Hey everyone!!
Super happy to be joining the Real-Time VFX challenge for the first time!!
For this challenge there was only ever really one concept option - A MIMIC!!
I’m hoping to explore more semi-realistic effects in this challenge so I’m really excited and look forward to making some cool stuff with you all 
That’s a really fun idea, looking forward to seeing how this turns out!
I agree with Niels! Really creative!
Thursday’s Progress!!
After many Blender tutorials, I now have the foundation for a cute mimic!!! I still want to give him more creepy looking eyes that blink but I think that’s better done in engine with shaders. If I have time to spare I might also try and make his chest more fancy. But I gotta make sure he can be animated and attack first!!!
I managed to get some basic animation so I let him have a nap.
^ Video is with less light quality as my blender suffered XD
I then realised I would like to have more control of the tongue movement so I made a very weird looking tongue with bones, which I’m sure will keep me up at night. After finishing this, I was ready to animate the attack!!
This is where I started to run into problems
For some reason blender keeps creating new actions and things are rotating, repositioning themselves and scaling up and down like there’s no tomorrow, so whenever I wanted to animate, things moved around like my computer was haunted.
My solution? Move out of blender and into Unity - as you might imagine, this did not magically resolve whatever error I had made that caused this problem to begin with XD
I still would prefer doing all the animation in Blender, so I reckon I will just need to practice that a lot more this weekend (and then figure out how to export successfully it XD)
Any advice, please do let me know, I would really appreciate it!
Really helpful tutorials during this part were:
This already looks good in blender!
Are you planning to make the FX in unity? or were you planning to make the entire FX along with animations in blender?
Frieren approves!
I hadn’t considered making the whole thing in Blender, as I usually only use it for models to export. However making the whole thing in Blender would force me far out of my comfort-zone, which is what this is all about!
I’m playing around this weekend with Blender tutorials anyway so might as well see if I can find something about VFX and filming in Blender!!
Thank you for the suggestion, if you know any good Blender tutorials, please do send them my way
Today’s positive note: I figured out how to work the Blender timeline!
Today’s improvement point: GO BACK IN TIME AND STOP ME FROM MAKING A JUMPSCARE
In all seriousness, I will probably need to speed up the animation a bit more but I want to keep room for the effects and speed them up once they are in place 
Very excited to keep exploring Blender further!
Used this amazing tutorial to get more comfortable with using the timeline:
Animation for Beginners! (Blender Tutorial) (youtube.com)
HE IS SO DARN CUTE ON STILL FRAMES!!! 
Pretty sure that’s gone after I give him better eyes, but Imma enjoy it while it lasts.
Full video progress for today here:
He now has eyes - maybe it’s me but he’s giving my puppy vibes and I love him
I found a Udemy course for procedural Effects in Blender (it’s a paid course so not sure I can share the link?) so working through that while also improving the animation and overall fuzziness of my little mimic
Full video progress here:
Eye tutorial in Blender:
Thank you all for going on this journey with me, any tips and tricks for improvement would be greatly appreciated!
Finally getting around to the VFX part in Blender!
Would love any and all feedback as I explore this new side of Blender!
Apologies for the lack of updates, I know it’s a requirement for the challenge but Covid and I have been having a bit of a disagreement. I hope to update with effect updates again later this week.
Take your time! You don’t have to update regularly! Just when you do progress
I hope you will feel better soon <3
Finally able to make progress on my lovely little mimic friend!! Any and all feedback to improve would be greatly appreciated!
