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a year ago
YO FOLKS~! I've been wanting to be more active in furry spaces these days, but it's been hard to dedicate the time to do so. I also feel like things have been fractured in the furry world these days - I noticed a lot of folks tend to retreat to private circles and stuff. Or am I just projecting xD
In any case, YO WUDDUP?
Here's what's been on my plate these days.
TFOL!
Vixel and I have been making strides on our game these days! Finally getting more campaign progress in, and solving some bigger system problems that have been plaguing us for a bit. And the future of that game is gonna be NUUUUTS! I've got some crazy ass things planned, and I can't wait till it's all in!
We've been working with an environmental artist for our Act 4+ content, as that will introduce a unique and larger area. Super stoked! This sorta thing will add a whole other level of experience/lore/feel to the game :> Plus of course, raunchy stuff!
Oh, we're on Subscribe Star now. Patreon is still around too
3D Shenanigans!
I've kinda halted on 3D stuff for a bit due to a few reasons...
1) TFOL stuff has been keeping me busy.
2) Patreon has been a lil sketchy with their ban hammer recently.
3) Blender 4.0 broke all of my rigs =(! I could still work in older blenders, but newer smutbase models were in 4.0+ and it was just something I was dreading.
BUT, I've gone ahead and updated all the models :> And I've been messing with a fun Judy Hopps model! She's a lot more vanilla, so my recent 3D shenanigans has her featured. I'll be posting that eventually. Till then, if anyone's interested and hasn't already purchased it, I have a giant mega PWYW collection of 3D Smut here!
Bun-Statue!
The whole project was super enlightening to go through! And the sales have been going great too! I've sold about half of the stock so far. There's about 70 left? Something like that.
I recently got the premium boxes delivered as well, and they came out awesomely! Really slick, well worth the wait and research. Rigid boxes were for-sure the way to go :>
I am thinking about closing the shop for a bit though. Shopify lets you freeze/disable your shop and re-start it whenever! Since sales have slowed and they still charge a monthly fee, figured I might close it down for a bit and reopen later. So consider picking one up soon if you were interested!
Anywho that's about it for me art-wise. I've been doing a lot IRL to be more active and exercise, and general house maintenance stuff. The backyard has gone through a lot of work and is now a pretty awesome place to relax =)
But like I said, it'd be cool to be more present on websites again. So ask me anything! Artist of nearly 18 years, Animation and Furry freelance for about a decade, and game dev for about 5 years. I like being a resource, and I've got a bit of experience, so ask away!
In any case, YO WUDDUP?
Here's what's been on my plate these days.
TFOL!
Vixel and I have been making strides on our game these days! Finally getting more campaign progress in, and solving some bigger system problems that have been plaguing us for a bit. And the future of that game is gonna be NUUUUTS! I've got some crazy ass things planned, and I can't wait till it's all in!
We've been working with an environmental artist for our Act 4+ content, as that will introduce a unique and larger area. Super stoked! This sorta thing will add a whole other level of experience/lore/feel to the game :> Plus of course, raunchy stuff!
Oh, we're on Subscribe Star now. Patreon is still around too
3D Shenanigans!
I've kinda halted on 3D stuff for a bit due to a few reasons...
1) TFOL stuff has been keeping me busy.
2) Patreon has been a lil sketchy with their ban hammer recently.
3) Blender 4.0 broke all of my rigs =(! I could still work in older blenders, but newer smutbase models were in 4.0+ and it was just something I was dreading.
BUT, I've gone ahead and updated all the models :> And I've been messing with a fun Judy Hopps model! She's a lot more vanilla, so my recent 3D shenanigans has her featured. I'll be posting that eventually. Till then, if anyone's interested and hasn't already purchased it, I have a giant mega PWYW collection of 3D Smut here!
Bun-Statue!
The whole project was super enlightening to go through! And the sales have been going great too! I've sold about half of the stock so far. There's about 70 left? Something like that.
I recently got the premium boxes delivered as well, and they came out awesomely! Really slick, well worth the wait and research. Rigid boxes were for-sure the way to go :>
I am thinking about closing the shop for a bit though. Shopify lets you freeze/disable your shop and re-start it whenever! Since sales have slowed and they still charge a monthly fee, figured I might close it down for a bit and reopen later. So consider picking one up soon if you were interested!
