Quick Update! (Patreon)
Content
Hmmm... Is it just me or does this hallway look a bit... familiar.
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Before I continue animating the rest of Lumine and Sucrose's scene, I decided to first set up the setting for the next scene and upgrade Hu Tao to Gen 2 in advance. This is because I had a bit of a fancy transition in mind for her introduction in the animation :3
But in typical me fashion... I underestimated how much work needed to be done, and I barely finished it before the month ended. That said... I was pretty satisfied with what I came up with :3
I wanted to give Hu Tao a more casual and laid back look. As if she goes into the teapot after work to just chill and hang out... And after fiddling around with a bunch with her design, I ended up just keeping her original hat, hot pants, and footwear as they were all too iconic to her design. And it felt like it strayed too far from her image whenever I tried on new apparels on her :/
That said... I did find success in swapping out her dress! Which was a major relief for me since I always dreaded working with it again XD... As there's just simply too many loose and hanging bits of clothing that needed to be animated every time Hu Tao moves, even by just a lil bit T-T
And as a replacement, I went for a body-fit shirt that hugs her uhhh... petite figure. That was inspired by the traditional chinese clothing called Cheongsam. That would also pass as a sort of undershirt for her usual uniform. Giving the effect that she would just take off her uniform and just chill with her undershirt on :3
And last but certainly not least, Boo Tao!
Now imma be honest, I kinda forgor that I also had to make Hu Tao's ghost as well, until I actually started working on her. But all in all, it only took about half a day of figuring out the right shaders and a working system for it's facial expressions, so it wasn't that bad.
Plus! Boo was surprisingly pretty fun to work with!... Turns out, It was much easier to bring out the emotions I wanted to show off with it's body language, even tho she only has 4 facial expressions in total... Prolly gonna have to make more in the future tho just to be safe :p
What wasn't fun to work with tho, was Hu Tao's pig tails T-T
I still haven't decided on how I'd go about rigging her hair, so that I wouldn't want to pull mine off, once I start working with her full time. But after testing it out with this small showcase, I was reminded of why exactly I needed to figure out an alternative to just manually animating each and every single sway of those naughty naughty bois :/
Oh well... I'll cross that bridge when I get there I suppose. For now, Imma just go back to animating with Lumine and Sucrose and mull it over :3
And that's about it! Hope you like it you absolute Chad!