Together We Shrink
Story:
Yeah, this is another one where I really have no idea for the story. I think the emotions and feelings I wanted to communicate are done well enough through the camera angle and body language and whatnot, and I can’t think of a meaningful plot to add.
Notes:
You may notice that this animation looks, like, way smoother than my other animations. And I’m not talking about the actions flowing better or anything. Normally I animate in 24 fps, because that’s about the upper limit of what my computer could render without causing some pretty serious timing issues because the viewport would render too slowly. But recently I upgraded my computer, and am able to render much more stuff at much better quality. In addition to having more models than I normally decide to have, this animation is rendered in 60 fps, meaning it should look way smoother, and basically remove the almost puke inducing shots when the camera would pan slowly and look super funky.
I’ve also got more models than I normally use on screen. Usually I’ll go for just two characters, sometimes a third if I’m feeling spicy, and I’ll put the background in as the last thing I do. Here I had all 4 models loaded in and being worked on at the same time, as well as the environment loaded in, and I was still getting good speeds in the viewport.
In fact, the inspiration for this particular animation, was basically just me saying ‘you know, I want to make something with a bunch of characters on screen at the same time”. There wasn’t really a story or scenario in mind, and the character I picked were mostly just picked by if I could think of a spawning animation. Lucina and Lyn were both planned to be here, but I couldn’t think of anything for them to do when they spawned in, so I ended up cutting them. Also, it was getting to be super long and I hadn’t even started shrinking anyone yet. It takes a whopping 41 seconds to get to the shrinking as is, so it’s probably for the best.
I like everyone’s animations here though. Mythra’s is just okay, but I like how she summons her beam sword thing with her hand. Robin’s sword strike looks really cool, but I used the same attack animation for both sword strikes. I sort of wish I made a unique one for when she shoots the beam, but whatever, it still looks good. There’s also a bit of weird rotation during the swing that doesn’t look great on her wrist, but it’s hard to notice. Oh, and the way she charges the sword is totally a reference to how most characters use the Light Brand in the GBA games, so that’s really cool. Celica looks really cool. The rune that she’s standing on is a really cool effect, the sword point she does when she appears is a Xenoblade reference, and the way she preps for a sword strike looks awesome (bonus points to anyone who recognizes that pose and where I’ve used it before). And Fiora’s got the classic superhero three point landing. I’ve done one of those before, but this one has a lot more keyframes, and looks way better overall. It doesn’t really reference anything, it’s just a cool pose. Also I love using her wings as weapons, they just look so cool.
I’m pretty happy with this as a general animation, but I think it’s pretty sub par as a shrinking animation. It just takes way too long to really get into it. Usually when you have a super long intro, it serves to build anticipation. Like the Caeda one I did a while back where you can see her slowly approaching the point at which she shrinks. This one doesn’t really lead into the shrinking very much, it just introduces the characters with some dramatic poses, then shrinks them. I’d say it really only starts building anticipation once Robin charges the sword, which isn’t very long at all. Although I do have to say that the shot where it looks across Celica, Mythra, and Fiora as they’re shrunken and all re-readying their weapons is really cool. The sense of scale here works fine as the stairs behind them sell it well enough. The intro being long is really my only problem with it, and really, it’s not all that big of a deal.
I’m not sure if I’ll render everything at 60 from now on (because I was starting to hit some frame rate issues), but I’ll at least try to do everything at 30, and now I really shouldn’t have to worry in the slightest about having too many models on screen at a time. Stuff like the way Robin’s magic attack flips around only looks good because it’s in 60 fps, and it would look weird in 24 frames. I’ve got some cool projects in my queue that are really only possible because of the extra computing power, some shrinking stuff, and some action stuff, so be on the lookout for those soon-ish.
Also, I just realized, but this is the third week in a row that I’ve gotten a video out on Thursday, and within 20 days, I’ve managed to pump out 4 different animations. I didn’t really even notice how blistering of a pace this has been, but I wouldn't expect it to keep up.