Anywho that's about it for me art-wise. I've been doing a lot IRL to be more active and exercise, and general house maintenance stuff. The backyard has gone through a lot of work and is now a pretty awesome place to relax =)
But like I said, it'd be cool to be more present on websites again. So ask me anything! Artist of nearly 18 years, Animation and Furry freelance for about a decade, and game dev for about 5 years. I like being a resource, and I've got a bit of experience, so ask away!
Y'all definitely been keeping busy.
There are a number of good reasons that people go elsewhere, at least in addition to here.
But I dunno, I'm over personalized feeds and hijacked submissions.
I never wanted to be on there, and I'm happier with that decision all the time.
And: https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/
Just a couple of examples.
But I liked hanging out on these sites. so here we are lol
We didn't have a data base for the game before, and with how much is going on, that wasn't going to last long. So Vixel recreated the whole game's experience with a database and rehooking everything up to work with that. Plus new systems and what not for smarter back end shenanigans.
But even more recently, we're re-looking at how the game handles chunks of content. We want things to be re-playable in the future, incase someone who has their critter in the game, wants to redo their quest or something, it'd be good to have these things in segments and portions. We had a system with the database, but it was too general, we need something a bit more inclusive and useable to achieve these things.
I'm on the art/design side though, so that's all Vixel tackling that stuff! Shit's nuts :O
I wonder if y'all can share some of the code? I'm quite curious, even if it was just some snippets here and there :o Totally fine if not, I know the source codes can be quite confidential - especially if it's for a bigger project...
I can't really promise anything helpful back, though I could possibly offer some of my own knowledge in return. I just think stuff like this is just really cool, and I love seeing how others handle their game logic! Event/segment based database architecture sounds quite complex!
I can't speak for the actual literal code, that's all Vixel. But yeah I feel ya, the problem solving needed for so much of this stuff is crazy xD. It's fascinating hearing speed runners talk about manipulating systems on older games. Those folks had to deal with some insane constraints and they got reaaaally creative.
I checked Vixel's Twitter and I saw tidbits of the code there, y'all have all sortsa fun stuff! All them state machines and everything xD Coding can get a bit crazy, however it's really enjoyable to just, play with the program and see how things work! I remember all those Super Mario World speedrun TASes where they picked up Yoshi at the correct coordinate, ate berries in a different one and jumped on that one guy, then that programmed the game again so it became Tetris... Funny how you can do so much as long as you know what you're doing!
It's super cool to see y'all doing this project, it must be a blast to work on it!
Yeah, SS has its own flaws, and tbh, I’m not super confident it’s not gonna just do what everyone else does eventually and also kick people off due to content. I have it on some authority that they do play under different rules, but for how long, is the question.
1. The Moderation Team/System: Over the past few years the staff of the site have proven less then stellar both with how they operate and communicate. The biggest points are the obviously outside motivated bans involving politics or certain world events that I won't get into here for the sake of making sure the post isn't purged. This was culminated last year with that overly vague rule change that gave moderators full discrepency to 'ban as they see fit' regarding certain content (I.E opening the floodgates to selective enforcement) which most people deemed unfair for hopefully obvious reasons. It was a problem for years before, but now was very transparent about how little they really cared about being safe for artists. Double so when a certain interview on a podcast came up and the owner basically admitted he and some staff being content with or possibly complicit in criminal activity of... for the sake of protecting myself and this comment? It involved Drugs, a Dog, a Dozen Men and a Convention where nobody was ever held for the probable death of the animal in question. The user who did the interview was banned 16 hours before that podcast episode was to go live under provably false allegations, as if further showing the level of refusing accountability.
