Animation Challenge Day 3 (Full Completion)
While Mercy was watching the beach, Pharah was watching Mercy's round jiggly "assets". The best way to end a summer day is with some backshots.
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To mention once again I know many were asking for sound of Day 1 and I already have something planned for that. I can't say for the other 2 days but it will be considered
Tech notes (All 3 days)
This set of animations I think went pretty well. I think day 1 was best, then 3, then 2 for my personal beliefs. I used most time on 1st one and then 2nd and 3rd are tied. Day 1 took roughly 7-10 hours if I had to guess. 2 and 3 probably more like around 5 hours each. I feel that this animation challenge wasn't too big of an issue in terms of worrying about completion. On previous challenges I was worried I wouldn't finish or that there was was uncertainty but for this time around I felt confident they would.
Day 1
Day 1 had many parts and I thought I could map it out pretty quickly. It took longer than I thought and realized it would be easier to do with 3 different blend files rather than move pose to pose. This isn't the first time I've had to do that as the previous keyframes can get in the way and even scarier is that you may accidently do something that will accidently mess up the previous version (save backups to prevent this of course). The climax 'white goo' at the end did give some problems and didn't look the best so I actually kept the first portion of it where you can see Psylocke's back shooting out the goo but once it zooms to Jean's face there are no physics just painted on 'goo' since I couldn't get that part to look normal.
Day 2
Design wise I wasn't sure what I even wanted to do with this one. I was going to do reverse cowgirl with Lady D leaning all the way back but that being done in a chair is akward due to her immense size (in addition to the chair likely breaking). I then thought lets have her be in control and just smack down and the rest of the idea came through. I was apprehensive on giving Ashley the alternate hairstyle as I thought she may not be noticed and people would think it was a random blonde girl which normally isn't that big a deal but Lady D was already in a unusual environment (Outside and sunny) from her normal game that pairing her with someone 'random' would feel even more out of place.
Lady D's peen I wasn't satisfied with after seeing the end result and it's mainly because I designed the flop from the front which I think it looked better at that angle but when it rendered on the side angle I think it came out looking a bit odder than usual. Still alright but not the best (If this wasn't a daily I would probably have redone it). I was pleasantly surprised with the last angle however that shows Lady D's butt. It was surprising how decent it gave the impression of her massive rear pushing Ashley back and seems it gave the impact a better feel.
Day 3
For the final day after looking at my other fellow animator's works I felt I was the least cinematic compared to many. I'm a guy who often works from all angles to get a work that works on all angles. But, I wanted to try and put more focus into a single angle and give it all my attention, so I posed the background, got the characters and posed them and tried to get the absolute best angle I could and I think it was fine but suppose it could be more cinematic and focused.
The actual animation I wanted to be smooth and really just wanted it to be the best of the 3 at just being a normal single motion animation and I failed lol. I'm not saying it is bad but what I mean is that the animation to me atleast is certainly not smoother than the others. Pharah more specifically jitters in various spots and I didn't have time to really fix it. I know why it happened but didn't have time to bother and needed to move on. I think it is quite expressive however do I'll take that as a win.
The slow down into the kiss was pretty easy as I've recently learned how I can modify the influence so I basically made them do from 100% to 18% and then eventually back to 100% while adding the other movements to make them kiss. I think the lighting being at sundown is a pretty romantic tone and these two characters are known I feel for being romantic within the fandom so I think it all works quite fine.