The Return of Dreamland…
Hi all!
After 11 months of trying DESPERATELY to revive the old CGI models… I’ve given up.
I began working on Dreamland 13 years ago (right before my twin boys were born).
Since then, the 3D software, rendering, and technology has changed SO much that I am unable to continue working on the series.
For the last 11 months, I’ve paid out tens of thousands of dollars to other studios and artists in hopes of reviving the old models and scenes.
But no luck.
I’ve tried raising funds independently to create an all new (and updated) world of characters and places to finish the story.
But no luck.
On December 31, I posted an old fan art image Tracy Bailey had done for me back in 2007. It was an image I’ve always loved.
Tracy has worked on a couple of my children’s comics in the past (Gary the Pirate, Magic Carpet) and she has been super busy since.
On a lark, I thought I’d see if she was interested in doing another pin-up.
To my surprise… she actually offered to help out with the comic.
SO…
Thanks to Tracy Bailey… we will be FINISHING Dreamland’s last 200 pages for all to read.
For some continuity… Tracy will be starting at the beginning of Chapter 21.
She’s going to need a bit of time to build up a buffer to do 5 pages a week.
So new pages will begin FEBRUARY 15th!
This is a HUGE sacrifice of time and talent for Tracy. So please encourage her as she takes on this enormous task.
Also… I want to thank you ALL for your patience in waiting almost 2 YEARS while my life turned upside down (in a good way, mostly) with the Animal Crackers movie going into production.
We are only 6 months away from finishing the film. Yikes.
I can’t wait for you all (especially those of you who have been reading along from the beginning) to read the conclusion of this epic story that has taken up a good portion of my life.
Thank you Tracy. And thank you every one of my fellow Dreamers.
Scott
So good to see you back and I look forward to seeing how the story finishes out.
Whoa. I would never expect something like this can happen. I mean, having CGI models stopping working so hard it can’t be fixed with tens of thousands dollars … did people at Autodesk heard about backward compatibility ?
How delightful! Thanks Tracy!
(Scott, you are a doody head for not saying something earlier so we could all put our heads together and work out how to help; sure it’s your baby, but the readership cares, you know?).
Anyway, looking forward to it all!
PS: Apologies for the “doody head” part, I meant it in the best of ways.
Cool news! I’m very happy to hear that and, thanks a lot, Tracy!
That’s fantastic Scott! Actually, I really look forward to reading Dreamland in full comic form, it is after-all, a webcomic. And Tracy is greatly talented.
Also looking forward to seeing Animal Crackers when it hits theaters. I’ll be one of the first in line, and I’m dragging all my friends with me.
Augh! What happened to the models? Did they corrupt or was it a compatibility issue?
It’s okay. I’m totally a doody head.
🙂
Actually. If you go back to the previous posts… I’ve mentioned it in the comments and posts as updates.
But thank you anyhow.
Yay! Thank you Scott, for making sure you can finish your incredible fantastic story with great pictures.
Thank you even more Tracy! The Dreamland Chronicles is not your baby and putting this amount of work into something of your own design is a decision that always comes from the heart. I for one am very glad about it. To be honest the 3D Models never grew on me the same way the story did. Your images catch the way the characters feel for me very good and I’m excited to see Scotts Ideas through your eyes.
Hooray! I can’t wait to see how this series ends. I will probably start at the beginning again to refresh my memory of everything that’s happened so far.
Congratulations on your movie! Can’t wait to see that as well.
Then I’m the doody head for not noticing (I claim “pregnant with 2 toddlers” as an excuse?)
Gah. See? PROOF of doody-headednes. It was more like “pregnant and with 2 under 3 around”.
LOL!
Congrats!
Oh, wow. You mean, it’s continuing as a classic drawn comic, then? Interesting!
I liked the way it was portrayed in 3D, but, honestly, I doubt this’ll be any worse 🙂
Yay! My collection will finally be complete!
That’s great to hear, Scott! We’re looking forward to reading the conclusion!
This is awesome news! Thanks Tracy! I look forward to seeing how the adventure concludes.
