#The main detail I'm going for here is ''Dusty has never seen a human before''

[dduane]

In the digital art dep't...

Doing some work comparing renders in Daz Studio's (newer) version 4.21 to the older 4.15, which is where most of my rendering work has happened for the last couple/few years.

But also something else: starting to experiment with skin tone work on the main Middle Kingdoms characters... which I've been putting off because it's been incredibly complex and fiddly (and easy to screw up.). Then I ran across a new Daz-based tool which speeds this business up considerably.

(Adding a cut here because this goes on a little about subjects most people won't need cluttering up their dashes. Warning: contains volumetric- and non-volumetric-handling versions of Daz, character skin color work, complex (and complexion) lighting issues, image comparisons, and the local iteration of the These Two Idiots trope seen up close.

My attention right now is on the main characters, who come in a wide range of shades only casually referred to in the main-sequence books and the interstitial works. And among the core group—the human-born ones, anyway—there's significant variation. Herewiss, being northeast Darthene, is palest. Freelorn, being midlands Arlene with some Steldene ancestry, is darker. Segnbora, coming of people from the southeastern Darthene region along the Steldene border, is darkest of the human three of the Five.

All thee were details that had to go incorrectly depicted until now... because though I had the characters' faces and bodies pretty much sorted out, the skins were all, well, too damn unrelievedly white. And attempting to tweak that without sufficiently sophisticated tools (or enough understanding...) can cause real problems and a lot of lost time.

Now, though, with better tools I can start putting that situation right. Early attempts are inevitably going to be a bit spotty (I only got this tool over the weekend...). But the first few renders have been promising.

Compare this initial render of the Pride Month package "cover..."

to this one (after initial skinwork), which more closely mirrors the reality I see in my head:

(Over on the left, Tom's a bit pale in that run... but never mind. I'll sort him out shortly with the rest of the Young Wizards characters. Sunspark's human skin tone, meanwhile, can be expected to change without notice... especially when they've just seen a look they liked and want to try on.)

The difficulty with the above image is that for various reasons (like hiding the incomplete nature of the city behind them...) the lighting's from either a spring or autumn sunset, and therefore too warm for good clear comparisons. So as another early-stages test I took the version of Freelorn from the above image and repositioned him in one where the lighting was a lot better... at least when rendering in DSv4.15. Here's the "Short King" image from a year or two ago, before the skinchange...

...for comparison to the one I did this afternoon. (Since I was importing it from the laptop to the desktop machine running 4.21, there are some slight changes in camera position and lighting. Oh, and a different set of clothes for Herewiss.)

If the difference looks really subtle at the moment, that's okay. Lorn should be darker than this: Dusty's correctly a bit paler than last time. But it's a start. Further passes will get closer to what I'm after.

...So re-rendered versions of images on the MK website and elsewhere will start turning up with skin tones properly represented. (All this being secondary to cleaning out some of the 30K+ render files that have built up in the machine over the last ten years, and building a new tagging and indexing system for the ones that get kept. Whoopee. But it's gotta be done.)

Meanwhile, back to work on actual writing...

ETA: Meanwhile, no point in getting so caught up in image quality that you forget to move the camera around. Just look at these two idiots. :)

[fountainpenguin]

What was going on with Timmy, Cosmo, Wanda, and all the other Dimmsdale residents during the whole Disasteroid fiasco!? Same goes with Bunsen, Mikey, and Muckledunk?

Lots of timeline discussion in this post. For reference, these shows are included in my official timeline:

FOP

Jimmy Neutron

Bunsen Is a Beast

Danny Phantom

ChalkZone

SpongeBob (By default; we’ll never see any overlap, but SpongeBob is in “Nicktoons Unite” so I’m counting his show on the list)

Bruno the Kid (In secret personal headcanon only since it’s obscure)

PENDING: My Gym Partner’s a Monkey + T.U.F.F. Puppy

The Disasteroid incident takes place during the ~40 “missing” years that Zach (@mrzachbrightside​) and I have set during FOP Season 7 in our gigantic episode timeline. This is the time period with no official episodes (since our Season 7 is roughly divided into “Things that happened before Foop got trapped in the alternate dimension” and “Things that happen close to ‘Spellementary School’”), with about 37 years in between for Mark and Vicky on-again / off-again flirting, Crocker and Gary schemes, and other fun stuff. The wishes mentioned in the “Timmy’s Secret Wish” montage(s) happen in this “missing” time frame. My ‘fic Identity Theft spans it too.

