#by gum i have two very scary things tomorrow. i should be prepping for them but instead i have been brainrotting over riker........ | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

blaurascon-kzk · 4 years

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KZK Discord Digest [Week of Mar 13 - Mar 19]

SUMMARY: Before I get into the summary - I hope everyone's staying safe out there! Wash your hands, avoid crowds, practice good social distancing! This is a scary time, but we're gonna make it through! Now - Preorders for the Lions are up! You can grab one by visiting Okarthel. There's a mannequin in the store too so you can get a better look! Preorders are 1100L. After release, the price will increase to 1400L. (Kat was floating around the idea of special preorder LE’s, but those are going to be worked on at a later date as regular LE’s. The Lions will have some LE’s at launch - Foo Dogs) Kat's doing something new for the lions: rather than the classic Male and Female skins, he's including Masculine, Feminine, and Androgynous skins. Lots of progress shots of the Lions in this post, too - from early models to current previews. Kat's currently working on getting the Direwolf preorder bonuses ready. The plushies are almost done, and he's currently working on the first preorder skin, a hellhound. A week or so ago, LL broke something with object rez calls in scripts in the sim code. They're pushing a fix - our two regions are updated already, but if you are having issues with things not working as intended (especially breedables) you may want to contact your sim owner to let them know. (This does not seem to have affected purchases or any database things on our end, thankfully)

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MAR 13

KatLast Friday at 5:27 PM @everyone So in record time, I've finished the retopology for the Lion, and am now at a stage where I'm ready to begin the baking and texturing process, once I do the UV maps for everything (which doesn't take long).

Here's a quick preview of the Lion, as it currently stands. I'm very pleased with the progress.

For the mane: Its not going to be this 'flat'. The final mane is going to employ the same technique as I did for the Direwolves--little spikes of fur that 'copy' the UVs beneath them, as well as normals, so they look like one solid, contiguous object--complete with the ability to be uniquely textured, rather than just generic hair textures on little tubes! (Altho I'm going to make an option like that for people who like that sort of thing, since it won't be hard to do. :slight_smile: )

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MAR 14

KatLast Saturday at 2:35 AM @everyone Initial compositing pass on the textures is done. The skin textures are by no means the final results, so worry not. All that's left to add is the fur detailing, then I clean up and refine areas like around the eyes and mouth, color correct stuff like pawpads, teeth and gums/tongue, and so forth. Hope you guys are excited!

KatLast Saturday at 3:53 PM @everyone A few days ago, LL changed something with sims during a rolling restart, so now Arcaniss (the sim where I do my work and host my servers), has been acting very strangely.

So we've cleared everything out, and will be consulting with Linden Lab to try and get the region looked at. Until then, some of you may notice my Meeroos and some horses on a platform above the eastern border of the sandbox.

Please do not harass my breedables, but you're more than welcome to take a peek at them. They'll be returned to Arcaniss once the region is stable once more, and properly accepting HTTP requests.

At the moment the servers for kzk seem unaffected by the odd behavior, but should they be affected, they'll be relocated to a secure region, to avoid and potential issues. Please let us know if there are any purchase issues.

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MAR 15

KatLast Sunday at 1:48 AM @everyone Mmm Chugging along and loving the ride! Here's a quick milestone update on the Lions.

I ALSO wan to take this time to announce what the PREORDER Bonus will be.

No previews yet, but Anyone who preorders will get a voucher to redeem for either: HELIOS, the Sun God, or LUMIA, the Moon Goddess--Each will be decked out in awesome gold elegant gold ornamentation, representing their celestial body. I'll try to have some concept teasers available for those soon. Hope everyone's excited!

@everyone Several of you are already voicing your concerns about the already delayed Direwolf Preorder bonuses.

I hear you loud and clear, and Please understand that I take no pride in this, but not putting the lions up for preorder asap means I'll miss my mark for income to make rent AGAIN this month, and unlike last month, I don't have the windfall to borrow from.

I cannot go back to louisiana. Not only will it bankrupt me, and destroy me financially...