(And I look forward to Animal Crackers! 🙂 )
Also, does Tracy have a Patreon? I’m sure there’s a not-insignificant number of people who’d be willing to chip in a few bucks a month to help compensate her during this time.
To echo Nenya – Scott, you have an entire community of avid dedicated readers, many of whom are computer experts (like myself) and would be delighted to donate our time in assisting with CGI revival if that is of interest to you; you have but to ask! Whether with Tracy’s excellent work or your own models, however you choose to arrive there, we all look forward to seeing how it all turns out!
Thank you!
If it would help. I’d be happy to put a file up for everyone to work from.
But the problem isn’t necessarily computer/software expertise. It’s the fact that the rendering system I’ve used since the beginning has been decommissioned for over 6 years.
It’s nearly impossible to get it to work anymore with newer computers and therefore I can’t render anything. I would need to re-texture all of the characters and environments to do so.
We tried… and it was too costly. It would actually be cheaper to re-model and re-design everything from scratch.
But still… way out of our budget. And way too time consuming.
I had hoped to get funding for the animated series in time. And then use the models from the series to finish the comic.
But it’s just taking too long.
Patreon? Hmmmm….
So sad to hear these news … don’t misunderstand me! I LOVE Tracy’s work, I was an avid reader of “Catena Manor” since the beginning or so and I am eager to see how well she will render your universe, but … you know … Dreamland Chronicles was a testament to the power of CGI modelling as a comic (pardon me for the term), a testament of your majestic work with 3D rendering on a 2D medium. And knowing that it will remain … “unfinished”, in a way … well, it’s sad.
Anyway, I’m looking forward to see the conclusion of this wonderful journey “in dreamland”. Good luck, Scott, for everything that’s in your future and … thanks for all the fish!
I have a question, if Tracy is going to be finishing the last 200 pages and then going back from the beginning to redraw the comic like you said you were aiming to do…what’s going to happen to the old pages? Or even the old pages of chapter 21 at least? Will they still be available to read after they’re replaced?
That’s a bummer about your models getting lost but Tracy’s awesome so I’m sure it will be awesome! =)
Haven’t really worked that part out yet…
I apologize if I’m missing something obvious, but if the problem is that newer computers won’t work with the old software, why not simply get a second-hand old computer that’s still in working order? If you’re worried about security because of out of date security software for the old computer, simply don’t put it on the internet and use an old-fashioned sneaker net to transfer the finished product to the uploading computer via CD-ROM.
>It’s the fact that the rendering system I’ve used since the beginning has been decommissioned for over 6 years… It’s nearly impossible to get it to work anymore with newer computers…
So what computers does it need to work with? You might be surprised what can appear.
Scott, I have a question: Why is it nearly impossible to get it to work with newer computers? I assume it’s because it’s not x86 architecture and so it’s not just a matter of running this software in a VM.
I might be able to help with some architectures (including access to hardware), although admittedly not PowerPC. I suppose that it’s a possibility that the software worked on PowerPC-based Macs, and cannot work on x86. But that’s also something that others around here should be able to help out with?
Oh yay, that’s great news 🙂 I like Tracy’s work, loved her Catena Manor stuff.
It’s my birthday today, and I couldn’t have wished for a nicer present. Thanks for sticking with this, and many thanks to Tracy for picking up the pieces.
It’s about time. Welcome back, Scott, and thank you, Tracy!
It’s a shame about the old models, but I think the new art style looks quite nice. 🙂 Looking forward to the rest of the comic!
Go Tracy Go ! And Happy to see you back Scott !
This is so amazing. Thank you so much to Scott and Tracy for putting so much effort into finishing this comic!
THIS is the best news all year!!! Except for baby announcements… and the fact that there will be another Star Wars movie this year.
BUT!!!! I am SO excited.
Scott, start a GoFundMe account. Most of us have got your back! We want to see this thing to its fruition. I’ve read many other comics that just disappear. To see this finish will give many of us closure. Those of us who are OCD will definitely want closure, and pony up some cash! It may not be much, but it may help heal some cuts and bruises in the bank account. We want to help.
