In which I finally give in to the fact that vector is pretty great.
The opening quote is from astronaut Edgar Mitchell as sourced here: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Edgar_Mitchell -- the part I wrote is as follows: "You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics looks so petty." The walk cycle owes a great amount of something to this video, which was the first result in Ecosia for the query "cat walking": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hzt18V3Uaxc The meaning of the second part with the walk cycle refers to ray cats, a suggested solution to long-term nuclear waste storage problems in which cats would be genetically engineered to turn bright colors when near dangerous amounts of radiation (the nuclear canaries in the coal mines!) and the message that cats turning bright colors meant danger was near and the civilization (including the cats, who were benevolent and useful warning signs, rather than bringing that danger) should pack up and move would be encoded into human culture through myths, songs, and so on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Interference_Task_Force#Fran.C3.A7oise_Bastide_and_Paolo_Fabbri, https://vimeo.com/138843064 for a short video on ray cats, and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g78hZIEqONM for a song composed as part of the proposed effort to imbue human culture with "if the cats change colors, leave immediately". Notes on process: The starting frame turned out way better than I expected. And so did the first part of the animation. And so did the walk cycle! The whole thing turned out way better than I expected, especially considering I've taken a rather long break from animation -- maybe that helped? I'm quite happy with how it turned out. Total time taken: ~7 to 11 hours. More than before but still manageable. Then again, the audio was six seconds long. Part 21 for my Space Oddity MAP, whose parts have all been filled: -- ironically enough, everyone else finished their parts, but I wanted to redo mine, so I've been the one holding up my own MAP.
