MANON
Meet Manon—a fiery elven mercenary.
"Is that all? Hah! I expected a lot more from you."
Meet Manon—a fiery elven mercenary.
"Is that all? Hah! I expected a lot more from you."
High Dependency Count
The included showcase relies on a high number of dependencies due to its detailed nature. If you are only interested in the model, a separate VAR has been provided that includes Appearance and Hair presets only, for your convenience.
Attribution Note
Some of the background and ambient sound effects are provided by Pixabay, free for use under their Content License.
Support Our Creators
This would not have been possible without the countless number of free resources provided on the Hub. Please consider taking a moment to support their works with a like and reaction.
Overview
Happy elf month, my favorite time of year for VAM! I wanted to contribute something extra special this year, as it will be the first year I'll have been able to participate.
Meet Manon, a spicy, redheaded elven fighter who's great at splitting a skull or two with her greataxe. She's got a toned, athletic body, probably the best ass I've ever created, and a smug face that radiates pure sass. You're currently taking a short rest with her to relax and recover just outside your next objective—a dungeon dive promising rare loot and lots of thrilling encounters.
Here is a video showcasing the full range of features I've built into her scene.
Included
I've included her, and the showcase that I've tailored especially for her. The universe my elves exist in is heavily inspired by Diablo, so I've made something meant to be a strong tribute, and I think it fits her perfectly.
Overall, this entire package clocks in at a little bit above 50 total hours of work over the last couple of months. Featuring:
- Just over five minutes of upper-body motion capture that I captured and edited myself.
- An immersive environment with ambient sounds, dynamic weather, dynamic lighting, and interactive elements.
- An elven model made with great love and care, free for the community.
Part One: A Redheaded Firecracker
Additional images of Manon can be found in the gallery below, or from me in the VAM Discord.
All credits for resources used for this model are included below, as they are dependencies in both VARs. If your resource was used and was not properly credited either in the following sections or the credits below, please let me know so I can correct the issue.
- Custom heterochromia eye textures, with golden flecks, and normals.
- Hand-painted smoky makeup decal with beauty mark.
- Two remixed hairstyle presets, both containing AT5's custom lashes—one of which I custom-edited for elf ears.
- Two head morphs—elven and human, just in case you're a blasphemer during elf month.
- Custom full body morph, with hands and feet split for nails/gloves/footwear thanks to Skynet's Morph Merge and Split Extended.
- Three remixed clothing presets: Underwear, Clothed, and Armored (included in showcase only).
- Beautiful skin textures by FRK. I included a modified
FaceD texture only to better blend the neck seam. No other textures were included. Please support the original creator.Part Two: A Short Rest
All credits for resources used for this scene are included below, as they are dependencies of the showcase VAR. If your resource was used and was not properly credited either in the following sections or the credits below, please let me know so I can correct the issue.
Where to begin?
I've been creating dioramas and MMD stages for a while, but I wanted this one to feel more like an immersive experience, and I really wanted to make my own motion capture. This showcase started as something small, inspired by Metix's showcase for his Saskia model, then continued to grow over the course of a month or so.
The below features are all covered in the provided video showcase above:
- Over five minutes of custom upper-body motion capture that I acted, captured, and edited myself. This is what I'm most proud of.
- Hand-keyframed lower body movements, fingers, and expressions.
- A remix of CUA assets themed around the entrance to a dungeon in a gothic world.
- A good stick.
- A combination of ambient sounds, and a familiar soundtrack that perfectly fit the theme.
- A dynamic weather system—rain, fog, thunder and lightning that comes and goes, and dynamic lighting and LUT adjustments to further the atmosphere. She even gets wet and dries off in the rain.
- Multiple HPVL and particle effect CUAs to better draw the scene together. Campfire smoke and embers, animated fog, torches et cetera.
- A more complex version of a camride that has randomized durations and focus targets.
- Additional hair and clothing presets to make Manon more fully-featured.
- Several easter eggs hidden around the scene. From a bonus mocap that has a chance to play, to other little details I won't disclose—I genuinely hope you have fun seeing if you can find them all. I am a stickler for small details.
- A robust menu system to give you a little more control over what you want to see.
Tips
I tried to expose as many things that made sense via buttons and triggers as possible, though there are a few things that VAM is just simply quirky about:
- If you get a black screen but can still interact with the scene, select Show Hidden in the atom menu, and disable UIOverlay. There are some race conditions that I tried to solve, but unfortunately, I may not have caught everything. The overlays are non-essential to the scene and are included for additional polish.
- Due to the way I've set up the dynamic weather, try to wait at least ten seconds between enabling/disabling dynamic weather. If it gets stuck, you can manually switch states via the VFXRainDriver atom, or simply reload the scene and let my init triggers take care of it for you.
- There may be something I missed during my dozens of quits/reloads and rigorous testing that could break. Feel free to let me know in the discussion if something is off.
A Word of Thanks
A heartfelt thank you to everyone who's followed my work thus far—whether it's offered words of encouragement, or simply reactions to my resources, media items, or Discord screenshots. It gives me the motivation to continue sharing with the community.
Support Me
If you think I did a good job, feel free to buy a coffee for the elf girls.
Monetary support is appreciated, but never required.
Thank you for your kind comments in the Discord, too.