It will destroy me emotionally as well. It took me years to escape. I have nightmares of waking up in louisiana again, my life perpetually a dead end with no meaning or purpose.

Please be patient with me. Please. I can't go back there.. I can't..

KatLast Sunday at 9:31 PM @everyone One of the things I want to do for the Lion is properly represent the sexual dimorphism prevalent in the species. To do this I'll be including 2 heads, and two sets of skins. One head features the 'lioness' markings, while the other features darker markings on the body and face to better blend with the mane. Both male and female skins will come with lion and lioness markings--so you can be a feminen shaped Lion with a mane, or a masculine lioness, lacking a mane but sporting the darker colors/markings male lions are known for.

I'm also still tweaking colors, getting a feel for how I want the 'native' colors to look--AND I still need to add the super super subtle 'stripes' to the arms and legs, which keen eyed viewers will notice if they look at pictures of real lions.

There'll also be 2 manes: One mapped as shown, and one mapped/textured to look like more traditional fluff, with each 'tube' being a hair texture. Both options will be rigged, and include static versions.

KatLast Sunday at 9:39 PM @everyone Please forgive the spam, this'll be my last announcement for the evening, so as to prevent nuking your notifications:

This will seem fairly arbitrary to many of you, but I'll be doing away with the 'Male/Female' Binary for my naming in the future. It will be Masculine, Feminine or androgynous--the latter of which will have shading to settle somewhere in the middle, to help fit bodies/characters whose gender is nonbinary or agender.

This isn't major news, but I just wanted to give folks a little heads up.

Have a lovely evening.

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MAR 16

KatLast Monday at 3:02 PM @everyone Been doing some thinking, and I've come to a conclusion that might be more amenable to everyone:

I'm actually going to scrap doing the Solar and Lunar lions as Preorder bonuses, because not only will it limit who will be able to get it, but also further delay my ability to get them ready to preorder, thus delaying the completion of the direwolf preorder bonuses.

So that said, I'm going to push forward with prepping the Lions for preorder, with the goal to have them available as soon as humanly possible. The new 'bonus' will be a discounted preorder price of 1100L, with the final release price being 1400L. As I mentioned in a post a few weeks ago, I am raising my base avatar prices by 200L for all future releases/updates, because of the amount of time and work that goes into avatars these days.

There will be 4 LEs at launch, based on Foo Dogs, but these are unrelated to the previously planned/announced preorder LEs.

As for those 2 designs? Postponing their creation will give me time to properly refine their look in my head, so when they do come out, they feel like finished works of art and not rushed slapdash recolors.

This means that once the Lions are up for preorder here in the next few days, I will IMMEDIATELY pivot to finishing the direwolf bonuses. The plushies are very nearly done, and the ice/fire themed skins won't take too terribly long for me to finish either. I think this course is in the best interest of current concerned parties.

I appreciate everyone's patience and understanding. Have a good afternoon and remember to stay safe, wash your hands, and absolutely avoid going out if you can avoid it!

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MAR 17

KatLast Tuesday at 1:48 AM @everyone Got everything rigged today (The head isn't rigged, its merely parented to the head bone for posing), so tomorrow I'll be ready to import it, get the previews for preorders done, and hopefully load the server. (Not shown is the striping I mentioned last night, I haven't forgotten, just haven't done it yet.)

A model of these will be available to preview in the mainstore once preorders go live as well!

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MAR 18

KatYesterday at 4:35 AM @everyone Good evening/Early morning to you all! After.. scrambling to overcome a character limit on the server's config, I was able to load the Lion preorders. They are currently available in the main store at the moment, as the auto reset on our vendors is a bit borked atm.

Bonus wise, you can take advantage of a discount. The Lions will be available to preorder for 1100L, and their full price will be 1400L.

Please let me know if you run into any purchase issues! Some things are in flux atm, so stuff might break--Just be patient and make sure I'm informed if things do break--I'll be happy to fix em asap!

Till then, be sure to spread the word! :heart:

#kzk-dd #kzk

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