ani-mae-tion stuffs (2024/03/24)

hi, thought I'd make a little post detailing the whole process of working out how to do animation on desktop. serves as a reminder for myself at a later date, and let's me post something on here and seem more active (I'm online every day, but just usually quiet in-between projects, oops).

animation is cool and neat, and I already get the gist of how to approach it. cel animation is definitely the ideal in my mind, or at least as close to cel animation as I can get in a digital environment (drawing each frame meticulously by hand). but.... yeah, that shit is tedious as hell. personally, I likely couldn't do it for anything other than a single scene, probably some sort of horny sex loop. projects that take too long I end up getting bored of, but I've recently taken the habit of working on multiple at once, and bouncing between them instead of abandoning them entirely, works nice for me. I can fortunately just use my current art software of choice for this (clip studio paint). it's a little finicky since it's definitely not an app that prioritises animation, but yeah, i've made it work before.

a second preference for animation technique, and what I see myself relying on a bunch for an extensive project, is definitely tween animation. That is, just having a bunch of preexisting keyframe symbols for things that I can just chuck together on a scene, and animate independently and in groups as I need, all at once. this is definitely flash 8 territory, as I think clip studio paint still has very basic animation support (and seems to stick to cel animation solely). and oh my gosh, flash 8 is just so comfy....

here's some screenshots from a quick flash 8 thing I just made to refresh my brain on it again, I was able to make and work in the project fine at 24fps @ 1080p without any application lag, and it works on modern Windows nicely (provided you set compatibility mode options to avoid a weird crash when dialogboxes are used in the app):

okay! so after animating a thing, I wanted to export it. depending on my needs, I had multiple options.

for videos: quite simple. I export the movie as an AVI. I set the video format as "32 bit color w/ alpha", I turn off compression and smoothing. Didn't have sound here, but if I did, I'd use "44kHz 16 Bit Stereo". For me, that spits out a 276mb file that I can then shove in something like HandBrake, and can easily turn into an mp4 with a much more reasonable 137kb. for big projects, I could do this for multiple scenes, then just stitch them all together in any video editor.

for animated images: good for short scenes and loops, but a little more funny. On the export movie file dialog, I have to set it to a PNG image sequence instead, and export each frame of the movie as an individual PNG. At that point, I open something like GIMP, open the set of images as layers into a single document, and then set each layer as an animation frame. at that point, I need to adjust the delay and disposition for each layer.

oh, and I found a really helpful script for handling changing the delay and disposition of layers for animations in GIMP, it's called sg-anim-settings by saulgoode, really helpful, cause dang, I don't wanna manually do that for each layer!!! so yeah, I set it to replace on each frame (important since my PNG frames are transparent), and the milliseconds of delay of each frame to be ~42 (to equal 24-ish frames per second, the original frame rate).



once I've done all that, I can export the image as an animated WEBP or GIF. if I choose animated WEBP, there's no need to worry about things like optimisation or dithering, the export process handles that on its own. they're definitely a lot better than gifs too, capable of more intricate frame delay, less restrictive colour, more optimised, all of that.

for GIF, it works about the same in GIMP actually, but it can be necessary to hit the optimise option in GIMP just so the GIF doesn't end up enormous. also, to allow for simulating additional colours, it's best to have as large a resolution as you can for dithering to work best. always remember that GIF fucking sucks though, and it's best to move onto another format, or just have video instead, like most modern things do.

yeah that's about it, feel free to check the flash 8 test I just uploaded in addition to writing this all up 👍

what am i freaking up to (2024/03/09)

hellooooooooooooooooooooo, i am working on things. i should tell you about what I'm working on instead of not saying anything, so here is what i'm up to. they'll either be out soon, later, or never:

an extended lore page for Müll: this is currently a big work-in-progress, so it's not linked on the website. but you can view it by clicking here yes baby woo right here!!! I'm planning to go as detailed as I can, but it's mostly personal notes and copy-pastes from conversations I've had with people about her lore. In the future, I hope to do it up all nice and pretty, get it more organised so its less overwhelming, less egotistical (i am mean to myself even in my mind) INFORMATION SUBJECT TO CHANGE AT ANY FREAKING TIME I WANT

