU HAHAHA!!

IT'S NOT  T H A T   S I M P L E,   K N A V E

As it turns out, you can't just paste a comp in the new file into the old one, you can't just paste the LAYERS from one timeline into another, and you can absolutely not consolidate files and send them over because that demands saving and that is not allowed remember??

Okay, cool, so, there was only one way to do this left.

I had to spend 5 of my work-time hours, ones I could have spent making real progress, copying and pasting over everything I had done yesterday, manually, keyframe by keyframe, back into an old, functional save of the project.

This drove me to ape-mode.

After those 5 hours, however, my manual transferral of everything was complete and I could finally, FINALLY, ACTUALLY get back to work.

This is when I realised that 6 different tracks I had baked for the video had just magically vanished down a drain somehow in the interim, and that shit took me two days of just standing around waiting to finish rendering without AE properly functioning in the meantimeso them disappearing right then and there was the punch in the ass that shattered it all and thus my day was launched like a potato into the face of a child.

So, now, I am sitting here with you now, it's just past 2 AM, I am supposed to be in bed but I am slowly, SLOWLY grinding away at this post with the tractor that is my brain, writing down all of this even though I know it's mostly just a bunch of whining and caterwauling.

I suppose you could count it as being... extra transparent??

Again, I am sorry.

I insist, though, things ARE going well, generally.

It just hasn't been going well at the moment.

We are still far ahead of our schedule in regards to scriptwork and now also voicework, having recorded and done a first draft of the audio for EP2 of Hunter as well.

Next thing will be us finishing up the scripts for the third episodes of both On the Inward Bounder and Half-Life: Zero Viscosity, as well as recording audio for EP3 of Hunter and EP1 of HL:ZO.

In the meantime, we will be smashing our heads against the animation of EP1 and I will report to you when we are about to reach the end of it.

Italian greyhound has not let up with the scratching and I am desperate to end this.

Speaking of, EP1 of Hunter I can also now confirm will be about 28 minutes long from beginning to end.

Not as long as I wished it to be, honestly, but its the first episode, it's allowed to be a bit meatier I guess.

I need to go to bed now. 

Thank you for your time and patience, especially reading this particular update.

Until next time, have a good one!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!