Live2D: Week 1 (Patreon)

At first, I was just going to make this an update post but maybe I'll turn it into a weekly diary of sorts detailing my thoughts and findings as I make steady progress in learning how to animate using Live2D. 

There may have been a bit of a miscommunication between me and the animator I'm working for this month, Slave. I've been given the .cmo3 file instead of the mp4 so I'm currently looking up online guides and playing around with the rigged parameters in order to see what it takes to make a 12-second long animation. 

So far, I think I've picked it up fairly quickly given how I went into this completely blind [Well...I didn't have to rig it so that saved a good chunk of time]. 

My initial thoughts were, this is kind of like video editing except you're playing the role of a movie director, telling the actor to act in a certain way as you record. Having so many parameters made things feel a bit daunting but I played around with each parameter for 2 maybe 3 hours until I had a vague understanding of how everything works. 

So my initial findings taught me that it's good to have a solid idea of what you want to do with the animation and more often than not I think the first thing that needs to move is the torso because everything else just follows afterward. 

I think if I had the luxury of time, I'd probably have sat down with pen and paper to make a roadmap of sorts like how comic writers do it and list down all the things I want moving in the scene. Instead I just kind of went along with it whilst playing around with the parameters. 

They say animating the eyes blinking and what not is the most basics in live2d animation. I think...I'll need more work on getting the timing right. At the moment it's either too fast or too slow nor does it feel as smooth as I would have liked. 

Lip-synching... is super hard and grindy... I spent so long on it and I'm still not too happy with the results ugh... xD 

I think I did the hair movement alright but just wished it was a bit more fluid and smooth. 

Last but least I think I completely botched up the jiggle physics with her boobs. 

So as you can see from all the things I've listed so far... it's rough around the edges and could use a lot of finetuning and polishing. I'll post the animation early for this month since it's a Christmas themed character. Expect the post sometime today when I hear back from Slave to get his social media links from him to properly credit him for rigging it up for me. 

Overall? It was a steep learning curve. But with a bit more time investments.....I think I can pick it up fairly quickly! Just bear with me on this Live2D Journey just a few months more ^w^