Linzie (@kapuchino357​ / @linziefey​) has a headcanon I’ve adopted about Fairy magic being unable to interfere with the Disasteroid, so godkids simply wished their hardest that Danny’s plan to turn the planet intangible would succeed. Upon hearing the news that the Disasteroid was coming, they waited anxiously along with everyone else to see what would happen.

I’m still torn as to whether I want “Phantom Planet” to fall at the beginning or the end of that “missing” period. If it’s at the end, that means Danny had 40 years to master his powers while Vlad mostly sat around and did nothing. That’s not gonna fly. But I’m not sure how I feel about it falling early, either, simply because I’m not sure I want him to have been famous for 40 years. I feel like by Season 10 of FOP, the world is still adjusting to Danny’s existence. So… I’m undecided. Right now, my concern is helping Zach finish our timeline by strictly focusing on FOP, BIaB, and Jimmy Neutron, since there were official crossovers between those series. We’ll have to decide together what we want to do with DP.

According to my timeline, Bunsen was still living underground, so he was oblivious to everything. I’m of the opinion that Fairy World isn’t bound to Earth the way the Ghost Zone is. It’s on another plane of existence and the Disasteroid physically couldn’t hit it, so Fairies were simply at risk for losing their food source planet and godkids. If that’s the case, I’m also leaning towards Beast World being on another plane of existence, tying it to Fairy World as the other side of its coin, in parallel to the Ghost World and Living Realm.

So basically, we have a living world / purgatory world link, and a heaven world / hell world link. The location of the T.U.F.F. Puppy universe is still up for debate right now. Potentially, My Gym Partner’s a Monkey follows the main era and acts as a bridge between “World where Beasts are coming above ground for the first time in years” and “World where humans are gone and animals rule.” I haven’t officially decided yet. Because deep in my heart, I really want Adam Lyon and Bunsen to be friends. 

On that note, I also need Danny and Bruno the Kid to be frenemies for reasons. Mostly because one of the villains that Bruno left to die in his show was a guy who was obsessed with sunscreen, and it may or may not be my official secret headcanon that Chicky Love becomes a ghost who uses his sunscreen-related powers to burn portals into existence between the Living Realm and the Ghost Zone. Forever. Basically, after Danny becomes famous, I secretly headcanon that Globe adopted him into their ranks as a secret agent, and forced him to partner up with Bruno. I want Bruno to tear through the halls killing people who get in his way as usual, while Danny is forced to deal with all their vengeful souls. They would make an amazing, sassy pair. Maybe that’s what Danny spent those 40 years doing. I can work with that.

Maybe I could tie the T.U.F.F. world to ChalkZone somehow. High-tech world run by animals vs. old-fashioned world that runs on imagination? Hm. I think I need to actually watch T.U.F.F. before I do anything with it. I love the idea of animal-run world being the future, but I… don’t think I can justify rapid animal evolution in my current timeline.

Technically, the Hawthorn Haven cloudlands surround an unnamed planet that those residents use as their food source, akin to Fairy World settling around Earth. I could potentially use that as the T.U.F.F. Puppy planet, but I would have to justify the city of Petropolis being located in parallel California. Simply ruling the California location non-canon is an option that would open some intriguing possibilities for potential godkids…

ANYWAY, back to the original question, godkids were wishing hard and Bunsen was safe, as I said. As the Disasteroid closed in, Mikey and Amanda probably did one of those “Spontaneously embrace the person you hate and squeeze your eyes shut in fear until the danger passes” type of hugs, and completely missed seeing themselves turn intangible. One of the few times since their childhood friendship break-up that they actually agreed on something.

As far as my timeline goes, re-evaluating my current plans and making the T.U.F.F. universe the eventual future of Earth might be my best choice if I want to fit all four Hartman shows into my worldbuilding. I… have mixed feelings since it does knife something cruel cute I wanted to do, so I think I’ll try to watch as many T.U.F.F. episodes as I can find ASAP, and make my final decision after that.