Progress Report - August 5, 2025 (Patreon)

Hello, everyone!

Frozen

Last week, I detailed the journey behind retrieving the Frozen audio, and then the task of getting it installed. I was hoping to at least be in the process of reconstructing the timeline by this week's Progress Report. As you can probably guess from this week's Preview Image, we're a fair ways beyond that.

I have undergone the process of not only installing the audio itself, but of finally getting the outfits attached to the males as well. This is utilizing a tool that I wrote many moons ago (I believe also on-stream), which takes advantage of the unique traits of the male characters (face texture, skin tone, and cock size) to ensure consistent outfits across shots, and unique outfits between characters. While procedural at its heart, I retain full authorial control over the output of the tool, and can change any individual male's outfit should I feel the need to.

With all this in tow, I elected to put together a preview of Mimi's absolutely wonderful performances as Anna and Elsa, to share with you all: the first four minutes of the core animation, along with the final 15 seconds of the Intro sequence to tie it all off.

I used these first four minutes as a vertical slice, to see how much effort would go into the full process, the render times involved, and the final quality. As such, this vertical slice is almost* fully sound-designed, though the results are... less than satisfactory. The asterisk on "almost" is that I did omit designing the footsteps for when the crowd swaps out.

You can click here to watch the full 4.5-minute vertical slice.

In total, there are 2685 unique sound-file clips placed in these 4 minutes, not counting the Elsa/Anna voice audio clips. While they weren't all meticulously placed, instead taking advantage of the rhythmic timings of the core animations and then adding unique sounds as necessary, and then using tools I've written to randomize the sound-file and pitch, it was still a lot more effort to put all of these sound-clips in than I have decided is worth it.

Beyond all of the sound clips installed in SFM proper, there are also a few layers of ambiance and reverb added in post. Those were, by contrast, much simpler to install, and while certainly not the depth or quality that I would ideally want in a project such as this, they add far more value to the final result as a ratio of effort-to-output than the sound effects do.

In terms of time used, it took about 2 hours to render out all of the sound effects, spread across 10 separate audio tracks. It took an additional 6.5 hours to render the video out at low-quality (720p, 24fps, 16 samples). I didn't keep track of exactly how long it took me to install the audio, despite it being split across two sessions. All together, I would say that - ignoring the effort that went into fixing various minor issues with the outfit tool - it took about 12 to assemble, render, edit, and mix this 4-minute vertical slice.

With all of that in tow, and with the final product in review, I have decided that I am not going to fully sound-design the rest of the project. I have stated many times over the years that the plan has always been to release this project unfinished. I have put too much time into it, and now too much money into it, to justify putting any more of either into a project that was never meant to get this big and I honestly regret having come out the way it did. Had I known I was going to end up making a 50-minute video project, I would have spent more time making an interesting and coherent narrative, rather than just the 50-minute montage with some half-assed narrative slapped onto it at the last minute that it became.

I have also stated many times that the goal has always been to release all of the source files for the project, with the express intent of encouraging other artists to pick it up and carry it across the finish line. Or at the very least, to encourage other artists to poke around at the project files and see how the hell this 50-minute abomination was put together, and maybe pick up a few things from it. I have always taken the mantra of "if I don't entertain, I hope to at least educate." If I can do one or the other, then I consider that a success.

As such, I have decided that--once it's all done--I am going to release the full low-quality rendered video with Mimi's voice work, and all the ambience sounds, only. There will not be any sound effects - no slaps or squishes, no jizz sounds, no footsteps, etc. Just Anna and Elsa making their Anna and Elsa sounds, and then the reverb-y ambience sounds.

The purpose of the ambience sounds, beyond just filling out the audioscape, is to discourage people from ripping Mimi's fantastic audio performance and using it in their own projects. If they want to do that, they'll either have to deal with a muddied soundscape, or go through the effort of reversing not only the reverb, but the various different layers of ambience. And if they're that dedicated to getting some free audio, then honestly, I respect the hustle.