2. The Artists who Left and the communities who followed: I'm not going to sugar coat it, this one hurts us all. The Artists who used to frequent this site after everything above was made public had their eyes opened. Most of the smaller community was dealing with it for a long time, but seeing not just one but several of the sites top artists get brigaded on social media and banned because of staff created fake outrage? That was enough for most. Add on that many artists who are successful are dealing with another big wave of ideo-political activists pushing their way into the site and trying to ruin their lives with (no surprise) toxicity, social terrorism and even full on criminal activity themselves just like Tumblr did? A lot of people either left to smaller bubbles using Mastodon forks like BlueSky, social server hubs like Discord or the many other sites that have risen like Itaku or Pixiv in what many call the "burned fur incident 2.0". When the artists people cared about left? the community they built followed. Many of them are happier elsewhere that won't start banning and brigading people for obvious nonsense claims like 'photo textures on 3d models' or 'a character looks too childlike'. See point 1 on that front.
3. The lack of care by site developers: This one is pretty simple and easy to understand. FA as it stands has a backlog of promised features going back 10+ years. This includes an active Blacklist Filter, Name Changing and a funtional user block button as just a few examples. Every other site has these things out of the gate and everyone knows they aren't hard to implement. Given the money that was generated from FA+ (which was implemented as an on the spot feature instead of the above)? Its a laughable statement to say thats alright. Given the aforementioned two things its not hard to say everyone has been discontent with it all to put it mildly. Given point 1 specifically many out there even believe the staff have been embezzling funds from the site, me included.
TL:DR All in all the site is in a REALLY bad place and the apathetic (if not openly hostile) staff over the past 10+ years has made everything fall apart. The "Wider Global Audience Fallacy" only further buried it by scorching those who were here as a community for a nebulous something that didn't exist much like Hollywood and AAA Gaming while the refusal to implement basic things were just nails in the coffin.
As for everything else? I'm so glad your continuing that game. We need more games that try to be fun first these days. I hope you guys have the level of success that will let you shine brighter then ever.
While the 3D stuff is sad to hear was such a problem Blender has always had its fair share of issues. Even I had my fair share of unfortunate model breakages from that upgrade. At least its not too bad a fix at the moment all things considered?
I do have to wonder as a question- What would you reccommend to keep a solo dev going despite the odds? I have so many wories in the modern day about what will happen if I ever do drop a trailer at minimum that its crippling. I live in a place where the legal system will bend me over a barrel for the slightest thing without evidence so its pretty hard to find myself in a place where I can't fear something on top of even that.
If artists leave, the viewers will leave. Totally agree with that. And furthermore, what happens when an artist is “everywhere and nowhere” at the same time? Thanks to things like Postybirb, we can post to 10 different websites, and never log into any of them.
Don’t get me wrong, Postybirb is a god send, but I can’t help but consider the repercussions, and I’ve talked to the devs and they’re in the same boat. But of course, they aren’t to blame, it’s still the artist who is choosing not to participate in the places. Though time is always a factor.
And for sure, “taking a stance” has been the death of many upcoming furry sites before they’ve even had any chance of success. Go figure one of the most successful places is twitter, which doesn’t have a stance on anything in the furry sphere.
I definitely hope something comes of it, but I also understand that a culture splitting into subcultures is only natural as the culture grows. So i guess it was just a matter of time, and we need sturdier subculture places to be?
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The 3D conversion stuff wasn’t too bad. 4.0 rigify is worth the updates! Problem earlier is that it wasn’t documented how to like, fix the rigs and the script such that the bone layers will show up on the N-Menu. But I found a youtube covering it a bit ago! After some script finagling, voila! The rigs are good to go again!
How to keep going - that’s a tricky one. Honestly, your brain is your biggest enemy and friend. Our brains are like, pure potential. So it can go either way. Channeled purely into focused effort, or volatile in anxiety and stress.
I don’t have an answer, but an observation I have is I was a lot happier/productive when I was much more oblivious to a lot of things. Back in college I only had one care, and that was getting good at art. But as I grew up, I learned more about the world, learned more about my aging body, and all sorts of bullshit. It’s HARD to not consider this stuff, since it will effect us for sure. But man, if you have the ability to push it down or ignore it haha, then that will go far xD
Try to focus on what’s actually on your plate and what things you can actually affect as an individual. Not to say give up on bigger world matters, but if your effectiveness ends at reblogging something or donating 10 bucks, then do that in a minute, and try not to fester on it. - I love when I come up with advice that sounds pretty solid, but it’s something I absolutely don’t do lmao. Here’s to us both xD
One thing led to another and we went from "I am ARTHAS dethmurder, ILLIDAN'S half simbling. I am doom, i am gloom, I AM THE STARTING DEATHKNIGHT QUESTLINE AEDVNETUR!!!" to being told. "Death knights are shit in pvp, play feral druid if you want to pvp. They have good passives, stealth, healing, plus you get to be a kitty cat".
