FWA, TFF, NFC, numerous attendances of MFF and AC. I don't know what to do next. Can't attend AC this year. Maybe MFF again. But I want to try more cons too. But what next? EF would be interesting, but I feel like I really need somebody I can attend with for an international con. I suppose I should do more vacations outside furcons but they're just such a convenient way to plan a trip.

My dirt finally came in. Yay. Maybe it'll whip me into better shape for MFF. It's been so long since I've been to that con!

AC is out next year, due to family plans, but the stars have aligned and for once I can make it to FWA! Super excited about that! I even landed the main con hotel! \o/

I got nice little day-trip plan set up too. Only about a 8 hour drive from where I'm at, but by splitting it into an extra day (stopping at a really cool hotel in Chattanooga to boot) I'll have a time to see some sights on the drive down! With Atlanta only a couple hours from Chattanooga, that gives me have the whole day to see sights before the con! Haven't decided what all I want to see yet, but I'm very happy with how it's turning out!

Oh hey, I forgot to mention I'll be making it to MFF this year! Looks like AC is out next year, due to family matters.

Either way, I've got a lot of shoveling to do because I gotta buy 10 tons of dirt to fill a sunken spot on my property :/

Looks like this year's going to be a good years for conventions! Not only do I have Texas Furry Fiesta coming up in a couple week, but Anthrocon too! Back when the hotel blocks opened up, I was extremely lucky this year and landed a room in the Westin itself! Granted, it's a single King-sized bed, but I don't think that will be a problem. Might even make it to MFF this year, too, but we'll see. Either way, it's looking like I'll get to meet up with lots of friends this year!

Getting excited for this one! It'll be the first time I visit this con and the first time I've been back to Texas for over a decade. If everything works out, I'll be getting to meet two long-time friends for the first time too!

I'll be driving down to this one, like most, but it's a fair bit longer of a drive. I plan to do it over two days but I could extend the trip there since I have the entire week off. Current plan is to stop in Memphis, Tenn part way through. Even the current plan on the 1st day has enough time to stop over at Mammoth Caves. But, I wonder if extending the pre-con trip might be nice. Except, I don't know what I'd stop and see between Southern Ohio and Dallas.

Gettin' excited! It's almost time now! Hard to believe this year has gone so quickly. Already wandering what to do there XD

Thinking about getting a camcorder for the fursuit parade. I'm kinda tired of snapping so many photos that my camera feels like it's burning my cheek, lol. But what is a modestly priced, well made camcorder these days?

Hmm, I wanna go again this year, but I also wanna do something different. Maybe something different at Anthrocon. Sucks that a good chunk of the year is pretty much a no-go still, but it seems like the situation improves every year. We'll if that continues this winter. But, I do need to make at least some plans. Seems like Anthrocon is the best bet but what to do...

So many projects, so little time! Seems I'm falling behind on my Conatus series uploads as I try to keep my timetables on the comic! 8 Commissions for Conatus still need write-ups, with the most recent slowly coming together. As yet, the Flames comic takes priority. But sometime soon I should really upload some of the comms that don't need any write-ups...

Was great! I was a bit worried it just wouldn't be the same after so many years, but I am SO glad I ended up going! The mask requirement did kinda grate on me a bit. Literally, I mean, I started to develop a callous from wearing them that long. Probably from rubbing my now-long hair against it too. I was very happy to see that everyone took the mask requirement seriously. It was very rare to see anyone without one, at least for more than the time it took to eat or drink something.

It was great to see friends again, too. Honestly, it was one of the best parts, really. Getting out again was nice, though I've slowly started going out again anyways. But, nowhere nearly as welcoming as Pittsburg! Other folks were pretty hungry for interaction as well, and I had a fair few fun and friendly conversations with complete strangers. Wish I could say I made some new friends as well, but unfortunately all interactions were fairly ephemeral.

The most bittersweet moment was having to leave on that last day. Not much can be done about that, but at least I have the memories... ...and about 1500 photos/videos :p

With this new microphone I'm thinking about trying streams again. Content would just be me working on my 3D modelling stuff with some music and light interaction. So far it's been rare to see even one viewer pop in, so I thought I'd ask:

Would you be interested in seeing how I work and what time(s) are good for viewing a stream?

If you're outside the Eastern timezone, it'd be a big help if you say so or convert to it.

Oh yeah, I forgot FA automatically resizes images to 1280 for the largest dimension of your image. Why it still does, I'll never know. So, I used the ol' trick and updated a bunch of comic pages (and some other images...) to their proper sizes.

Still, thinking about not bothering with that moving forward and just designating Weasyl as the home for all my full-sized images. Their 50 MB file size limit is pretty sweet, ngl.

Heading to Sweden next month! Shame I can only stay for a week, I'd love to see much more of the area! But, I just don't have the vacation days from the office. Not if I wanna hit the other cons I want to this year! Very grateful for this opportunity, staying with a friend and seeing the area with them. There's simply no way I could have done this alone. Really, I feel that way about all the cons I go to; it just wouldn't be the same alone.

