Epoch has been a busy guy since the last time we interviewed him. Working on several projects including a new Clara Raven comic was his plate. Not only that, but he began work on a comic-reading format known as Dynamic Comic Viewer (or DCV) that caught our attention. Within a slick design and boasting a number of feature, the DCV could be the future of 3DX as we know it. If you want to know more about it, then check out the tech demo of the Dynamic Comic Viewer and read our recent interview with Epoch to know more about this revolutionary product and other things you can expect from him.
It’s been some time since we last spoke. Give us an update on the many things you’ve been up to since then.
It’s been almost a year, so I guess the most important thing to point out is that I have made 3DX my full-time career after getting laid off from my job in January of 2012. As a hobbyist, I have been making commercial erotic CG comics since 2006, but it has always been a ‘side job’; a way to make a little extra income outside of my real job. After I got laid off, however, I decided to take a real shot at 3DX as a career. I knew when I started on this adventure that the road would be long, but I broke this year up into achievable, realistic milestones, and stuck to my convictions.
First, l bailed on my old Google Blogger website because it didn’t offer the functionality I wanted. I built a new website, migrated all assets over, and kept working on my comics (as well as a few commission projects just to ‘keep the lights on’, so to speak). I told the Content Manager at crazyxxx3dworld.com, my previous comic outlet, that I would be working on one last title for them before I left to start selling erotic comics in my own online store. For them, I created the longest Clara Ravens title to date, in four large releases, which took nearly half a year. But as I was finishing work on the last part, I secretly hired a software developer to create a special type of comic software platform that I intended to create my comics on after I finished up with my last comic for crazyxxx3dworld.com.
The final part of Clara Ravens Episode 3 was handed over to crazyxxx3dworld.com, and I immediately moved on to making the epilogue to that story as my first independent release, to be on this new platform we were developing. In the meantime, I hired a team of e-commerce developers to build my webstore and get that all set up while I finished the comic. Once the store went live, the comic released… and it’s been history in the making.
For those who don’t know, you’ve worked on a brand new comic reading format known as the ‘Dynamic Comic Viewer’. Can you tell us a bit about it?
We’re in the information and digital age; unfortunately, the 2D medium of comic books is barely staying relevant. The world has moved into an age where consumers have come to expect innovation, from the most complicated to the simplest of electronics. The Dynamic Comic Viewer (or DCV for short) is an attempt to make the traditional comic medium a more interactive experience. In contrast to the passive experience of 2D comics, the DCV-enabled comics engage the viewer, and offer a way to experience the comic the way they want to experience it. Optional, alternate imagery of different types, ambient music and sound effects, short looping animations, and bonus materials such as character bios and 3D character turntables all make the comics a rich experience that is unique and a giant leap beyond what people think of when they think of comics. And we’re just getting started.
I’ve tried out the DCV format and I simply love it. Do you think this new format will revolutionize the way people read comics? And have you thought of spreading the technology out to other artists in the industry?
We really hope that the format does indeed revolutionize comics, but that is going to require a lot of iteration. We have a solid foundation so far; now we need to build on it. Even though we are very proud of the initial release, it wasn’t as feature-rich as it could have been if we had more time for development. Many good ideas were tabled for a future version in order to hit our release date. But we intend to constantly iterate on the software until we have something that we can sit back and say, “Okay, NOW this thing truly is revolutionary”.
I’ve been given a lot of great suggestions for new features and enhancements by the community and we have plans to implement them in larger version releases. We’re already underway with a large update that will include a ‘shot/reverse-shot’ functionality; a common film technique used in movies when two characters are engaged in dialogue. This, I believe, will help with readability and keep the clutter of multiple word balloons to a minimum. Additionally, we’re implementing page numbering this time around, as well as environment animations on static frames. The environment animations are another step towards providing that rich, immersive experience you cannot get from a 2D comic.
To answer your second question, once I feel the DCV is a rock-solid piece of software, I do intend to open it up for other artists to produce their works on. Currently, there is no user-friendly way to build a DCV-comic; it is all scripting. Before we can allow others to develop on the platform, we will need to create a sort of ‘DCV-authoring’ application, to make the process of creating a DCV-enabled comic less painless and error-prone than it currently is. Once we have the big enhancements and feature additions complete, we’ll move on to the authoring tool, then offer a release for developers. That should be coming late 2013.
Generally speaking, how do you manage to keep up the high frequency of output yet maintain your high standard of work?
In my opinion, I don’t feel I’m nearly as prolific as some of my 3D artist contemporaries. I guess any perceived high frequency of output is made possible through a streamlined workflow, a 2nd rig built strictly for rendering, and the fact that this is now my job; 8-12 hours a day I am making comics, studying tutorials, doing tests, etc. Because if I don’t push out quality products, I’ll need to go back to a 9 to 5 job… and I really don’t want to do that.
