MMD Original Animation - IA - Guin Saga Theme

Maddoktor2 as his moniker suggest is absolutely mad. It seems almost every time I log in these days I find that he's left a new message in my mail with a link to yet another version of whatever it is that he's working on at any given time. But that's a good thing; but I've learnt to not customize anything that he sends over until he's moved on to the 'next project', as otherwise I end up having to do the same customizations all over again.

Well I was about to use his latest version of Tda IA Append for 'something', fortunately, real life issues and other projects kept me away from his model as he just had another totally unexpected 'light bulb' moment and sent me a chart with height comparisons for several versions of Tda style IAs that he's been working on. One of these was an accurate height version, accurate in the sense that she is exactly as tall as she's supposed to be as opposed to being the same height as the original Tda Miku Append. Most Tda derivative Append style models are at Miku's height for obvious reasons, with the noted exception of Neru Append by VK who is also made to an accurate height. Which all means that Miku's happy because she's quite tall when compared to Neru and IA. And of course, in her Append styling, she's also 'properly endowed'. But then I'm digressing.

A friend of mine kindly gave me a set of DVDs with the entire 26 episodes of the Guin Saga anime which I have never seen and he was raving about it being one of the best made epic fantasy anime series ever made. So I watched it. Actually watched it twice. Once in English as the dubbing was excellent; and once in the original Japanese. But when you're watching the whole series in one sitting, you tend to 'fast forward' over stuff like titles, endings and credits. So I missed out on the theme music except I left it running when I headed to the kitchen to make some coffee. And then the closing theme caught my attention as it was half sung in English and half in Japanese. And it was a very emotive piece with a classical music touch reminiscent of the title music from Elfen Lied. That piece was in the operatic style, beautiful but would have been a real pain to use for an MMD production. The Guin Saga theme, however, is catching, demanding your full attention due to its emotive qualities and actually very simple in structure (in MMD terms). So I borrowed it ...

It packs quite a lot of meaning into only 1:30 minutes, plus being bilingual, it has an interesting texture and it was a fun challenge to create the lip sync data for it. Especially since I don't speak Japanese and I wanted to render the Japanese portions as accurately as possible which was made easy to do as the DVD subtitles included the Romanji as well as English lyrics. So whilst listening to the words as they were sung and matching them with the written words I knew exactly what mouth shapes to use. I think I did a better job of rendering the spoken Japanese than many Japanese made lip syncs which I have always had some issues with as many aren't really all that accurate it you watch the Vocaloid pronounce the words that are supposedly sung. I built the lip sync data using IA XS and she looked fine in the Face And Lip program, but in MMD it just didn't look right. Mqdl is a superb modeler but his mouth shapes are tricky to use, so in this instance I messed up. IA XS was opening her mouth too much at points and too little at others. Plus in MMD, her mouth didn't seem to sync with the music the way it did in the Face and Lip program. So, I loaded Miku Append and tried the same lip sync data. I use Miku Append as a systems check tool for lip syncs as her mouth shapes are near perfect and as it turned out she rendered the same animation data perfectly. But of course I couldn't use Miku for the actual production for a whole variety of reasons.

I wanted IA to do this performance because her color, style and length is reminiscent of the main female lead in the Guin Saga story - Rinda. But with the IA XS model out of the running I was in a bit of a bind. IA Beta has a different set of mouth shapes so she was also out of the line up plus I knew that it had to be a Tda style model if I didn't want to remake the lip sync data. So I reached into my Temporary Working Models folder, the place where I keep all my DA sourced models. 99% of what goes in here gets deleted and Maddoktor2's Tda IA Append was in there pending receipt of the final reiteration when it would be in the 1% that gets permanent storage on a separate MMD models archive hard drive. So, the accurate height version got selected as I knew she would be perfect for use with the sword model that I had intended to use. Alice recently used a katana, and I didn't want to make another video using a katana. So it had to be modeler Bilbo's superb model of Glamdring. I wanted IA to use a sword for this as it's an excellent prop for a fantasy theme plus IA with a sword just looks 'cool'.

The actual motion creation went smoothly and there were two reasons for this. The first is that IA only needed to move for about 1/3 of the duration of the song. She also could have just stood there in one spot for the entire performance, but I wanted some movement. So she started in a kneeling position as partly I wanted to create a smooth standing sequence having seen some Japanese MMD animators do the same thing with varying degrees of success. My version came out pretty good, very natural and exactly the way one would do it in real life (as I actually did the same motion several times myself to check for accuracy). The rest of the movements had to match with the meaning of the words. One of the reasons why I've stopped using Japanese music for my animations is that I can never be really sure that my animations properly sync'd with the meanings of the words being sung. This time it wasn't an issue as I had a full English translation of the lyrics.

The second reason why the animation could be created in a short period of time is because Maddoktor2's edits are solidly constructed and he always includes a proper Groups List. When I develop motions, probably 50-60% of the work is done there which is one of the reasons why I keep harping on this part of a model's property. I am sure my animation work style is probably similar to most Japanese MMD animators. Making accurate motions for computer performances isn't just about posing models. To make them move right, you have to manipulate the data controlling the motions itself and this can only be done using the Groups List Frames Display. The Frames Display is actually just a big graph and it is indispensable for motion data development. The MMD Frames Display tools are actually quite crude, but still, you can do quite a lot with them.

With the motion done I played the raw performance back several times. It needed scenery and that was easy as conceptually I was going to use Montecore's superb model of Barad Dur from the get go. So I added that but it looked rather empty. I used that stage for an animation using Neru, but IA has a quieter personality and presence so she looked diminutive. I wanted to use broad vistas to capture the mood of the scene and that didn't work with IA as if you pull the camera back she tends to recede into the scenery and just using close ups doesn't make good use of the scenery. In other words, it was missing a catalyst. So that's how I ended up using a dragon. Honestly, the dragon was hell to develop motion for, not that there was anything wrong with the model which is a rip by Valforwing. The model has a very basic bone structure but is well rigged and weighted. My problem was I had no idea how to move a dragon. But after some trial and error and conceptually creating a motion strategy for the beast - it's actually a cheap trick but I won't tell you what it is - IA got herself a backup dancer in the form of a dragon. And it looked epic. So creating the MME, lighting suites was a breeze plus the camera possibilites gave me good close up and panoramic wide view options which I took maximum advantage of for the video.

So please check it out: IA in her own epic fantasy performance with an animated attendant dragon; I am willing to bet that you have never seen a performance like this in an MMD video.

Cheers!

Video Link: youtu.be/iLzfXTehhgw


CREDITS
Tda IA Append : Maddoktor2
IA © The 1st Place Co., Ltd.


Dragon : Valforwing
Sword : Bilbo
Barad Dur stage : Montecore

MME : Serious Shader, G2 Shader, Full Simple Soft Shadows, o_BleachByPass, o_ToneMap, Diffusion 7, Auto-Luminous 4 / KOZU
Software : MMD 9.26 / Audacity / PMD 0.1.3.9 / Photoshop 7 / Face and Lips

Motion, lighting and camera : original work
Music : Theme from the Guin Saga anime as performed by Kanon
© Kaoru Kurimoto / Tenro Productions / Project Guin
Guin Saga anime DVD produced by Sentai Filmworks

Music used here under US Fair Use guidelines.