OPMeat

Ep.10 Update #1: Hungover Noin

Added 2021-03-30 19:01:01 +0000 UTC

Throughout April, you all will get some exclusive first looks at edits I'm working on for Ep.10. A lot of visual changes occur in our show, and if I do my job right, you won't notice them. So I'll be diving deeper into these edits to give you an idea of the work put into MSA:GW. First up is the animation you see here: Noin, holding two mugs of hot coffee, sporting sunglasses after binge drinking in Sowing Discord v.3.

Now, it looks like I just added sunglasses-- which are intentionally a bit "off" to draw attention to them (oversized, a much darker black than the rest of the shot, etc.). But actually, in the show, this shot zooms out and only lasts for 48 frames (2 seconds), as you can see in the second image. As our script has Noin talking to the boys like this, we obviously can't have her constantly zooming out every time it's her turn to speak. But, if we freeze frame it, then the steam won't rise from the mugs!

So, I picked five frames where the mugs' steam rose, then superimposed them atop one another. One by one, I lowered the opacity, shrank and lined up each frame atop the "prime" frame to make sure they all lined up correctly. Then, since zooms in these old shows aren't consistent, I had to go through each of the new frames and erase bits that were inconsistent to keep Noin looking "still". Lastly, had to change her small smile to a small frown. She is hungover, after all.

There are still lipflaps to be made and likely eyelids to add, but I like to do that toward the end of the episode-making process. I'll share more on how I do that in another post.