The theme for this one is... a field trip to Shirogumi Inc.'s production studio! And it's not something that's open to the public or what not at all- I think it's through Oosumi-sensei's connections that we got this tour, so hooray for kind of exclusiveness! The studio was actually pretty far off from campus/the dorms, but I guess that's how it goes. The producer, Ogawa-sensei from last week (who also guided us on the tour this week) mentioned that they picked the location for the studio because of its proximity to a lot of movie studios at the time. Kinda interesting tidbit. Anyways, that's the background stuff.
So I guess I'll just go in chronological order as I talk about this, since that's the order the pictures appear in haha. We started off by congregating in a break room because some people were late because they got lost and took the wrong train line - but y'know, it kinda turned out okay in the end because we got to watch videos of some of Shirogumi's past works!
The first video is also the first video game animation work they did!:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJc41-50zAE
... Hopefully, some of you readers have seen that opening and were trying as hard as I was at the time not to laugh. If you haven't seen it, then that there is the opening movie to Baiten Kaitos, a rather old JRPG on the Gamecube which was renowned in English communities for its rather derpy voice acting. It was really exciting to see something so nostalgic, but also really bad in that I had to struggle not to laugh once they started talking. XD;
Unfortunately, that wasn't the actual video they showed us - the actual video they showed us had a 'making of' segment after the actual opening, and I wish I could find it! It was quite interesting actually - apparently since 3D modelling was still very new at the time, people were still experimenting with it, so folks had different methods of approaching 3D graphics. In Shirogumi's case, they decided to draw out all of the scenes in 2D sketches, and then superimpose 3D models on top of the 2D sketches that provided a basis for the animated movements. It was very interesting, and I think might explain why the characters in that OP are so expressive with their body movements. The more you know!
Okay, now on to the second video. This one's a much more recent work, a 3D animated music video! I don't really remember as much of the background for this one, so I'll just drop the link and leave it at that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWoudbndXbw
The animation's really cool, damn. I have no idea why the song is in English, or so auto-tuned, but the animation's worth it, really! Anyways, on to the rest!
After watching some videos, we got to take a tour of the studio itself. First stop was the computer room where people were actually doing animation work haha. They let us take pictures, which is pretty nice! Apparently they weren't working on anything too hush hush, so yeah. It was pretty amusing seeing how personalized peoples' work stations were though - peeps had anime merchandise and whatnot strewn around. One guy had a rack of DS games actually. XD
The coolest part of this segment was watching people show us animation techniques and CG and whatnot, but unfortunately I can't encapsulate that with photos. =( Oh well, moving on!
Okay, so after that segment, we came to the doll workshop. Basically, the workshop where they would make "dolls" for use in animating. These "dolls" aren't like the creepy ones you probably think of though - they're basically more like figures, where they flesh out a character design in 3D so they can use it for a reference for a digital graphics representation. It's quite neat, really.
Well, that's all well and good. But the next one's an exciting next step - we visited a storage room of dolls and sets they've made in the past! I'll let the pictures talk on this one.
It's quite a cool sight. =D Okay, a few more pictures, and that's about the sum of this tour.
Alright, I apologize for both the super delay and the super short update. At this point, I kinda rushed out the post lazily because I felt bad about just leaving it sitting there as a draft for a month. ^^; I think I actually have some material lined up for the future, so you might see a new post sooner than this one! Hopefully anyways! 'Til next time!
So I guess I'll just go in chronological order as I talk about this, since that's the order the pictures appear in haha. We started off by congregating in a break room because some people were late because they got lost and took the wrong train line - but y'know, it kinda turned out okay in the end because we got to watch videos of some of Shirogumi's past works!
The first video is also the first video game animation work they did!:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJc41-50zAE
... Hopefully, some of you readers have seen that opening and were trying as hard as I was at the time not to laugh. If you haven't seen it, then that there is the opening movie to Baiten Kaitos, a rather old JRPG on the Gamecube which was renowned in English communities for its rather derpy voice acting. It was really exciting to see something so nostalgic, but also really bad in that I had to struggle not to laugh once they started talking. XD;
Unfortunately, that wasn't the actual video they showed us - the actual video they showed us had a 'making of' segment after the actual opening, and I wish I could find it! It was quite interesting actually - apparently since 3D modelling was still very new at the time, people were still experimenting with it, so folks had different methods of approaching 3D graphics. In Shirogumi's case, they decided to draw out all of the scenes in 2D sketches, and then superimpose 3D models on top of the 2D sketches that provided a basis for the animated movements. It was very interesting, and I think might explain why the characters in that OP are so expressive with their body movements. The more you know!
Okay, now on to the second video. This one's a much more recent work, a 3D animated music video! I don't really remember as much of the background for this one, so I'll just drop the link and leave it at that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWoudbndXbw
The animation's really cool, damn. I have no idea why the song is in English, or so auto-tuned, but the animation's worth it, really! Anyways, on to the rest!
After watching some videos, we got to take a tour of the studio itself. First stop was the computer room where people were actually doing animation work haha. They let us take pictures, which is pretty nice! Apparently they weren't working on anything too hush hush, so yeah. It was pretty amusing seeing how personalized peoples' work stations were though - peeps had anime merchandise and whatnot strewn around. One guy had a rack of DS games actually. XD
The coolest part of this segment was watching people show us animation techniques and CG and whatnot, but unfortunately I can't encapsulate that with photos. =( Oh well, moving on!
 |
| random picture I took in the hallway |
 |
| It's a case of figures from old animations I think? Poor quality because of walking photo, sorry. |
Well, that's all well and good. But the next one's an exciting next step - we visited a storage room of dolls and sets they've made in the past! I'll let the pictures talk on this one.
Alright, I apologize for both the super delay and the super short update. At this point, I kinda rushed out the post lazily because I felt bad about just leaving it sitting there as a draft for a month. ^^; I think I actually have some material lined up for the future, so you might see a new post sooner than this one! Hopefully anyways! 'Til next time!
