Blah blah blah the usual.  A lot of my project work time got overrun by other things that needed to be done.  Some of it was kind of unavoidable (like the couple of times a year we do performances, and competitions when they come up).  The rest of it was just somehow I ended up being the one that absolutely had to do the thing because for some reason everyone else was completely and utterly incapable.

Having said that I am most of the way through the blocking for the rig test animation and I think I will mostly clean it up this time round.  Which means that all the motion will be cleaned up as much as I can be bothered (I still have a lot of stuff to build x_x) but I still won't be trying to figure out how to animate hair and not doing cloth this time so they're going to continue being stiff and unwieldy.

I've managed to squeeze in everything I wanted to test which was walking (ergh I hate this but I do need a lot of practice)

https://technonaturalist.net/blog/2025/04/april-progblog-2-blocking/dragonkin-rig-test-walk-screenie_hu_965d92c2373f0d72.webp

various martial arts nonsense with extra appendages (and bonus Zara being way too bendy and flippy)

<div class="clearfix">
<div class="pull-left">https://technonaturalist.net/blog/2025/04/april-progblog-2-blocking/zip-backflip-over-red-tail-whip_hu_9f6f534b37acf495.webp</div>
<div class="pull-left">https://technonaturalist.net/blog/2025/04/april-progblog-2-blocking/zip-splits-under-red-wing-strike_hu_8043dedcc9653e54.webp</div>
</div>

https://technonaturalist.net/blog/2025/04/april-progblog-2-blocking/red-glide-dodging-zip-kick_hu_20f17a64b8aa2147.webp

including a gainer flipkick that I just noticed needs straightening up vertically x_x

https://technonaturalist.net/blog/2025/04/april-progblog-2-blocking/zip-gainer-flipkick_hu_d7d6964ca4b6fa4f.webp

The blocking pass is key poses at the times I want them so currently everything is tweening the shortest possible path to the next keyframe so things are clipping through other things or just generally being ugly.

https://technonaturalist.net/blog/2025/04/april-progblog-2-blocking/zip-parry-aerial_hu_fbb9972d72f0bde0.webp

The last thing I wanted to test was the prehensile tail with the Rigify tentacle rig and while the controllers not being distance limited from each other was a minor pain (I might have to label them so I can tell which one is which) it worked out a lot better than the spline controller I made (which I did limit the controller distance of and it ended up feeling like a very confused hybrid of forward and inverse kinematics which mostly did the job but was not that much fun to work with).

https://technonaturalist.net/blog/2025/04/april-progblog-2-blocking/red-tail-grab_hu_3392fc0530b4faba.webp

When it's very curved like that the tail is looking way too segmented.  I'm pretty sure all the bendy bones have enough segments in them to curve nicely but I don't know how the tentacle rig works.  I'll do a bit more investigation after I finish the blocking pass.

Looking forward to going back through and cleaning up.

Suppose I should include the crappy looking blocking phase because it's a progblog.

<video controls src="https://technonaturalist.net/blog/2025/04/april-progblog-2-blocking/dragonkin-rig-test-blocking-incomplete.webm" />

It's a [Spectacle](https://apps.kde.org/spectacle/) screencast because I was too lazy to render it out properly and I forgot to uncheck the include mouse pointer checkbox.

I'm slightly salty I didn't get to work on it today (had to run some errands and finish lesson plans and generally get ready for term) but at least I had enough material for a progblog for a change.

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This post also appears on [my blog](https://technonaturalist.net/blog/2025/04/april-progblog-2-blocking/).

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