*shivering with excitement* …or is that just the early February chill?
Decommissioned or not, rendering is just a combination of hardware and software; if we duplicate your old environment you should be able to complete things, even if it’s on old hardware. So we’d need to know the hardware platform your rendering system used, including any specialized rendering modules or graphics cards. I saw mention of an Autodesk product for rendering, I assume we’re talking either 3D Studio or Maya software? 13 years ago those ran on either PowerMac G3/G4/G5 or Microsoft Intel architectures.
Great News, Scott! Feb 15 can’t come soon enough!
Just in time! I had just decided to prune my comic rocket list. Today. This was on the cut list along with several others that had ceased updating plus a few that no longer held my interest. DC was NOT in the second category.
Macs themselves have gone through a few revisions themselves, including moving from Motorola 68k processors to PowerPC, then to Mac OS X, then to x86. Not all pre-OS X apps run under PowerPC OS X’s Classic environment (Runs pre-OS X apps in a virtualized Mac running Mac OS 9). And Intel OS X’s implementation of Rosetta (runs PowerPC OS X apps) doesn’t run all apps. To get the best of all worlds, getting a PowerPC Mac that can run OS X and Mac OS 9, and an Intel Mac that runs 10.6 to 10.11 would cover a lot of bases.
At least, as far as Macs go.
But even the PowerPC Mac wouldn’t run 68k Mac OS programs that requires a math coprocessor (the 68k emulator used on the PowerPC Mac OS didn’t emulate it).
They don’t look 3D anymore. Pity.
the fantastic art was half the draw.
Wow! This is amazing news! I’m sad to know the CGI models aren’t working with newer software anymore, but I am grateful to know Tracy is taking up the effort to bring this wonderful story back into motion. Best of luck on the final stretch of Animal Crackers, and thank you so much for sharing your wonderful art with all of us.
Ah man, don’t tell me you actually spent those tens of thousands and got nothing and lost your money! D: Gawd that’s be painful! Here’s hoping you have massive success with your film and I will definitely go see it!
Yay.
Yay!
Yaaaaay! 🙂
Good Luck with everything that is about to come! 🙂
YAY TRACY. Thank you SO much. Can’t wait!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! <3 YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yep. And, begging everybody’s pardon, I’m afraid it’s gonna be hard to accept the new faces. Especially Nastajia.
Still here, still checking in regularly and really excited to see a change after all this time 🙂
Thanks both of you.
I know it’s tough. It is for me too.
But better this than never finishing… right?
And Tracy is so talented. I’ve worked with her on two other books. A true professional.
It doesn’t matter who I would have picked to work with… no one could have done the 3D.
Hi all!
So… here is a link to a DROPBOX folder where I’ve placed 3 scenes and the map folder they would reference.
Everyone interested… feel free to open them up and play around.
My problem is that the rendering software (named Brazil) required that I applied specific BRAZIL materials on many things.
Over the years, about 40-50% of the models (both characters and environments) have the BRAZIL materials on them.
ALL of the scenes are using the BRAZIL lights and the rendering settings.
Add to that the 13 years of models dating back 6 versions of 3DS Max which don’t like to talk to eachother… it’s been a very difficult process in trying to get scenes open.
Would love to hear your thoughts.
Scott
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/wd6mojmbiudllqz/AACymDJDBuqT6drxE3hiimiDa?dl=0
Yes. Sad indeed.
🙁
I would gladly have spent more if it worked (if I had the money).
Also. Took your advice (for those of you who advise me to) and set up a Patreon page.
You can see the link/ad above and below the comic.
While we do NOT need your money. Those of you who would like to show your support can do so through Patreon.
Any proceeds will go towards Tracy’s per-page rate I’m paying her.
Thanks all!
Scott
I’ll admit, gonna miss the 3d modeling. And it’s going to be weird seeing the site with the 3d model banners on the sides and ads in the meantime. Maybe someday there’ll be a way to go back and it it with the models again, but at least for now we can see how the story ends.