As such, when I release the source files, I will include the placements of Mimi's audio recordings, but I will not include Mimi's actual audio files in the public release. The intent here is that, if someone can come to me with a properly sound-designed version of the rendered video, and with the animation properly finished, then that will prove to me that they are serious about getting the video done properly, and aren't just fishing for getting over $3000 of commissioned audio for free. It is only under those two conditions - proper sound design on the released video, and proper animation polish with the public source files - that I will privately release Mimi's raw audio, so that it can be properly mixed.

Obviously, there is still a few weeks of work between now and that public release (to say nothing of how long it will take to render - 6.5 hours to render 4 minutes extrapolates to 81 hours to render 50 minutes), and I will restate all of this very clearly with the public release. But I just felt like bringing it up now, to properly calibrate peoples' expectations.

Micros

While my main focus this past week has been the Frozen video, I have also been putting thought into Micros - both specific Micro ideas, and also the greater overall system of Micros.

My original intent with Micros was for them to be supplementary to the Short/Long cycle, an additional layer of video content while waiting for Shorts and Longs. As such, the intent with Micros was for them to stay around the 90-second mark, and to be released entirely for free on Bluesky, without any build-up or fanfare. This is how the Marie Micro was built and released.

Since the original intent was drafted out, though, things have changed. Shorts are no longer a thing. And many of my Micro ideas have themselves evolved into series. With Shorts no longer being a thing, that provides less incentive for the 1080p and 2160p tiers, which I am fully aware are the primary sources of funding that allow me to make my works without financial anxiety.

So I've been trying to think of ways to incentivize those tiers, in the wake of the death of Shorts. And I think I've come up with something.

As I've spent time writing out various Micro series, I have found myself naturally grouping related episodes into what I call "story arcs". For example, the Pharmmetra image posted above is a 4-episode "arc", of Pharah and Symmetra double-teaming Mercy. Each episode is written as a self-contained Micro, each containing a lewd sequence with a finisher as well as some narrative tissue tying it all together. But the four episodes are all tightly related - they all take place in the same location, take place sequentially, involve the same characters, and are an explanation of the same scene.

As such, I have been mentally organizing Micros in the following way: Series -> Arcs -> Episodes, where each Micro Series consists of multiple Arcs, and each Arc consists of multiple Episodes.

Furthermore, and central to this idea I've had of how to relate my Patreon tiers to the new Micros system, I have been internally blocking out all of the episodes of an Arc at the same time, with the intent of sending all of the episodes out to get voice recording all at the same time. Rather than bringing the same voice actresses in to record for the same characters four separate times, it makes more sense to me to have them record all at once, and then split that across four separate episodes.

As such, by the time the first episode of a Micro Arc is ready for release, I will have both all of the blocking animation and all of the voice audio for the entire arc done and in my hands. Nominally, the only things missing are animation finalizations and sound design.

With all of that in mind, the intent for Micros was always for them to be a drip-feed. I was aiming for ideally releasing a Micro video every 3 or 4 weeks. They have intentionally simple structures and short runtimes, with the design ethos of "I can block out a Micro, from start to finish, in a single sitting" driving how I write and build them. I always assume a turn-around of 7 days for audio recording, and another turn-around of 7 days for sound design, leaving a 2-week minimum between Micro releases. Then throw in the fact I don't plan to dedicate a single whole sitting to Micros, but to instead only spend an hour or two a night on them, and I think the 3-to-4 week turnaround between Micros is reasonable.

Take all of this together, and I see a new justification for the 1080p and 2160p tiers fall out: Micro Arc early-access.