So wanting to be good at pvp and arena, the misfired domino fell down. Played a druid and then tried to get into angst, got told. "Hahah, no one believes in a edgy cat, go play warrior cats or be the hunters pet."
So the fandom was more of just like a roll of fate. It's like those butterfly effect things. Had things been different, there probably could have been like some split reality where instead of like some weird oc, maybe instead of fursonas i might have ended up in the dnd or edgesona fandom, or grew out of it instead.
So we had our fun, as kids, we had time, but no money, so we drew. Artfights and characters were a escape, we'd play our adventures like.
The cunning adventurer cat, smiles as he sharpens his claws. "Ahh. a pothetic adventurer, i see? Turn your back on me.. and i'll rake you and make sure you bleed". "Mmm.. yes... harder daddy".. -"WAIT.. WHAT THE ACTUAL FU"
Then plot derailment happened and we started to collect art. But as we grew, the time commitments to being a adult with a 9-5 and a busy workweek took over. We didn't have as much time as we did before, so we started to view art a bit less and less. Even within the rp world, it felt like the furry community shifted less from two sided care "Thanks, that was wonderful" "I know it's a fantasy, but i want you to be happy and having fun too!" to a "SHUT UP, SIT THERE, STOP MOVING, AND LET ME CUM IN YOU B!@#!#." "i don't get any dates, LEAVE ME AND I'LL STALK YOU!" "LOVE IS STALKING" "PEOPLE ARE NOT people with their own thoughts and dreams, BUT POSSESSIONS THAT SHOULD BE TAUGHT THEIR PLACE!" "I CAN'T COOK A PIZZA ROLL, I NEED A !@##! WHO CAN!"
I don't know if it was me, bad luck, or just the age of adulthood on previously happy kids aging into adults. But it was a serious eye opener to me that the fandom toxicity that seemed to once be a place of refuge, positivity, and a sanctrum away from toxicity seemed to be swinging around the other way. I'm maybe not the best with a sapient feral avatar. But i also found mildly creeped out by some communities going from humans playing sapient wolf / cat / lion / sentient feral sonas. To people openly fetishizing disturbing and trust eroding imagery, even for fantasy players.
I had some people in my circle who were creeped out on say places like flist by people asking them to play nonsapient animals for snuff rps and it was just like honestly shocking. I heard people getting banned for run ins but also not much run ins myself. It just seemed weird th at while i didn't run into trouble myself. Apparently one dude was able to dm 10000s of feral players, asking them to see irl 'pictures' of feral players pets in extremely uncomfortable ways. And it was like past any comfort levels. But like openly human trust eroding, beyond any sane fantasy stuff. Like the guy creepily asking to imagine their pets ... [beyond any sane WHAT THE ACTUAL F...]
Like i can't even say the horrible stuff that rhymes with sn + ruff. But it was disturbing. I admit i seperate fiction from fantasy. but it did seem to kinda leave a seed of doubt that people like that seemed to be roaming free, but while i didn't run into issues myself. I heard word vs word alleged allegations that one person having a spat with a internet mod being banned from all services, while another ran free if they commited yikes, but were on good terms.
I can't say f list, but i did mod a couple 1-50k discord communities and i can vouch while i didn't, i definitely had co team members who did. People would moderate what they wanted, and often give their friends a pass. sometimes word vs word allegations even being openly corrupt to the point word vs word was a staff member i knew to be slightly dodgey, but unproven. Vs 4 members who said they collided and banned before they could share their side.
At the same time, i also had like individuals 1-2s or multi account users try to do the same to smear me too, a passerby can only know word vs word, but you can know your word vs theirs when someone tries to rwt / sell gold with blatantly fake named accounts named after you. Much in the same way you can't know what cookies another person ate, but you can know what cookies you DID eat.
