Christmas Message
Hi, everyone. It’s been a while since I last posted here. I just wanted to write here to say, first of all, Merry Christmas! Christmas is a special time of the year because it celebrates the birth of the eternal uncreated God who came to the Earth as a baby. Christmas tells us that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh, the one prophesied in Isaiah 9:6 (and many other Bible passages) who came to the Earth to be our Saviour.
“For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
(Isaiah 9:6, NIVUK)
“And there were shepherds living out in the fields near by … the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. … On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise the child, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he was conceived.” (Luke 2:8, 10–11, 21)
Whether you’re celebrating Christmas with family and loved ones or experiencing it alone. Whether you’re at a happy point in your life or a sad point. This Christmas, may you know the joy of Christ, which is his love for you. May you feel the presence of Christ, which guides you. And may Christ carry your sadness and pain and use it to build your trust in him, and to draw you into full dependence on him and his grace.
On behalf of Sammy and her friends, as shown below (including Eric and Maya, who are not in the picture, but present in spirit!), I wish you a blessed Christmas and a Happy New Year.
What’s Been Happening
Newest Instalment
Secondly, I want to confirm that I have been working on Part 11 of Samantha’s Quest. Because part of this episode takes place in a new area of the city (with the most original name ever, the “Entertainment District”), I’ve had to create a few new 3D models and assets, and put them in place, which has taken quite some time (and which I’m still working on).
Rest Pose Madness
The other thing I’ve been working on, which has taken up the vast majority of my time in the ongoing creation of Samantha’s Quest, is something… quite complex (for fans who aren’t 3D modellers, don’t worry if you don’t understand a word in this part. In fact, if you skip to “Plans for a Movie” you won’t miss anything vital).
Originally, Samantha’s character model (and the other female characters, which have the same armature so far) was in neither a T-pose or an A-pose. Although everything worked fine, it’s generally recommended in 3D modelling for a character to have either of those poses as their default position (for various reasons, like weight painting, for ease of use in certain functions of game engines, etc.).
I thought about it for a while, and eventually made the INSANE decision to change Samantha’s rest pose from a normal arms-down pose to a T-pose (the T-pose worked best with her dress), which required me to edit all of her hundreds of animations (yes, like I said, the insane choice). Auto-Rig Pro’s features helped do this, but it still took a long time (we’re talking months here), plus a huge amount of tweaking (e.g., I had to edit the kilt—or dress—bones of every animation, since kilt armatures cannot be retargeted properly in Auto-Rig Pro. I also had to compare the keyframes from the old and new animations to remove the keyframes I didn’t need from the new retargeted animations, since Auto-Rig Pro’s “preserve animations” feature only works accurately if you choose to key every frame. And so on.).
There’s still more to do (such as edit the weights on parts of Samantha’s dress, as well as to retarget a few animations exclusive to Lucinda, Amy, and Clara), but the bulk of the work has been finished, thankfully, so it should be downhill from here (I’m never doing this again, LOL).
Plans for a Movie
In the meantime, before I replace the “old rest pose” animations in the Unity project (I’ve still kept backups of all of them just in case), I’ve chosen to carefully tweak and refine each episode from Parts 1–10 to remove any slight visual or audio errors I’ve noticed while re-watching the series (the script and everything else remain untouched).
After I’ve done this, I plan to re-render each episode, and then at some point combine all 10 episodes to create a movie, which I’ll call something along the lines of “Samantha’s Quest: Isles of Galerock — The 1st Movie” (or whatever name I end up choosing). Given each episode’s length, the movie will run for approximately 90 minutes.
What to Expect for Part 11
Since it will still likely take quite a while before Part 11 is ready to be released, I’ll share a few details about my plans for this episode, without going into too much detail. This episode will begin just after Samantha and Clara have cooked breakfast for their housemates (straight after Part 10’s ending), and will feature some conversations at the dining table.
It will involve Samantha looking after Clara after the trauma of yesterday’s events, as the two of them go on a nice outing. Samantha’s destiny as a Blade Wielder will be explored, and a highlight of this episode will be that we learn more about Maya, Samantha’s housemate who only appeared briefly in Part 6. Riley will also make an appearance, and so will the Isles of Galerock.
Revealing anything else would probably lead into spoiler territory, so I’ll leave it at that for now. I’ve already made part of this episode, but I will most likely release it after I’ve released the “movie” of Samantha’s Quest (or at least after I’ve re-rendered the first ten parts), and then fully updated the female character armatures and animations in the project (re: “Rest Pose Madness” above). Please stay tuned for that.
Conclusion
For those who made it this far: thanks for reading. I plan to post more on this blog in the future, God willing, to announce future updates and reflections, as well as to post some fun or interesting facts about the series from time to time. If you like Samantha’s Quest, please share it with your friends. That would mean a lot to me. Finally, I wish you all a Merry Christmas once again, and a Happy New Year. Take care.
All praise and glory be to Jesus Christ, to whom I am forever indebted for saving me.
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