Well, while it’s a trifle sad that you won’t be able to finish the story in the same art style as it began, I’m SUPER glad you’ve found someone who is willing and able to finish the story for you at all! 🙂 I know you’ve been agonizing over this and probably beating yourself up for not being able to bring us the rest of the story sooner, so I’m relieved that you’ll have that burden of guilt removed from your plate. As patient as we try to be, we’re still rabid fans at heart, and you’re still a super nice guy trying to share his art and his stories with us for little to no compensation. 😛
I very much look forward to seeing the end to this story. I know this is jumping the gun a bit, but is it safe to assume that you won’t be trying to release the final book until all of the chapters/pages are done in the same art style (instead of changing partway through)? I honestly don’t recall where the most recent book ended, so I don’t know how much of an issue this would be. 🙂
Thanks Scott! So we have an architecture and software. Intel PC architecture using Autodesk 3DS Max (only runs on PCs) and the Brazil R/S proprietary rendering plugin for 3DS Max that was discontinued in 2012. What are the latest version numbers you have for 3DS Max and Brazil, when things worked correctly? The files you posted may not work right with earlier (or later) versions than what they were rendered with.
Admittedly, the 3D modeling was what drew me to click on this comic among so many others at the beginning, but I’ve grown to love the series enough that I’m just glad it’s moving forward. And Tracy is doing a great job, especially with Felicity. Looking forward to this!
And hope you can find a way to revive your 3d models at some point just because you worked so hard for it. But as a fan, I’ll keep reading regardless of format, and I’m very proud of the work you’ve been doing over at Animal Crackers. Looking forward to that as well!
I think Max 2012 was the last update I had.
Also… the files go all the way back (starting with the first pages) to Max 5, I think.
That was using Brazil 1 (which… funny enough… isn’t compatible with Brazil 2… ugh)
I’m a long time fan of the comic but to be completely honest, I am looking forward to it actually being drawn. I’m less a fan of 3D modeling. It can feel so.. stiff sometimes. Most people on this thread seem to prefer the modeling but I wanted to let you know and show some support that there are fans out here really looking forward to the new art! Also, thank you for making arrangements to finish the story- no matter our preference, I think we all can agree that we are happy about that!
Sorry to hear that the old 3D models are gone, Mr. Sava.
(I’m still looking forward to the end of this story, though.)
Quick question: Will see Nastajia in her centaur dress again before the end of the story?
*laughs like a maniac* My reason to love Mondays and curse Fridays is back! THANK YOU, SCOTT, THANK YOU TRACEY! LONG LOVE DREAMLAND CHRONICLES! *throws money at Patreon*
I admit, it’s going to be slightly difficult adjusting to the new art, though I ADORE Tracey’s work in Gary the Pirate, but to see the story finished, I would have gladly settled for stick figures. I hope someone somewhere can revive the old assets, but in the mean time, I will gladly sit back and bask in the glory that is Tracey Bailey.
Hey Scott, is there any way I can buy Book 5 (and any volumes afterward) from you?
We are completely sold out. Sorry.
I have PDF versions only.
No. Nothing planned. Sorry.
What great news! I’ve enjoyed Tracey’s Catena adventures too, so this is a win-win for me. =) Thank you both!
Thank you Tracey! Looking forward to seeing this finished Scott!
I’m sad that you lost the models. But I hope that things will turn for the better. I’m glad to see Tracy Bailey completing your marvelous story. And who knows? Maybe someday you’ll have enough funds to reconstruct the models :). I wish you the best! And I’m looking forward to Animal Crackers too!
I’m glad to see it making a comeback, Scott. I feel bad about you having lost the CGI models. I think the important part is that the story *WILL* be completed, and I know Tracy will do a marvelous job! (I have both of the other books that she worked with you on, and they’re among my favorites) Great to see it making a comeback! Hang in there and know I’ll be reading!
I cannot wait for the new pages to start again. I was drawn in first, by the artwork, then the story. The other thing that kept me coming back was the comments under every page. I am looking forward to the movie coming out.