Still though, i guess we all see stories from our own perspectives, and speak of the devil, i was absentmindedly playing Forest of love after shelving it for a year just the week before. I think the relationships seem casual. But i think lust with love, or lust can be great. But it does feel like a lot of people confuse "obsession" (stalking/ignoring a partner's mutual wants) with "love" vs love.
I do enjoy the odd heart string pulling story from time to time. And i admit maybe i have a part, im mostly straight headed 29 out of 30 days of the month. But on the 30th, i'd sometimes write a nsfw smutty fic. Since the smut chars were often npcs and i cared more for human attachment with the people i was irl close to, i'd skip development on them. But it attracted a bunch of people who felt like stalky obsession without love.
I had people who'd jack off to a picture or story i'd write or commission i'd order sure. But i had a serious incident where a friend i cared about, antics or not was going through something serious. Someone he wasn't very close to, but whom his friend was, had grievously injured themselves and blamed it on him. When i tried talking about it. I realized that the people i thought would care, on the furry fandom, didn't seem to care a single bit, at least for the first 5-10 people i met. Nearly all 9/10 just said "shut up" "im here to fap" "dude stfu, i don't care" "love is cumming, and giving u stds luv. i don't care" kinda antics.
Irl connections went. "I see you're down, maybe we've had our beef, but i care about you as a human too. Are you alright? Do you want to talk about it?"
To me, that was a jading moment for me. Maybe i'm yapping on. But it seemed to be a lesson, that although the furry fandom would have a bunch of people deliver comments, at least for me, the circle i was building didn't seem to be a circle of people who'd even bother to reciprocate time or affection or empathy, well, at least the first 9/10.
It seemed like i built a circle that only cared to jack off, see people as holes / wish fantasy npcs, couldn't care less about the person. and just wanted to use people for pleasure, jack on them, leave, or stalk them, and call that 'love'.
Idk, maybe im over reading/extending or over dumping here. But i admit yeah. My character was pretty much "what if a hentai panther had 2 sets of dicks, every set of genitalia, tentacles, and a occasional cocktail" but idk. I had my fun. But a comment like "I don't care about you as a person. Im here to have your character dick me. Shut up and dick me". kinda.. Just took the fun and heart out of it, and super jaded me.
I found good people now, and the guy who was alienated, he actually blew up on me "DO YOU JUST CARE ABOUT SEX!!? Someone around me JUST hurt themselves, i have no idea if it's real or not, people are blaming me, I DON'T WANT SEX RIGHT NOW!".
We ended up making things up, because i knew what it's like to just have people ignore you when you're down and only care when you're up. And im happy with him. I think i at first thought that i wanted to be friends and "keep everyone", but idk. i think maybe, it's better to keep the relationships that count, to each of us. Or for me at least, Than the 999/1000 that don't.
Sure, the fantasy is fun. But if people don't even care about their partner's health or comfort, even for words that are free or pretending. Than how can you blame anyone who gets
jaded? I'm pretty much a jaded hentaipanther for freaks sake haha. But im happy with my irl connections.
Some stories end, some stories move on. I still love a good experience. But i think closing the walls to bad ones and skimming/background checking people is alright now.
Still though pets bring up a fair point even on some of our most beloved companions. Plus he's have no feelings, np need to be fed, are constantly warm and snuggly. But aren't real. People and animals are, but each might come with different needs.
Walks, food, play, checking diet, nutrition, exercise, A safe and quiet place to sleep, bathrooms/litterbox /yards, eaten scratched furniture etc.
I've heard some sadly mixed storied on things as basic as pets by gen z messed up. Some people really love their animals, but negligence can be just as harmful as abuse. I know some people who seemed friendly and ditzyheaded but when they went for a surprise trip for a week. They did so on a impulse and left their dog without water or food for a week. Which their neighbor found out by seeing their dog starving in a window.
When they came back, animal control was called on them and while the people didn't seem intentionally evil. It was a sad reminder even thoughtlessness can hurt a vulnerable pet. One of The most basic things to take care of next to a human. No autofeeder, no auto waterer. Not even sure if there was air conditioning either.