a fresh doodlin: i have just suddenly gotten an idea to draw the whole maeworl gang together again like I've done previously. they've gone through a few design and lore changes, and it's best I express all of that, ye. plus, good excuse to pump out another full drawing again, not necessarily horny but comfy

an in-browser minigame: wish me luck, honestly. gonna make a little funny game for people to play in their web browser. it'll require a decent amount of images to draw, but I'll make it easier for myself with a smaller resolution + having it be pixel art. making sure I get my scope clear for it too, won't be going too out there. I actually split this idea into this minigame, plus the next project you're gonna read after this point 🤯 anyways, the game's gonna involve the witch cat mixing and making potions for a client. will she make the one that he actually needs??? no, but that's the point

a vague, flashy reading experience for a story: I don't mind writing things, I'm not particularly good, but it's fun, I used to write fanfics when I was younger, and hey, now that I've got my own characters and lore, I can write my own stuff, about my own stuff, wow! I'm gonna make an attempt at that. it'll involve the witch cat, it'll involve some horny, but mostly a silly romance. it's gonna be on my site in the future, and maybe slightly interactive, or at least with cool CSS animations and some painted drawings included, ye.

ok bye i go draw now mwah mwah

more site plans (2024/02/06)

uh hi. got more plans to update the website again soon, as it stands it's still rather manual for me to upload things, create thumbnails, add it to the archive, and update the RSS feed all at the same time while also uploading works to the usual places, so I'll be focusing on automating it some more, making a nice little script that helps with things

what that tends to mean though is I wanna stick with a version of the site I'm real comfy with, and I'm probably gonna go back on certain things, probably include javascript about the pages here again, go with smaller space saving formats where I can, probably just webp because it has the most compatibility. I use avif for certain thumbnails and stuff, but notice it is a lot less compatible. I will say that I'll aim to provide a decent enough experience for noscript users too, you'll just miss certain conveniences like some redirects for things (aka, redirecting /chars/mull to /chars/muell from a 404 page) some archive plans I've got for a tagging / filter system, thingies like that

it would be nice of course to do this all server-side, but this is a static site, so I'm limited in my approaches, but I guess I can spit out scripts that generate certain pages

ok ok yeh byeee!!! you'll see stuff added here periodically, especially older files I've forgotten to upload to places, including here :O

finally... (2023/09/23)

...website



YEEEEEEEEEE! apparently I'm suddenly very focused on a project or task if I apologise about being slow with it. I don't know, I just made that post the other day, and right away shat out the whole website in under a week. I do not know what is up with me but OK. yeah. website is updated, all fresh and comfy, and currently javascript-free (🤯) and back to PNGs for older device compatibility, cause someone should be able to view lewd furry drawings on their homebrew PSVita or 3DS if they wanna 🥺

new things on the website include:
• a new archive grouped by year, with more obvious indicators of each image's license
• the whole site is now completely accessible without javascript 🤯 truly static..
• updated character references pages. also woah, you can actually see avril's and dairy's deets now!
• cool little frontpage news section, featuring various update posts I've made over the years. yeh
• RSS feed! have a cool way of knowing when the latest drawing drops!
• A lovely new character selection page, inspired by an old version of the website!

there's probably more stuff that got added that I've forgotten, but yeah, that about covers the main chunks. pardon if my writing's all goofy, I definitely think I need to rest.. new drawing should drop soon, you can see a flat version of it used as Müll's new reference image if you take a look!