Damn. I guess I have to wait until the next Kickstarter for the latest book then?
Apologies, Scott, but… everything I can read suggests Brazil R/S version 1 only worked up through 3DS Max 8. For 3DS Max 9 and above, you supposedly had to have Brazil v2. Do you have any way to confirm you were using 3DS Max 2012 with Brazil 1?
Sorry, I meant Brazil v1 works with 3DS Max 9 or less, for 3DS Max 2010 and above you supposedly needed Brazil v2. Even so, could you still confirm versions if possible?
Oh no. I switched to Brazil 2 when it came out. But moving the Brazil 1 files over was very difficult. And most of the time didn’t work well.
Now, when I have to go back to scenes (say we go back to the teddy bear village) that were done in Max 5 and Brazil 1… I can’t open them in the latest Max.
Plus, Brazil 2 has been out of commission for 4 years now. So it’s impossible to get it to work in the latest versions of Max (we are at Max 2016 now)
Brazil 1 files didn’t work with Brazil 2.
And remember… these are files that are 10-13 years old.
It’s a LOT of work to re-rig, texture, and light the scenes.
Oh. No no no. I mean we have NO more.
You can look on eBay maybe?
So so sorry.
I second that – I am sure we would all like to help this process along.
I have added you to my list of small monthly payments to my favourite webcomic producers on Patreon. Happy to support the process of finishing this story – perhaps you could offer a discount on the final printed volume for anyone who helps via Patreon? Or even free tickets to your movie!! 😉
Somehow I missed the Patreon page, I’m on it now!
So what will this mean? Is Scott having issues with the CGI models or is the technology so outdated that it’s non compatible?
Sorry, I meant that in the future when you have the Kickstarter to publish the final book (when it’s finished obviously), could I pay $100 (or whatever the cost would be) to reserve a copy of the final book and print fresh copies of earlier books?
I did check ebay and a few other sites. Dreamers are loyal. I found a lot of the old individual comic issues and a tiny amount of Books 1-4, but not any of the books I am missing.
Oh. Absolutely. We WILL have a complete edition of the books.
Still not sure if it will be all CGI (if we get the series going and I have access to all knew models) or all Tracy’s art.
We will see how it goes.
Do you have the next few pages of chapter 21 already scripted or will Tracey provide the scripts?
Sweet
wholeheartedly agree!
The entire chapter has been scripted from the beginning (almost 2 years ago). Tracy is going to redo the pages as they were. Then finish off the rest.
I’ve still yet to write the final chapter. Will do that when she gets close to the end of CHapter 21
As Scott continued to work on it, and refine things, it was taking longer and longer to render pages. This meant needing newer computers to be faster, but eventually made things stop working as he upgraded them.
With the older computers it was sometimes taking days per page to render, which means it would take several years to produce the last 200 pages if he was able to go back to older computers.
Thank you Scott, and thank you, Tracy! God bless you both! I will send my “$upport” as soon as I can.
Thank you all.
PATREONS CAN SEE MONDAY’S PAGE NOW!
If you are a Patreon, you can see the very first page (of Chapter 21) with Tracy’s art.
She will be following my lead for the pages I’ve already done in 3D. So they should look a bit familiar.
Please let me know your thoughts (either here or on the Patreon page).
Thanks
Scott
So excited to finally see this announcement! I’m sorry you had so much trouble getting it all started again, but I am so happy it is coming back!
seems crazy that there’s no solution – working on the old software with older computers or operating systems. bc the books won’t have continuity. but the image above is wonderful and it’s great for us and generous of you to finish this out – thanks to tracy as well! after all the years of fun, i’m sure all of us just wish you all the success!
I’d recommend keeping the original chapter 21 around, partly because it’s beautiful CGI, and partly to compare with Tracy’s redrawn pages. You could maybe call it “chapter 21 (cgi)”, or maybe put a link under Tracy’s pages to the original CGI version of the same page.