It's really wonderful getting out of the house and away from the office even for a short while, to do something special!

Heya!
This journal's here for feedback on my stuff! I feel like it's rare to hear anything, so I thought this might encourage it.

Please keep it constructive and polite, but both negative and positive feedback is welcome. Detailed is appreciated, but a one-off comment is fine too.

I might reply, sometimes to clarify my view, approach, or restrictions I face. Please don't take it as arguing! Sometimes I just like to provide the context something took place in. I'm a bit of an explainer XP

Yeee, excite!

I'm going to be staying at The Westin this year! I'm going with a couple friends and I can't wait. Cons always get me excited. All the panels, workshops, and things to do! Dealers den, too >w>

Gonna be cruisin' around Midwest Fur Fest this year! I'll have my usual sigil badge, since I didn't get one of Dr Gravitas in time.

So many panels to see! I can hardly decide. Anybody have ones they're really looking forward to?

In case you missed it, you can follow me on Twitter DoctorGravitas!

And now I have a nsfw AD twitter too! Check out DocGravy for my naughtier creations~
Soon-to-include recent creations I've haven't shared almost anywhere else as well as background on older works, the hottest new experiments and future lewd WIPs

I don't actually consider Fur Affinity my primary account anymore. Haven't for a few months now.
I still update it (usually) but not always right away. Occasionally it'll get something exclusive, but not much anymore. These are the sites I frequent:

Weasyl <- Primary and usually the most comprehensive. I may not bother updating everywhere but if I do, it'll probably be here and here first.

Furry Network <- Yeah, I'm here too. Don't use it too often but that might change. I do like being able to add original videos without going to Youtube first.

soFurry <- I am technically also on here. Nothing much, though

Check out this guy's commission opening! Not often you see 3D model offers: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/7500602/

As I'm sure none of you are actually wondering, yes I am still alive and working on stuff. Progress has been focused these last few months on things that don't really translate well to progress scraps. I've done a lot of PyMel scripting work and I'm slowly working out UVs and texture maps. I'll eventually have something to show for it!

In the mean time, I'm still semi-regularly updating a critique request thread on Phoenixed on this 3D stuff. Feel free to check it out, as it does deal quite a bit about the new scripts I've developed.

Of course, questions, critiques, or even just comments are always welcome either on Phoenix or here.

I'm back from my vacation now!

Wanna see pictures of the Grand Canyon or read about the trip? Then check out my new blog on The Phoenix forums: Chernoblog! Their blogs are much nicer than journals here, with nice embedding options. So, I think I'll probably be doing a lot more blogging on there than I will be posting journals on here.

This entry a couple images to help you decide if you want to see the rest. As does this one. Just click the image to enlarge and you'll see full-size in the lower corner. Be warned! These smaller versions are still 3008x2000!

Most of the images are in a gallery, linked in this post: The Mother Lode. These are the full-sized 6016x4000 images! Conveniently, the post also contains links to each of the entries I describe the vacation in!


The Phoenix forums also contain the successor to my long-running 3D Dev/Critique request post: Here. Check it out! I'd love to get your feedback! I'll still be posting most of the scraps in FA, though.

For the last week of October, I will be hiking and camping at the Grand Canyon. If you don't hear from me after that, then I probably fell in! :P

No, no, I'm not starting a Patreon (Ha! could you imagine how badly that'd go?)

But, it seems they had a rather serious data leak with some email addresses, mailing addresses, and usernames being stolen from a debug server that was accidentally exposed to the public. Passwords were also stolen but were heavily encrypted (still probably a good idea to get it changed, but change your email password first!)

I thought my journal queue would be filled with people mentioning it, but there's nothing. So, I figured I'd put it out there for any people who use or subscribe to people through Patreon.

New Forums open!

https://phoenix.corvidae.org/

It's all shiny and chrome!

A flood of problems at work have kept me busy during the day. I'm on after-hours monitor duty, which surprisingly went fine right until the last day, but ate away at my concentration. Then everything fell apart and I spent most of the next day dealing with it. Bleh.

Work on the model didn't go a whole lot better. I spent a heap of time of time over the weekend trying to work out the details for my idea to end wire weight painting. Initial efforts were very successful. I was able to get a handle on how to use PyMel to navigate the mesh and its vertices. Then I started on figuring out how to get the weights and the vertices they are applied to.

That did not go as well.

I was able to get the vertices, I was able to get the weights, but I was confounded by trying to figure out how to determine which weights applied to which vertices. I gave up and asked a forum for help. The thread got a lot of views, but no answers, unfortunately. So, after the after-hours work today, I continued to try. Nothing. Then just at the end of it, I happen to come across a piece of documentation that details a capability to export deformer weights to xml. Importing them can be done by vertex id, nearest vertex, and something called over. All things I wanted and more and done better than I could have. All on a menu I never use because it's on another view that I don't look at often.

The lesson? I really need to read the manual more.

The forum link is no more. The secession is complete. FAF is now Phoenix. Crazy that, hmm?