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🔩CarbonGM🎲 @carbongm.bsky.social · 1h

The Jellybean in her natural habitat

Reposted by 🔩CarbonGM🎲

🔩CarbonGM🎲 @carbongm.bsky.social · 7h

Here's the thread where I yap to myself about the Build-a-Bot beta test and the stuff I learned. #vtuber #robotvtuber

TL:DR, releasing in January-ish. Trying to balance noob-friendliness and capability for expert users. Money makes me sad. See rough outline in the pics and details below 🧵

NEW PARTS TO MODEL
- Moustache, as cheek addon or as mouth? Both?
- Glasses as brow addons
- Line/Closed eyes like anime trope
- 3 kitty mouth with no nose
- No mouth and no mouth when not speaking
- Rounded head shape, like a human head
- Proper bunny ears
- More horns (ibex, unicorn, ram)
- Antlers
- Bug antennae & pincers
- Cables for head decor
- Screen Overlays: Cracks, fade,
- Springy heart ahoge head decor
- TV Antenna head decor
- Astro bot like head, big and round!
- Eye lash eyes based off rounded socket eyes
- All of the 3D decor! 20 of them planned out.
- More animalistic things!!
- Cyclops eye
- Big and round arm & leg options!
- Clunky, heavy mech options!
- Feminine lips for mouth?
- Mole on the cheek?
- Flipper-style, flat arms?
- Another style of hip plates!
- More parts that hang off the hips, something like faulds & tassets

BIG ADDITIONS
- (?) Make toggle to enable individual part scaling via runtime handles. Leave for post launch?
- Add the following toggles: alt color palette, chibi, power down, more?
- Make GIFs and multi-panel controls explanation.
- Add the 3D decor using the decal controls
- Make basic usage video for BaB itself
- Make Blender usage video for post-export tweaking
- Make FAQ/readme document answering the following: blendshape sensitivity/inversion, object hierarchy weirdness, disappearing parts (jic), loading on export and clones, decal how-to, ARKit and VSF,
- Add individual bone resizing! In the extras?
- The ToU, "Against Public Morals" change to something less vague?
- Save system: Bump to 5 slots and make a panel for save/loading with a note line for each slot?
- Tinker with non-planar decals! Would a loop decal work?
- Back Slot & Parts: Bird wings, bat/dragon wings, butterfly wings, insectoid pincers (DMC4), a few guns, rocket launcher, sword, shield, backpack, radio kit, solar panel, big tank, radar dish, jetpack, spiky wings like V1 or mechas, bo staff.
- Tail Slot & Parts: Cat tail, lizard tail, energy tail, socket tail (US/Euro/Ethernet versions), chain tail, short tail, bunny tail, thick/fluffy tail, deer tail,

POST LAUNCH THINGS
- Furry head & digitigrade feet. Also high heel feet while I'm at it. Pointy, mech/cyberpunk legs too!
- Wave 4 of parts
- Parts with toggles specific to them
- Overhaul Decal system.
- Alt "Outfit" toggle

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🔩CarbonGM🎲 @carbongm.bsky.social · 6h

I'm realizing now I didn't write a thing to conclude this.

Trials have happened, yet we ford onwards. I'm managing burnout decently and I've got high hopes.

Thanks for reading my wall of text 🙏

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🔩CarbonGM🎲 @carbongm.bsky.social · 6h

So, right now build-a-bot is in a decent place technically. I have a code base and the basic functions are working. Now, I'm going to give myself time to EXPAND. January sounds about right, given the timeline of things. I've been at this for 6 months now, jfc. What's another 3 to polish things?

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🔩CarbonGM🎲 @carbongm.bsky.social · 6h

I'm utterly terrified to name the price at this point, though, so I won't quite yet. But it should be very comparable to traditional customizable model prices.

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🔩CarbonGM🎲 @carbongm.bsky.social · 6h

...its probably going to be a tremendous amount of work and stress on me, entirely besides the programming. So, what may not happen is something like a discord for Build-a-Bot users. And what will NOT happen is a higher price tag for Build-a-Bot.

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🔩CarbonGM🎲 @carbongm.bsky.social · 6h

But there does seem to be a lot more casual interest in this sort of thing that I initially thought. Build-a-Bot was going to have a higher pricetag, but I don't want to price out people who are interested in it. And, while building a community of robotic 3D modelers sounds epic...

