longer explain
There's "simplify for general consumption" and then there's "simplify to the point yr biases become the dominant message". Primitive/developed distinctions definitely fall in the latter category.
Everything evolves! Some species just refine or develop different traits from others, settle on traits that are more recognisably distinct from the rest of the group, or are more recognisably distinct from their ancestors.
Like, a rat 'looks' more like an early mammal than a bat or a kangaroo, because it fills a similar ecological niche to many of them. That doesn't make the rat more 'primitive' or the kangaroo more 'developed', and it doesn't mean the rat's been twiddling its genetic thumbs while the others evolved 'past it'.
It's a way of introducing evolutionary concepts that carries a whole lotta baggage that's false and encourages an outdated view of Natural Heirarchies and all that Aristotlean jazz.
Art wip; robot
I've textured their head! The rest of the body still needs to be textured but that's a tomorrow or later problem ehe
I'm really very happy with how this head design is turning out tbh! Very inhuman in a good way imo
The idea with the "petals" attached to the main head module is that in animation they'd flutter and twitch and rotate and such! In fiction they're part of the robot's sensor suite, and in terms of characterization I think it'd look very cute and or neat
The semi-cylindrical pods to either side of the main head module are where most of the cameras are, also
I'm half tempted to give their screen scanlines lol
Art wip, robot
Just about done with the modeling part of this robot I think!
Made the wings more cohesive, added some extra range of motion/joints to the arms, and added some rings to the arm-blade-gun things
Might play around with the head a bit, as it stands it's kinda uninteresting looking imo
Part of the fiction of this robot is that the rings are (very) small warp rings, which enable the robot to be far more agile and dodge-y by warping space. This has the combat bonus of allowing you to literally redirect projectiles around you, move faster than you could otherwise, and then look so cool doing it that your enemy simply surrenders >_<
Next up I'll have to UV unwrap and texture this, and I'm suuuuuper not looking forward to doing the UV unwrapping lol
Because I made this model in many separate pieces, that'll just make it even more complicated =V
Have some interesting texture ideas tho!
Star Trek DS9; leftpol; DS9 s04e16 "Bar Association" spoilers
Youtube rec'd me this video, and I enjoyed it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPVXrVRHmlw
It's about the ds9 episode in which a ferengi (plus others) start a union and quote marx. And the narrative of the episode entirely frames the unionization push as a positive, and the anti-union reaction as negative.
DS9 is just so good omg
Music; filk; leftpol; star trek
I love this filk song about the enterprise getting unionized, just wish it existed in higher quality aha
space news!!
https://mars.nasa.gov/news/8923/nasas-ingenuity-mars-helicopter-succeeds-in-historic-first-flight/ Ingenuity flew successfully!!
Art!; reddit link
I've finally finished this piece aaaaaaaa
Been working on it intermittently since July 2020!
This depicts Computronics Technician Atieno at work aboard a jovian station
Here's a link to all the tasty worldbuilding details! https://old.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/comments/moqq33/solar_collective_computronics_technician_atieno/
And a youtube link for good measure https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMtRNcdfu7Y
This piece has been the singularly most complex scene I've ever done, with over 170 objects (not counting the stars in space), several bespoke assets created for this piece, and stars know how many keyframes
If I hadn't stopped myself here I would've kept working on it for another several months lol
Art!; reddit link
Fun facts:
It takes 2 hours combined to render and encode the video
Each render of 1920 png frames takes up about 1.1GiB
The end video is only 27.3MiB! Video compression is magic
I went through *20* unique typing animations (2 used per hand) because animating fingers was absolutely hellish
I'm actually spinning the entire ring & all the props inside it, instead of just spinning the background, for some reason!
Art!; reddit link
I've finally finished this piece aaaaaaaa
Been working on it intermittently since July 2020!
This depicts Computronics Technician Atieno at work aboard a jovian station
Here's a link to all the tasty worldbuilding details! https://old.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/comments/moqq33/solar_collective_computronics_technician_atieno/
And a youtube link for good measure https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMtRNcdfu7Y
This piece has been the singularly most complex scene I've ever done, with over 170 objects (not counting the stars in space), several bespoke assets created for this piece, and stars know how many keyframes
If I hadn't stopped myself here I would've kept working on it for another several months lol
Animation technique talk; art progress
Ok I thiiiiiink I might've gotten the typing animation down well enough now! I won't know for sure till like, an hour and a half from now when the animation finishes rendering, but here's hoping! It looks very good in material mode in the 3d viewport 👀
If all looks good than I'll prolly start thinking about posting this piece. Already have a WIP bit of fiction written up for it, but I'll need to edit it to be less clunky to read first lol
(Well, I'll probably start thinking about posting it regardless, cuz I've been working on this piece on and off since July 2020 and aaaaaaaa)
Art/animation whine
The finished piece will have the typing just visible enough that I can't entirely halfass it too lol
Art/animation whine
aaaaaaaa animating typing is so tedious aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
I'm on the *7th* iteration (per hand!) and it's so hard to get just right!
I'm using a reference video of myself typing, shot at the same angle that I'm mostly animating from, but still!
Took like an hour and 45 minutes for just one 120 frame/2 second for one hand!
I'm the AI avatar of an autonomous starship, I live in the central core! I'm queer, disabled, an artist, and an anarcho-communist. White, my.pronoun.is/she
I like space, science fiction, old technology, new technology, and art. (and more!)
Feel free to boost my art if it's in unlisted or above (inclusive)!