TittyMagic 5.2 alpha 1 + test scene

Alright, I'm pretty excited about this one!

Demo video: https://mega.nz/file/Ad0zRJDa#eyHTX_WeyxvXDSQaXcb4o0beXjZvVGyW2nIc06kcuws 

The video shows how 5.2 calculates morphs differently using the soft physics joints positions. I've posted it to my Discord as well. The above image is from that video.

Downloads available in the shared folder:

TittyMagic/everlaster.TittyMagic.60.var
Scenes/everlaster.TM5_TestRoom1.1.var

The test scene has side to side and up and down cycle forces, and a sphere and capsule to use for collision testing.

5.2 alpha 1 change log

Soft joint position based morphing

Soft physics now feed back into morph values, which changes a lot how morphs get applied as breasts are animated or collided with. The average position of the breast stays true to the current shape of the breast each physics update, and is sensitive to changes on the skin surface. For more info see the video and the end of month post.

To compensate for the ease at which morphing now occurs near the breast's neutral position:

• The amount of downward morphing is reduced by 25%
• Background multipliers for how up/down and left/right morphs get applied with distance from the breast's neutral position have been adjusted to include a small amount of extra "difficulty" as the distance first starts increasing from zero (previously it just started linearly applying morphs, but there was a dead zone near the neutral position)

Experimental breast position smoothing

I implemented an averaging effect on the breast position when it is used to calculate morph values. In the experimental features UI, accessible from a button in the plugin UI, you can configure how many physics updates to average the calculated breast position over, and whether to emphasize older or newer updates.

There are two reasons why you might want to use smoothing:
(1) collision on one side of the breast will only cause morphing to occur after a short delay, simulating the effect where the collision force moves as a wave through the breast fat, and
(2) it adds a dampening effect to very high force animations such as many MMD animations, preventing breasts from stretching unnaturally as they bounce. 

Try it out! By default, smoothing is disabled.

Adjustments to hard colliders

Collision physics no longer need to rely so heavily on hard colliders (although we're nowhere near a point where hard colliders would be obsolete). 

• Base force multiplier's default value is reduced from 0.75 to 0.5
• Background multipliers on the collision forces of individual hard colliders have been reduced slightly
• Collision forces now scale up with breast mass to help with lifting up very heavy breasts. It should feel pretty good across all breast sizes, but appropriate for the amount of mass.

Adjustments to breast gravity

Breast gravity effect in the up/down and left/right directions (target angles) was reduced to around 70 percent of what it was. Breasts should typically no longer drop quite as hard.

In addition, breast size no longer has any effect on the target angles - it's only based on softness. At softness 0, angles are 0 and breast gravity is basically disabled. The mass of larger breasts already pulls them down more, no need for the target angle to add to that effect.

Main joint spring is reduced much less when leaning away from an upright pose. In previous versions, the reduction was a bit overkill. 

Main joint damper is now adjusted as part of breast gravity, it increases a bit when leaning away from an upright pose.

Adjustments to default calculated physics

• Default fat back force is reduced, although it was already pretty low in 5.1. It's not necessary any more as a way to get breasts to move with collision as morphing and hard colliders do all of the heavy lifting (pun intended), and having it at a lower value produces better looking animation. 
• Fat back force no longer increases if you reduce softness, it only increases with mass.
• Main joint damper increased a bit.

Other

• Fixed issue where the Down Offset Morphing in the Breast Gravity tab was not correctly applied for large breasts
• Down Offset Morphing also works more consistently for different breast sizes
• Renamed the Soft Physics On toggle to Breast Soft Physics On, and it will also be highlighted red if soft physics is off in Control&Physics 1 or in User Preferences
• Fixed issue where modifications to the person atom UI were applied even if plugin was already disabled on scene/preset load

Planned

Since morphs now change more easily and are accurately driven by the breast's current shape, the breast shape tends to "bulge" quite easily, and it doesn't always look natural. I will see if it would make more sense to reduce the morphs that cause that, and use more breast rotation morphs instead.

More testing is needed to ensure default physics as well as everything the plugin does in the background is tuned properly to the soft joint position based morphing.

I don't know if smoothing/averaging the breast position is ultimately a good idea or not. Later on, I'll post a poll to get some feedback on it, and then I will decide if it should be included in the 5.2 public version.

Thanks! Have a great start of October, everyone 😃

-everlaster