I love our furry companions and I'm a real animal lover who wants to trust in everyone but idk. Stuff like that made me reduce it from a "oh I shouldn't ask questions, its just a dog, right? Stop worrying about your gut saying something is off. They'll be fine."
Can we be friends? lol
And considering the tone of the game I think you're going for "Endo" vore specifically, soft vore can still imply digestion.
welp, all good then.
And good to know in endo vore! Noted, thanks
The way I see it, creativity is a combination of knowing what exists, and knowing what doesn’t exist.
You may have found yourself stumbling on a concept and thinking “why isn’t this a thing?” - that’s an example of creativity. And you couldn’t have come across that thought unless you knew what was out there in the first place. The more ya know what’s out there, the more ya know what isn’t out there!
Have you guys considered expanding the development team? I might not be able to contribute much (as I do have bazillion projects ongoing too), but I do have a knack for debugging and solving smaller tasks, so maybe that could take some of the pressure of Vixel, so y'all can focus on the more important parts? I can work fairly independently once I get to the swing of things.
I know it's pretty random for someone you don't know to message you, however I just really enjoy what you guys have made and I would love to support you! I don't really know how to contact Vixel directly, so could you ask if he'd be fine with it?
Do ya have any unity projects show-able? Getting an idea where you're at in your journey would help us. One possible way of expansion is keeping things pretty segregated, in which, we'd work with someone to make one particular system, like a mini-game. Once everything is working, then we can take it and implement it in the game. But even making a minigame requires an insane amount of knowledge and experience.
I actually don't have much Unity experience, however I don't think that's an issue - I have more experience from non-game software projects. I have experience with .NET environments so C# is familiar to me. I've worked with big and scalable projects, so big codebases and new systems only make me excited. It'd take me some time to get up to speed with projects like this, but I think that'd be for anyone; I hope I can also bring some of my specialized knowledge to your project ^^
I'd love to go more in detail, if you can add me in Discord @ gaggosmies so we can have a chat!
What kinda minigames are you guys thinking of? "Insane amount of knowledge" sounds like it'd have multiplayer (networking), global high scores (public server & database) or some intricate text-based adventure games with bazillion endings (that sounds like a hassle in data structures...). I mean, I could do these - though we'd have to discuss a lot about specifics then, such as where to host all the required servers, also required timelines etc...
Unless you mean something simpler like memory card game, where the actual difficulty comes from the user experience: How does the cards bounce/animate when clicked, sound design, how long is everything shown etc. Same goes to other similar simple minigames, I don't think the implementation will be an issue at all - the most difficult part would be to do the specifics, and those aren't really code related but rather the user experience.
How much would you be involved in the planning process, like would you do the arts/graphics and handle the overall mood of the minigames? I can handle coding but when it comes to design parts, that's where I'm lacking ^^' That's why I think it'd be cool to maybe collaborate, being able to share actual feedback and make the best games possible.
I might not have any Unity projects showable, but if you guys are interested, then maybe I could make some sort of trial project? Making simple minigame/s shouldn't take too long to make and it could give you better idea of my skills.
sorry just random thoughs.
I don’t think I’ve actually drawn one before though.
Though I guess it's best time as ever to say I have been enjoying your art probably since college. Really love the artstyle. Also yo udraw always unexpectedly weird stuff, and I am here for the weird shit x3 If life gives, someday I'll be able to afford a commission from you or something.
3D Stuff WAS paused, but as I said in that section, I've been picking it up again and things will continue~!
I do have a youtube where I gave it an attempt. https://www.youtube.com/@CarrotTalks - you can get the vibe I was going for.
Also there's just tons of folks who do the general how-to-art track in a really solid way. My "how-tos" would be more beneficial if it was maybe regarding something game dev related, animation, or smut-design. Proko is a classic, Marco Bucci is my personal favorite, Aaron Blaise has a ton of learning content. etc!
But am curious is Rascal will bottom more in future cx? While top Rascal fun I'd be nice if he services the other males in the game nwn
also side not in the future id like to see a lot more choice available with partners and acts. it would be a lot better than kinda being forced into acts or with partners someone may not be entirely pleased with if ya catch my drift.
other than that the game was pretty cool and i hope to see some more things from it in the near future.