I just saw the redrawn first page of chapter 21 on Patreon, and I found it interesting to compare the Tracy’s page with the original CGI version. I was surprised at how little difference it made to me. Maybe I’ve gotten more invested in the characters than the art, or maybe Tracy’s designs are simply close enough to the original CGI that the transition didn’t break the flow by much. Either way, the slight difference in Dan’s facial expression in panel#2 made a bigger difference in how I “read” that page than the art style, but I had to see them side-by-side to realize that.
New pages Feb 15. It’s midnight into the 16th. Oh dear… that’s ominus. 🙁
Um, excuse me if I’m being an idiot here Scott, I’m sure someone’s thought of this already, but if the software you were forced to use via plugin/rigging constraints would no longer run on newer machines, and if the problem was that on older machines the rendering time took longer and longer as you got more complex, why not simply farm it using multiple older machines? It can’t be that hard to collect a few machines about 8-10 years old and simply set them all up, even on a local network, and set each up to render a different scene? Maybe I’m being an idiot, I haven’t done 3D rendering in… well… probably 10 years 🙂 But it would seem to be this would solve your problems, and cost a darned sight less than ’10s of thousands of dollars.’
You should look into virtualization. With that you should be able to use older operating systems and the programs they ran on with newer hardware.
I don’t think that was his issue. He started on one piece of software, but gradually got more and more complex CGI set ups that took longer and longer to run on his existing software. Even using an old computer on it’s own running the old software he’d still run into the same time issues. Using a virtual operating system slows things down on a newer machine, and you’d be very lucky to get any better than his older computers that way. Going back to DOS style ones? There there is an advantage, but going from an old windows to a newer windows? I don’t think he’d gain much.
I ran across a couple of 3DS Max scripts http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/vraymtlconverter-v2-5 & http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/multyconvertor that claim to be able to convert Brazil materials to VRay or other. I assume you are aware of them and they either doesn’t work with your scenes, or doesn’t give the result you need. But on the off chance you han’t seen them I thought I’d mention them.
Last page of previous chapter:
by Scott Christian Sava on November 4, 2013 at 7:12 am
Title page of this chapter:
by Scott Christian Sava on August 3, 2014 at 10:30 am
This page… non-CG:
by Scott Christian Sava on February 4, 2016 at 7:08 am
… I can’t really claim to know what brought all this about, or why the presumably ancient 3D modelling stuff packed it in… but why so many years without any kind of notice?
Hell, this would be like me trying to revive my old Tiid-Ahraan comic… although that only got about 30 pages in. That is NOT a minor time-gap. =/
Oh well… hopefully the story won’t suffer from the sudden change in medium.
Thank you Scott and Tracy!
Just now getting back over here to see what was up with your comic… and noted your quandary with the 3D compatibility problems you were having… this is kind of a common problem in the 3D world… I’ve been messing with it for what? 20 years now? I finally moved most of my main files over to Blender (some may laugh at that) but one thing Blender does very well is backwards compatibility with it’s files… I realize from your post that much of your texturing might have to be redone… as well as rigging work (Blender has some excellent Rigging tools however) I’ve used many 3D softwares over the years Lightwave, Max, Maya, XSI(which I still use on a fairly regular basis) others… I now very much am please with keeping all my Modeling Texturing and Rendering files in the blender format and when needed transferring them over to other formats of the other Major softwares… Blender has a pretty kick ass Renderer… but also plays nice with some other rendering engines like LuxRender and Aqsis(a cross-platform 3D rendering solution adhering to the RenderMan standard, as defined by Pixar) I think it would be worth your checking out to see what I am saying about it…
If there is one thing I have found over the years trying to stay faithful to just one 3D software package is the kiss of death for any kind of sane long term 3Dfile solution…
some day the 3D software industry will wake up to the fact it needs to standardize but until then… all the tricks jicks and slicks of each particular Software pail in comparison for the need for stability in the longevity of ones past file compatibility…
I actually wished I had come back over here and read all this sooner…
I might could have help out in some way…
I might still can… I would have make some time to do so however…
anyway just a thought… if you do have some interest in finding out more information I would definitely check out the BlenderArtist forums and ask around to see what can be done about converting your files in and out of blender and what blender currently is capable of… it’s quite the amazing software now days…
i feel sorry for your lost of models… but i recently found that site which i think you will be able to get them back in 3D: http://marza-realtime.com/ i hope that with these game engine could help you, it could be unity or unreal engine or even cry engine.
