So one of the challenge we were facing during the production period is how to create a system to quickly put the character in action without spending our entire life drawing frame one by one. The easiest way to do this is of course making the characters 3D and animate them in the 3D environment.
With a 3D character rotational scene takes no time to create, compared to drawing frame by frame.
However, once we went for that approach a second question arise --- How do we solve the 3D anime face dilemma? When looking at anime characters from the front they usually have a pretty flat face, it enhance the facial feature and most important of all, their big eyes. But if the base model of the face is completely flat, when the camera rotate and look at the character from the side, it looks like some horrible accident victim with the face completely squashed.
This face is better suited for a horror game......a really bad horror game.
During the test phase the blend shape usually bugged out when the face is in 45 degrees angle, not showing the shadow for facial feature. (Middle)
At first it sounds like a good plan, but we soon realized synchronizing the rotation angel and the blend shape speed is even more troublesome. With the deadline for the prototype right in front of us, we had no choice but to compromising the idea into a simpler approach, shader.
The final face model with Steven's face.
All the facial feature are hand-drawn assets that attached on the face with clipboard facing the camera.
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