I'll work on any quick fixes for the site as I spot any goofs, but it seems relatively okay and responsive across most things!
Feel free to give feedback and recommendations, I'll see what I can end up sorting out, yeye. I've also got secret plans for another thing on there, but you'll have to wait a while on that 🙊

bored (2023/09/17)

ayo, still drawing things, but I'm definitely getting a little bored of it all, I gotta admit. a break wouldn't do anything for me though considering I already take it easy, yeh, just gotta, get all hype about art stuffs again somehow

obviously at this point I'm off of twitter, I enjoyed peeps on there but yeah, couldn't stand what was happening to the platform, not to mention who runs it. it's a lot quieter daily now



anyways, got a fresh Müll witch drip design coming out soon since her outfit could do with an update (and people seem over the village tracht for now), as for design changes, at most you'll see me giving her the digitigrade feets from now on, hands staying the same. there will be some cool lore explaining the new attire, but I need to work out where to put that, and how I want to express it (I've been pondering a bit of an origins comic for her, but it's another big project for me that I might end up dropping, and that's not cool to do over and over, for you or for my brain)

uh, website development is pretty stalled, honestly. I'm sort of directionless with what I wanna do with it, whether I wanna switch hosts, keep it as a static site still, and if so, whether or not I want to make it reliant on JavaScript still like it is now. whatever I go with, it means some more work since I'll need to start from scratch yet again, avoiding getting disinterested before finishing, which is very Freaking hard for my "enjoys starting but not finishing projects daily" brain. it's also a bit difficult to have a dev environment for it all if I keep making new works at the same time, or wanting to change ideas midway, or want to redo a character's reference while I'm already working on a reference page 😵‍💫 ouhg

yeh, tis about all that's happening with me at the moment, my partner's been a real sweetie, and I've been enjoying a lot of time with him and his friends (that are now my friends too), yeyeye, drawing's become pretty secondary. currently working on saving for a new desktop rig, will help when I've got a real chonker of a canvas open, but also..... It'll let me finally play video game from the past 4 years at a decent speed 🤯 hope y'all have been well, been doing my best to keep active on all the places I'm on, though I'm sorry I haven't been doing the sketch posting, I've finally gotten comfy with full works again, so that's my focus now, yee

hap birth 2 me :^) (2022/09/29)

it's the 29th over here already so yeah, am 22 now. have this lil sketch I did for myself, müll threw me a party (and got quite drunk). if you draw in any capacity, I really do recommend doing yourself lil birthday sketches! is fun.

hope you're all doing well ^^ I've gotten myself a new tablet as a present (since me apple pencil brokey) to start working on desktop again, and that's coming soon in the mail, looking forward to posting more frequently again for y'all

in the meantime, you can check some of the other places I've listed on my profile for all sorts of sketches like this so you're not left wondering if I've carked it or not, I just don't post em here. you can check the archive, twitter (if you dare), or the scraps section on FA. adults only! buh bye

updated me website (2021/10/20)

yo! I've updated my website, so now it looks better than it did kinda but also mainly there's an archive on there of all of my art, including stuff prior to 2020 that some people will recognise... There's also an FAQ section for questions i have frequently gotten, self-explanatory, and a WIP Oh and there's a characters section, where I'm currently working on each character's page. I've already finished Müll's page, so you're able to check that out now if you ever wanted a more detailed reference page on drawing her

Finally, the archive on there is the coolest part, the webhost I'm using only allows static sites, so with some JavaScript I was able to whip up a gallery sorta thing, where you can load up full lossless images by just clicking on the relevant thumbnail. Blah blah arrow key navigation too if one of your hands is too busy for anything else 👀 uploads will be done to the archive first, with RSS feed implementation coming soon, because it's been several months and I really wanted to get something up at this point lol check it out if you'd like! might be a little slow initially, both because of recent file changes but also because my webhost is kinda slow atm

oh and if you have a twitter account (im Sorry), be sure to follow me on there for the latest news about things and sketches of upcoming stuff! ok buh bye

geisterjagd comic is now available! (2021/10/14)

this halloween, we join a bored and horny Müll in her attempts to summon spirits for getting freaky with.

despite conjuring spirits in a graveyard, she doesn't bother facing the graves. this leads to her repeating the ritual more times than she likely intended...

you can access this comic from the comics section of the archive.

super hard drive epic fail1!!!!1 (2021/05/17)

had a hard drive failure and the whole thing died. now hosted on neocities! yay! will figure out a new gallery soon, maybe.

website launch (2020/12/18)

maeworl.xyz is now online! consoom and coom!