«The general animation seminar “Anitsukuri 2021 (あ つ く 2021)“Will take place from September 18-20, 2021. As one of the sessions, a seminar was held to dissect the background to the production of. “Zombieland Saga: Vengeance“. They talked about the “peculiarities” of the CG production, such as the live performance scenes that characterize this work. “Zombieland Saga” is an anime comedy about girls who rise as zombies and fight to hide their identities as local idols in Saga Prefecture.».
«The producer ‘Koutarou Tatsumi’, played by Mamoru Miyano, is a tense character, the story is strange and the members of ‘Franchouchou’, who face adversity as idols, are brave. At “Anitsukuri 2021 (あ に つ く 2021)”, a comprehensive anime event that will take place from 18th As in the other sessions, the production staff discussed the techniques and specifics related to 3DCG and digital production for animation fans and the next generation of creators.».
The aim of the sequel is to “improve the expression with the same model as the previous work” and “increase the average quality of the live presentation sections”
«In the conference entitled “I work in 3DCG to capture the characters and expressions in Zombieland Saga: Revenge“The scene program on the stage was explained first. Work on the stage scenes (i.e. concert scenes) began about six months before the broadcast. There are two dance expression patterns, one is drawn and the other is 3DCG. The most expensive episode was the 12th, the last. The second half of the story, Part B, consists mostly of live performances, and getting an audience of around 30,000 people was a somewhat daunting task.».
«Ai Kuroiwa, the animation director at 3DCG, spoke about how they approached this point: “Before we started continuing, we had to review the workflow and the organization of the audience. The goal of “Zombieland Saga: Revenge” was twofold: to see how far we can go in terms of expression with the same models as in the previous project, and to use the knowledge of the previous project to increase the average quality of the scenes on the stage. To achieve this, we have tried to avoid displaying defective images as much as possible“».
«Let’s look at some examples of the work that was done on this project. In the first step, the line drawings and the 3D character models based on them were created. In order to use the 3D model of the previous work and to improve the expression, the movement mechanism of the 3D model, called “Rig”, was modified in many points in this work. (A structure of bones and digital controls is created within a geometry).
«First of all, the number of joints in the so-called “oscillating” parts, such as the hair, was increased in order to be able to use the “SpringMagic” script. For the dance scene where flexibility is required, the arms have been reinforced to reduce unnatural movements. The skirt is also programmed with a “stroke controller” to move with the movement of the legs, reducing the time it takes to correct the movement of the skirt.».
«Now let’s focus on the difficult episode 12. For episode 12 they had to create the dance scene in 3D, so the background graphics were also created in 3DBG. For the 3DBG model used in episode 12, the modeling work with “blender” began early in the background. After the “Art Board” was completed, the 3D stage textures were created. Motion capture took movement into account to give character to the dance choreography and performance. However, it is not possible to perfectly reproduce the movements of the anime, so the captured data will end up being retouched by the animators».
«Once the 3D models, 3DBG, and motion capture are ready, you can start creating your screen. Once the storyboard is ready we will use it as a basis to decide which parts to be CG and which parts to draw based on the schedule. We think it is the most effective method. In addition to being used to create CG animation, motion capture is also provided to animators to control the movement of the drawing.».
«Miniature models and virtual cameras were used at the “CG meeting”. The virtual camera (the movement of the screen within the three-dimensional stage) was used for discussions like “How do we show the big room live?” used. The virtual camera was also used to communicate the director’s vision to employees in a remote setting. After the CG meeting, it is time for the CG animators to start their work. The layout, the primary and the secondary are the three phases of the process. The “layout” is primarily used to determine the position of the camera. In the primary phase, facial expressions, movements, poses and timing are fixed, in the secondary phase the picture is finished».
«Character movements are created from motion capture. The movement pickup is gross so you need to change the angles of the arms to make them look nicer and if the choreography is obscuring the face you need to adjust it to make it look better. In elementary schools we take care of these things and we make the set look good».
«Of course, we don’t deny all of motion capture’s gross movements, and there are instances where small gestures remain intact that are difficult to reproduce manually. The most important thing for the production team was the facial expressions of the characters. Due to the filigree movements that are generated by motion capture, the facial expressions also had to be detailed, otherwise they would look like CG. We had to pay attention to these aspects in order to emphasize the charm of the characters».
«An important aspect of the expression was the “squint” pattern. In this job we added a narrow eye pattern to the design. Since the shape of the closed eyes is 50% different from that of the narrow eyes, without this pattern it is impossible to draw well the average expression when closing the eyes or the expression of blinking when laughing».
«It’s not just idols who grace the stage at live shows. The audience, swinging lanterns in their seats, is also part of the show. However, in the twelfth episode of this piece we plan to place around 30,000 people and it is not realistic to work on each of them. Because of this, we have created a more efficient and effective work environment with more automation and more movement throughout the process. Instead of creating every audience model, we reduced the amount of data by preparing two types of models: one for close-ups and a simplified version for distant views. In the previous production, the spotlight colors had to be changed manually, but in this version we used a plug-in that randomly assigns the colors so that the proportion of colors used can be matched to the color of the image of the character in the center».
«With that, the dynamic live scene from episode 12 was completed. The live scene is now available on the official Avex Pictures YouTube channel. So why not see again now that you know all the work that goes into it?».
Fountain: Anime! Anime! | Zombieland saga