here 3 sites of each game engine that you could try:
Unreal Engine 4: https://www.unrealengine.com/what-is-unreal-engine-4
Unity 5.3: http://unity3d.com/
and Cry Engine: https://www.cryengine.com/
hope you will find out how to bring them back 🙂
Hey,
There was a notice, that Scott has since taken down (along with the otiginal 1st half of Chapter 21; which may or may not have gone into 2015; can’t remember), that explained that Scott was working on his movie Animal Crackers and would return to Dreamland afterwords. I am actually surprised today to come back and find the page updating before the movie is complete. Sooo happy…
I am very happy I have kept this site in my “Favorites” bar and took some time today to check it. Now, I’ve got several pages to read through until I get back to my familiar “I’ve gotta wait for more?!” feeling.
It really sucks that so much of your artwork was lost due to a simple software compatibility issue. But, glad that you were able to find someone to help you carry on the work.
Wow! I’ve just finished reading the Dreamland Chronicles through, the rendered parts for the second time, and the drawn parts for the first. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed both parts! I’ve pretty-much always considered this to have the most enjoyable visuals of any 3D comic I’ve read. It’s never too dark to see what’s going on, nor are the textures gritty or the edges harsh, and I love the color choices! Do I have criticisms too? Barely / not really. In 2008, I found the hairpieces rather strange at first, but I got used to them. This time around the hair didn’t bother me in the slightest! This time I had a little trouble seeing through the glow effect. I don’t recall having that problem in ’08. I don’t know whether it’s my older and currently tireder eyes, or my stupid TV. Some clever idiot involved with the design of my TV decided and evidently dictated to the rest of the team that because human eyes see blue and red less sharply than green, it was therefore mandatory to actually *blur* the blue and the red.
Tracy’s art is also great, as far as I’m concerned. I feel less qualified to critique it, but if I compare it with other comics I enjoy, it’s certainly in the upper echelons. I particularly like the way she does eyes. 🙂 At first I didn’t like the way she drew Nastajia’s expressions, but then I remembered I… would be rather slow to make friends with Nastajia herself 🙂 , so I think Tracy’s captured her very well. Personality-wise, I like Felicity much better, and a couple of times on seeing the expression Tracy gave her I’ve just gone, “Oh wow yes!” inside. I guess I must have favourite expressions in the style Tracy uses, and seeing them on one of my favourite characters ever is great! Oh also, I’m glad Tracy has a softer style than some.
I came back to this page to comment, intending to write a furious little rant about upgrade issues, “companies trampling on their own customers in the name of progress,” or something like that. I decided not to because I’m trying not to get so angry these days, and because, if I’m honest with myself, I am aware that there are some real practical difficulties with maintaining compatibility. I still don’t think it’s fair, and I think some open-source projects do a much better job of it, but the difficulties are real. (I italicized ‘some’ because some others actively try to break compatibility to force users to upgrade. Those have thoroughly put me off using Linux as my primary system, after more than 20 years of doing so.)
If I made a comic, I guess I’d probably try to use such open-source software. What I’d really like to do is write my own rendering software, but that’s just raw naked ambition. In that way, I’m much like a mad scientist who wants to rule the world. The world of software shall be MINE! MUAHAHAHAHHAHA!
You know what some commented about running your old software and operating system in a virtual machine? That actually would have been possible even if all your software was for PowerPC Macs, but it might have cost you as much as you spent anyway! If I remember right, there are new computers with POWER processors, (PowerPC is one of many POWER ranges,) but they will cost thousands, maybe tens of thousands of dollars each. It might even be personally delivered by a guy qualified to hook it up to your supercomputer, you know? 🙂