I haven't figured out the exact particulars yet, and likely won't until I actually have a full Micro Arc in my hands and built. Let's run through an example to explain my thoughts. For the sake of concreteness, let's assume a 4-episode Micro Arc, like the Pharmmetra x Mercy Arc shown above. And for the sake of sanity, let's assume a magical release date of August 1, 2025 for the first episode of the Arc (obviously hypothetical, seeing how it's currently August 6 and I haven't even blocked it out yet). What I am thinking of right now, then, is the following:

August 1, 2025 - The 720p finished version of Episode 1 is released to the public. The 1080p finished version of Episode 1 and Episode 2 is released to the 1080p tier. The 2160p finished version of Episode 1 and Episode 2 is released to the 2160p tier, AND the unfinished blocking versions of Episode 3 and Episode 4 are released to the 2160p tier.

September 1, 2025 - The 720p finished version of Episode 2 is released to the public. The 1080p finished version of Episode 3 is released to the 1080p tier. The 2160p finished version of Episode 3 is released to the 2160p tier. Episodes 1 and 2 were already released to both Patreon tiers.

October 1, 2025 - The 720p finished version of Episode 3 is released to the public. The 1080p finished version of Episode 4 is released to the 1080p tier. The 2160p finished version of Episode 4 is released to the 2160p tier. Episode 3 was already released to both.

November 1, 2025 - The 720p finished version of Episode 4 is released to the public. The 1080p and 2160p tiers don't get anything special here, because they have already gotten everything early.

So in a nutshell, what I am thinking is that both 1080p and 2160p Patrons get early access to the next episode of the Arc, getting the first two episodes of the Arc at the same time as the public get just the first episode, and then getting the subsequent episodes 1 episode early. And then as an additional perk, the 2160p Patrons get the raw blocking version of the entire Arc at the same time as the public get just the first episode, so they know exactly where everything is going (and how the voices sound), even if the animation and sound design is unfinished.

Admittedly, this is a rather pessimistic version of the scheme. The optimistic version is that the public gets the first episode for free, the 1080p tier gets the first two episodes and gets 1-episode-ahead early access, and the 2160p tier gets the entire Arc, fully finished, all at once. But I don't want to hard-commit to that, because some of the Arcs I've written are pretty long (Demonseed, for example, has an 11-episode Arc in it at one point 💀). So for now, I am considering that an optimistic goal - if I can get the animation finished and sound design done for the entire Arc all at once, then I will pursue that. But the blocked-out-sequences I think is at least a solid baseline. And there is also the possibility of a halfway point - the sound design for the whole Arc being done, but the animation only being blocked out.

In the end, the exact nature of how the 2160p tier falls out will, I think, depend on the specific Arc being built. But at the very least, I am confident about the 720p public and 1080p rewards. 720p is self-evident, and the 1080p is only one episode - I can confidently withhold releases until two episodes are done, that's easy. It is the variability of Arc length that makes the 2160p iffy.

But that is what I have in mind for Micros, and how to relate them to the Patreon tiers. I am deeply curious to hear what people think about that - especially those of you who currently are, have previously been, or are possibly considering, those higher 1080p and 2160p tiers. Do those rewards sound like a fair trade, in the wake of the death of Shorts? Do you have any thoughts or suggestions for how to make those tiers more worth their asking price?

Conclusion

So yeah, in summary, I have a 4-minute vertical slice of the Frozen video ready for watching; I am going to be spending the next few weeks focusing on putting down just the voice work (without sound effects) for the rest of the video; I have been internally splitting Micro videos into Story Arcs; and I have laid out a potential way to tie those Micro Arcs to Patreon and am looking for feedback on the current plan.

That's all for now. I'm not sure what all next week's Progress Report will contain. It may not have anything of real substance beyond just an update on the Frozen video work. I don't plan to put out another render of it until all of the audio is in place. I would like to have all four episodes of the Pharmmetra / Mercy Micro Arc blocked out and ready to send out for voicing, but we'll see what comes of that. I'm not quite sure if I'll be able to do all of that in a week, given how I plan to only spend a few hours a day on them, rather than focusing dedicating days on them.

The next few Micros will be a lot of just figuring out things. What works best, and how they'll fall out.

But that's all for now! Until next week, everyone!