Monday, January 25, 2010

Yaoi romance: the vampire meets the gypsy

Yaoi ... the vampire and the gypsy ... and no way could I decide between these renders, so I leave it up to you! Also, this might not look like it, but this is absolutely the most complex render I've done to date at least in terms of computer power...

This one slowed the system waaaay down. It's loaded with models, and the more models you load in, the slower it gets. I'm not far short of maxed out with these shots. What I need is a bog jump drive, something like 12 or 16 Gigs, to expand the ram. And it's not s if this system isn't powerful ... it is! (Quad core, 4x 3.25, with 6G of Ram and 1.3T of harddrive space. And these renders give it a heck of a workout...

Count the models involved in these shots! Here's the tally:

Michael 4, face designed by me;
Midnight Prince Hair set to white;
Jagger skin map - no tattoos;
Pants from the Wood God set, redesigned as white gossamer silk;
Michael 4 (again), face designed by me;
Mario's Hair set to dark brown
Jeans from the Stylin' set;
Jagger skin map - tattoos on;
Gothika mirror, sized, shaped and aligned to fit;
Background wall and floor with textures applied;
Three distant lights;
One spotlight;
Six point lights;
Deep shadow maps on all distant lights and spotlight.

And the computer takes its time. Each render takes over a minute, and to get the lights right I did something like a dozen. I had this one light that was coming up red, or pink, on the Gypsy's forearm no matter what I did with it. Turned out to be a blue foreground light I'd forgotten about that was interacting with a couple of other and turning pink on the model! It took me about ten minutes to find it, and then the solution was simple: delete the bloody thing!

I really love the renders. The texture of the denim ... the tiny gold light on the gossamer silk, and the way it's reflected in the mirror ... the transparency of the silk (!) and the way the light follows the contours. Soooo lovely.

Yaoi romance ... (Once upon a time) in the deeps of a dark forest was an ancient hall where there lived an immortal vampire who went by the name of Amadeus. And one stormy night a gypsy wagon followed the lights of the hall through the trees, and a young man knocked, looking for shelter for himself and his horses, with minutes to spare before the storm broke...

I actually like Yaoi romance a lot. Youthful gay guys, sensitive romance, what's not to like? But at this moment the Australian government is getting set to crack down on it. They believe that all Yaoi concerns young men who're underage. And if stories, scenes, art, whatever, depict lads even two days short of their 18th birthdays in romantic encounters, well, that's (get this) illegal. In their eyes, every single person who finds the best and most beautiful of Yaoi art to be a thing of beauty is a sex offender.

This is so far wrong, I have to say something to speak out against this stupidity. And for the benefit of the Australian government I want to make this statement: all the models portrayed on this site are an absolute minimum of 20 years old. Not eighteen. Not nineteen. They're twenty, damnit. And I can tell you that for sure because they, one and all, spring from my imagination, or are inspired by the characters in Mel Keegan's books. I know how old my characters are, and ... well let' see. Captain Kevin Jarrat: 31. Captain Robert J. "Stoney" Stone, 32. Master Sergeant James Cargill "Gil" Cronin, 35. Janos Zaparasti, 28. Captain Richard Vaurien, 45. Barbara "Barb" Jazinsky, 34. That info comes direct from Mel Keegan. Any questions, ask Mel!

There: it's said. There are no kids on this site. NONE. Yaoi means "youthful," not necessarily underage. I don't doubt that there are plenty of Yaoi comics and movies out there that might involve younger guys, but not here. In these renders, The Vampire Amadeus is something like 3000 years old, and the gypsy is 26.

The Aussie government is trying to force into operation Internet filtering (censorship) that will make huge swathes of the Internet vanish from Aussies' PC screens, because it has no idea what Yaoi means, or can mean. In their book, if there's a chance that YouTube (for example) might contain Yaoi videos that might involve someone underage -- all of YouTube has to be removed from Australians' reach.

Does this sound sane to you?

A number of Aussie ISPs are having a protest for the next three days. They're running their servers at the speed the Internet will be reduced to, for Aussies, if the filters go into operation. It's slooooooow enough to be a huge problem even with broadband. On a daialup? No joy at all.

Off the soapbox, Jade!

So ... Yaoi romance, cross cultural and across the centuries. Enjoy!

Jade, 26 January (Australia Day)