Rabbit.Hole Episode 3 - Progress Report #3 (Patreon)

Hello everyone! Another Thursday, another progress report! And this time, I am actually on time!

So far, production is pretty squarely on target with the aforementioned schedule changes. The sex sequences have been completed and sent out for dubbing, with a whopping 6 minutes of sex sequence total. A copy has also been sent to my sound designer, so he can start installing and tuning those sexy Bolbi Stroganovsky sounds we all love so much.

In the days since, I have been working on blocking out the rest of the sequence. The video posted here (which you can view a high-quality version of by clicking here) is an example of the blocking. As you can see, it is very rough, capturing only the most critical of motions. More importantly, though, it captures the camera angle, runtime, and lighting of a particular shot.

I could have picked any of the blocked shots as the preview for this post, but I chose this one because, frankly, I am immensely pleased with how this car sequence came out. There is no trickery done here, no greenscreen or animated textures. This is entirely, 100% done in-engine. There is an entire skyline composed of over 900 buildings, there are 80 dynamic street lights, and the whole sequence is animated to simulate driving through the city and underneath those lights.

It was a technical nightmare to pull off, but I absolutely love the end result. I think that the final version, with audio and finalized animation, will be a simply stunning sequence. I think it will be the most visually- and technically-impressive thing I've done to date.

Speaking of technical things, though... This is where we hit a bit of a snag, but for once it's not actually my fault! In a nutshell, there's been a sort of cascade of delays with voicing across the board. Silky did manage to get me her non-dub audio (though I have yet to listen to it), but Steve has been unable to record any of the lines for his part as Silky's co-star. He's been dealing with domestic problems that were getting to the point of involving the police, though thankfully all of that seems to be sorted now, and he is working on getting everything back together.

However, just as Steve manages to get back on schedule, Silky ends up getting derailed. Her roommate is sick, and is staying in on account of Covid-19 precautions, meaning that Silky has virtually no time to record, and won't until her roommate decides she is well enough to leave the apartment - which could be weeks from now.

She's assured me that she is going to do her best to get the DVa audio recorded as quickly as she can, but she wanted me to be acutely aware that the odds are not in our favor. I told her that my audience would be understanding of her situation, and so here I am, relaying the information on to you all. And I am sure you all understand her situation.

In positive news though, I did manage to get the lines for one of the minor characters earlier tonight! So audio is trickling in.

Regardless of the audio situation, though, I am cruising right along as if everything was operating under ideal conditions. Here is a breakdown of the scenes so far. The third column is time in seconds.

Yes, that's right ladies and gentlemen, you read that right. The current raw runtime of animation is 8.5 minutes, with three narrative sequences still to be blocked out. Take into account that over 6 minutes of that is sex scene, and as of right now, over 70% of the runtime is sex. Obviously this number will go down a bit as I block out the remaining bits of narrative, but I am hoping to at least maintain my golden goal ratio of 50% sex. The existing numbers also aren't 100% solid, because this is before audio has been installed - I just time shots out based on how I imagine the lines would be delivered, with a bit of padding on either side. But the difference between the blocked state and the audio-installed state should only be a handful of seconds - half a minute at most, I imagine.

I'm not going to give any hard estimates of how long I think the final video will end up running, but my best guess is it will be just over 10 minutes. That makes sense to me, since the screenplay is nearly identical in length to No Gods, No Kings, which also came out to right around 10 minutes.

My goal is to have all of the blocking done by the weekend's... end, and to start installing whatever audio I have. From there, I'm going to have to play it by ear. I will max out whatever I can, but I might find myself having to sit on my thumbs while I wait for Silky and Steve.

If that ends up being the case, then I honestly don't know what I am going to do. We'll cross that bridge if we come to it, though, and we'll cross it together.

Until such time, I am going to operate as if everything is perfectly normal. I implore you all to do the same. Let's not act as if things have gone awry, until things have actually gone awry.

That's all I have for you this week! See you all again next Thursday!