All your insights into this animated short really showcases the effort and time put into this project. It really humanizes everything knowing that certain techniques were used purposefully to enhance a scene or save on budget. Even the shots that don't really work well (Firefly tilting her head to the stars as the camera pans away) are very difficult, have stipulations attached (censoring) or are held back by time constraints. This animation was incredible and demonstrates that there's always room for improvements. I personally can look past any of the small compositing or animation mistakes as the story of Firefly and the emotional impact make up for it all.
yeah! there's so much underappreciated work that goes into animations like these and i get so passionate to talk about it. So it makes me happy to see others curious and wanting to engage in it as well!
First of all, awesome work! This was an amazing video, and so eye opening to me, who is inexperienced in animation. With the firefly movements at the beginning, I believe that because of all of the constant sfx that there can be no music, not many action except for the Swarm's (the bugs) constant action. You are essentially thrust headfirst into this overwhelmingly chaotic scene - the mounds of bodies, constant explosions, erratic movements. I feel like it wasn't just about limiting what the animation team could do, but also making character movements more simple for the watchers gaze in order to not go overboard on this feeling of complete disarray. Also, as a diehard honkai impact and honkai star rail fan, I really enjoyed watching you react to these animated shorts!
I'm no animator myself, but I consider myself a big sakuga fan, and I share the same feelings as you on pretty much everything you said. It's always interesting seeing the smart ways animators and studios come up with to save time and finish the product within their given timeframes, and I believe that's a part of what makes animation so good. It's impressive what Hoyo managed to achieve, considering a war sequence is one of the hardest and most time-consuming types of animation sequence to portray correctly. All in all it felt good to know i can get an analysis pretty close to an art teacher, i enjoyed your take on it, keep it up !
As someone coming into this with absolutely zero technical knowledge of animation this video was amazing. Your analysis of the methods, tools and techniques being used was really eye-opening. Loved the frame-by-frame breakdown and explanation. Your students are very lucky! Can't wait to see more, thank you.