I’m always looking to make my workflow faster so I can finish projects more quickly, but the bottleneck has always been render times. And now that I’ve ventured into animation, render times for a simple, one second looping animation have topped out at over 24 hours of render time at production render settings. But I’ve recently settled on moving my rendering from the Poser Firefly to OTOY’s Octane Render. Octane is simply amazing. Rendering on the GPU is much, much faster than rendering on the CPU (even a hyper-threaded one), and the quality is better since Octane is an un-biased render engine. So overall, I should be able to speed up my workflow while also increasing the quality of the final product. Of course, this comes with a learning curve that I’m working through at the moment. I was hopeful that I could have fully integrated Octane into my workflow in time for the next DCV-enabled comic I release to be 100% realized from within that amazing render engine, but I don’t see that happening. The problem is that graphic cards typically contain very little on board RAM, and that is where the textures get cached before rendering begins. And I build very LARGE scenes. I will need to upgrade my graphics card to one with more on board RAM, or move to an SLI configuration with two graphic cards. Both of these options are heavy expenses, so I’ll have to wait until after the next DCV-enabled release before I can move fully to that render engine.
Now that you’ve added animation to your repertoire, tell us about whether you’ve faced any challenges in doing so? Has it broadened your horizons? Is this something you’re putting more emphasis on in the future?
As with any new venture, it isn’t without its challenges. I have found no ‘holy grail’ of Poser animation tutorials online, and had to resort to lengthy back-and-forth dialogues with experienced Poser animators on how to accomplish certain things. Specifically, learning how to set up and reorganize IK chains, and parenting character actors to other character actors to fake forward kinematics were two challenges I faced in this most recent comic. I also learned that a biased renderer like Firefly is not suited for animation at all, due to the inconsistencies of light and shadow from one frame to the next. That is another reason I’m moving my workflow to Octane. Un-biased renderers do not fake lighting solutions like Firefly does, so the results are consistent across rendered frames. Did I mention how fast GPU rendering is? LOL.
Since animation was the most clamored for feature of the DCV, I will certainly be putting a lot of focus on making them better and improving my skill at keyframe animating. But Poser’s animation tools are pretty lackluster compared to other programs, which is why I might consider a middleware solution like Autodesk’s MotionBuilder in the future, if it is even possible to export to another solution, since Poser is notorious for not playing nicely with other software. After over a decade, we are only now seeing plugins for Poser that allow us to work in other 3D apps without complicated workarounds. So we’ll see.
You’ve just released the latest Clara Ravens title and I love the direction the story is going. Could you possibly give us a hint of what’s to come next in her saga?
Since Clara’s episodes aren’t necessarily direct continuations of the last episode (like Freehope is), the story can go anywhere. The epilogue was an obvious exception, but I have plans to do a story with Clara and Leslie in their college years on expedition, to give more of their backstory together, and how they became enemies. I also have another story written (which was originally supposed to be Episode 3) that involves a new character and a story where she’ll be in her wetsuit for the majority of it.
Outside of those two stories, nothing solid has been fleshed out entirely. I have ideas on my idea sheets written down for further exploration later. But my favorite thing to do with Clara is get her in difficult sexual situations and put her in different sexy outfits, so you can expect to see both of those things in her future.
What else can we expect from you in the near future?
In the near future, expect nothing but DCV-enabled comics. Those will be produced in the (relative) short term. I will continue with my main series as well as wrap up mini-series’ like Breaking Point.
But long term, meaning some time in 2013, I have plans to return to the Flash-programmed erotic video game we finished the game design doc for. I can’t really give any specifics at this time since I am still working on getting commitments from the Flash developers. But if I had my wish, I’d be making comics as well as erotic games. In fact, I’d love to do crossovers; sort of like video game ‘vignettes’ of situations that take place within the universe of my comics. I’m at the mercy of the developers, though. If I make enough money off of my DCV-enabled comic releases, I’ll be able to hire and pay developers up front, which will guarantee we can get it done. So everyone buy my stuff if you want a Flash-based porn game! The fate of the game (or games) is in your hands!
Any last words you would like to send out to our readers?
I would like to take a moment to sincerely thank everyone who’s ever purchased a membership to crazyxxx3dworld.com or a comic through my web store. Now that I have my own storefront and product, I must routinely do a weekly “DMCA flush” as I call it, which is to visit websites on a constantly updated “watch list”, sending DMCA notices to all of the file-sharing websites that have pirated copies of my work, in order to have the links pulled. I understand piracy is a part of this business, especially the adult business, but it is time better spent working on my comics and it is fucking tedious.
But what really, truly hurts is when I see registered members of my website and this website sharing my stuff or asking for links to pirated versions of it on other message boards. They don’t even bother to register with a different username! That’s a total kick in the crotch. Jesus, have at least a modicum of integrity, you lecherous fucks… You know who you are…
I’d also like to thank the regular commenters on my website, who often provide great insight and ideas, and are always honest about my work. Your frequent visits and kind words inspire me, and I keep you in mind when all I want to do is procrastinate and play video games. Since any release date I set for myself is just an arbitrary number, your excited comments filled with eager anticipation keep me motivated and on target. So thanks so much to all of you!
And last but not least, I want to thank my “Crew of Two”: shift64 who developed the DCV, and Xipomus, who beta tested the shit out of it. I also want to thank both of them for helping with the website maintenance, emergency fixes, and for just generally being two cool guys to work with. You dudes rock!
Sorry for the Academy Award-style rant, but how often do you get these opportunities?! Take care, and thanks for the interview!
jaykersh
December 13, 2012I picked up Epoch’s latest and the Dynamic Comic Viewer. It’s pretty awesome. I’m real excited for what Epoch has in store for us.