TLDR;

• Scene 8 is almost complete!
• Followed technical advice for Linux setup that bricked my motherboard
• Zero data loss - all work is safe and backed up
• Replacement motherboard ordered, exploring temporary solutions
• Using downtime to work on writing for upcoming scenes

✅ Last Week's Progress

What I accomplished since the last update:

The Good News First

Scene 8 progress has been fantastic - or at least it was! I was making excellent headway using the pose library workflow that I talked about last week. I got to the point where I was almost ready to start polishing and doing minor tweaks to the render stills.

The facial expression pose library continues to be super useful. The speed improvements have been consistent, and I'm getting much faster at quickly cycling through poses to find the right emotional beat for each moment.

The "What The Hell Happened" News

So... my motherboard is toast. Completely bricked. Won't even POST.

In my spare time, I've been dual-booting into Linux (Ubuntu) to potentially transition away from Windows. And a nice bonus was that Blender behaves a little bit faster and smoother on Linux. But I ran into issues accessing my Windows data easily because of SecureBoot complications. So I decided to try virtualizing Windows within Linux instead.

SecureBoot didn't play nicely with that setup. I found some technical instructions online for how to configure everything properly, followed them step by step, and... well, that's how I bricked my motherboard. The configuration process corrupted the UEFI firmware in a way that prevents the board from even starting up.

My motherboard model (ASUS Prime Z690-P WiFi D4) doesn't have a USB BIOS recovery feature, so there's no firmware/software fix. It's just... dead. There's absolutely no display output, no matter what. I've tried all of the internet things to recover the UEFI with no luck.

Now, before anyone panics or tries to help me diagnose it (I appreciate the thought, but trust me, it's thoroughly dead): there is absolutely zero data loss. The SSDs are completely untouched, and even if something were wrong with them (which there isn't), I have multiple backups:

• Git repositories are saved to a separate server (for both the EoTC source code but also the 3d files)
• Backblaze full system backup
• On-site Synology NAS backup

Again, no data-loss, but even if these solid-states were dead (which they're not), data is safe.

🛠️ Current Development

What I'm working on right now:

The Hardware Situation

I've ordered a replacement motherboard - the exact same model that I killed. The bad news is that it'll take approximately 2 weeks to arrive. The maybe-good news is that I'm actively hunting for a temporary motherboard replacement to get back up and running sooner. If I can find something suitable locally, I might be back in action within a few days. If the temporary solution works out well, I might even keep it permanently and cancel the original order.

Working Around the Problem

Just because my main rig is down doesn't mean development stops completely; I've still got my MacBook Pro. I'm using this forced downtime to focus on something else that will need to be done anyways: writing and music. I'm going to be working on dialogue, scene outlines, and also music for the upcoming scenes. This is actually something I've been meaning to dedicate more focused time to anyway, so... silver lining?

I'd much rather be rendering and posing scenes, don't get me wrong. But I'm trying to make the most of a frustrating situation - which, to be fair is completely my stupid fault.

💬 Community Corner

I really appreciate your patience and understanding during this unexpected hiccup - I'm more disappointed in myself in not being safer with my motherboard's UEFI.

I feel sad, disappointed, annoyed, frustrated, and guilty for letting this happen (or causing it, rather) so I apologize to the community, as I feel obviously responsible, but also reckless, honestly. But I want to say thank you - your continued support means everything, especially during weeks like this when things don't go according to plan.

I'll keep everyone updated on the hardware situation as things develop - EXPECT A DEVLOG next week, because I'm not just going to take a vacation. I want to work, I want to provide you all with continued work - I HAVE PLANS DAMMIT!

Optimistically and hopefully the next DevLog will be titled something like "Back Online and Scene 8 is DONE!". Anyway. Thank you all so much for reading. Hearing from you all is the highlight of my week.

See you in the next one! ❤️