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🔩CarbonGM🎲 @carbongm.bsky.social · 6h

...model of their character. The original intention was to fully service a smaller market of folks with mechanical OCs designs who want a 3D model, because there's not many options out there and I could personally help people get started in tweaking the models to be uniquely theirs....

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🔩CarbonGM🎲 @carbongm.bsky.social · 6h

Okay, now the parts I'm less proud of. I hate trying to explain this, because it's ultimately about the price of the program and how do you talk about that?? It only recently hit me that people who don't have an explicitly robotic persona might be interested in getting this program as an alt...

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🔩CarbonGM🎲 @carbongm.bsky.social · 6h

Particularly for the head, face, hips, and abdomen. As well a sets of limb parts which are more striking and different in their design, for a more special silhouette. I'm also going to try and add a back/wings section and a tail section before release, for more variety.

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🔩CarbonGM🎲 @carbongm.bsky.social · 6h

Some testers found the amount of parts to choose from to be enough, a few didn't. This might be related to the creative usage mentioned above. Regardless, I hope the robust tutorials will give some ideas on how to use the program to the fullest. And if not, I'm going to be adding more parts anyways.

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🔩CarbonGM🎲 @carbongm.bsky.social · 6h

I've already seen a lot of creativity from the beta testers, so it's pretty clear to me that the priority should be giving the user all the tools I can, without compromising basic usability. A sandbox sort of attitude. Which is pretty inline with my initial goals.

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🔩CarbonGM🎲 @carbongm.bsky.social · 6h

I've gotten a lot of ideas for misc sliders and toggles to put on the Extras page, for those with more unique goals. More freedom in the proportion control is a big one; so you could make a lil guy or more hulking model with what's already there....

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🔩CarbonGM🎲 @carbongm.bsky.social · 6h

I suspected the there would be a distinct divide in users who were already familiar with customizing/working on 3D models who would want more freedom, and novice users who would want more guidance. This turned out to be very true and I'm going to have to run a balance to try and work with both....

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🔩CarbonGM🎲 @carbongm.bsky.social · 6h

I also got to see how other people view things and the assumptions they bring to the table. I'm going to put a lot of effort into making robust tutorials to explain exactly how things work. I'm imagining a slideshow with GIFs and text demonstrating what to do. Also, I'm outlining a readme doc.

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🔩CarbonGM🎲 @carbongm.bsky.social · 6h

Though I realize I need to shake up how I use the program myself to find this stuff earlier and easier. Live and learn, I suppose.

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🔩CarbonGM🎲 @carbongm.bsky.social · 7h

I spent a lot of time bug fixing, much more than I expected. A lot more went wrong than I expected or wanted, but I was also able to stay on top of it. Right now, the program is sitting in a pretty functional state....

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🔩CarbonGM🎲 @carbongm.bsky.social · 7h

Here's the thread where I yap to myself about the Build-a-Bot beta test and the stuff I learned. #vtuber #robotvtuber

TL:DR, releasing in January-ish. Trying to balance noob-friendliness and capability for expert users. Money makes me sad. See rough outline in the pics and details below 🧵

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🔩CarbonGM🎲 @carbongm.bsky.social · 7h

The lights are super nice!

🔩CarbonGM🎲 @carbongm.bsky.social · 9h

I want to post all the stuff I've learned and decided from the Build-a-Bot beta test. But it's a lot and I'm not sure if I should do a big thread of me talking to myself or post a picture of the text doc with a big warning that's clarifying that I'm not graduating or smth.

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Reposted by 🔩CarbonGM🎲

Mana 🦊🌙 Kitsune VT! @itsladymana.bsky.social · 28d

Officially back open for business on VGen! 💕 thank you for all the excitement when I announced I would be soon and all the people who left me requests to open these back up 🥲 I likely wouldn’t have had the courage to do it today without that very encouraging push!

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🔩CarbonGM🎲 @carbongm.bsky.social · 1d

"I showed you my blur, please respond."

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🔩CarbonGM🎲 @carbongm.bsky.social · 1d

He gets more zoomed in every time I see this pic

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🔩CarbonGM🎲 @carbongm.bsky.social · 2d

Their approach is different than mine and comes with differences in limitations.

Which is related to some stuff that the beta has got me thinking about. Not bad at all, but different. I'll talk about it more soon.

🔩CarbonGM🎲 @carbongm.bsky.social · 2d

I have become aware there is another 3D customizable model in the works. Being made by Pastell & Palette, unfortunately they've posted nowhere besides twitter.

Super cool to see this becoming a thing though.

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