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Information

• Member: AbsoluteDestiny
• Studio: Zettai Unmei Anime
• Title: Virtua Anime [DDR Project 4th Mix: Track 50]
• Premiered: 2003-09-27
• Categories:
  • Action
  • Parody
  • Fun
  • Dance
• Song:
  • C.J. Crew feat Sledge Ninzaburo (Furuhata's Theme)
• Anime:
  • Cowboy Bebop
  • Cowboy Bebop - The Movie: Knockin' on Heaven's Door
  • Daicon IV Opening Animation
  • Neon Genesis Evangelion
  • Neon Genesis Evangelion (Director's Cut)
  • Perfect Blue
  • Revolutionary Girl Utena: The Movie (Adolescence Of Utena)
  • Sailor Moon S: The Movie
• Participation:
  • Anime Weekend Atlanta 9, Anime Weekend Atlanta 9 (2003-09-26)
• Comments: If you are looking for a fine example of 3D Graphics and animation, you are in the wrong place. Go ask Industrial Light and Magic or a professional... or someone with a REAL 3D program.
  
  
  Here, you will find cheap 3D, gratuitous fandumb and more work than I've ever put into a single video.
  
  ...and it's all Nathan Bezner's fault.
  
  Upon seeing the 2nd mix project last year, me and a good few other creators had an epiphany of sorts. How ddr videos work. They should be bouncy, fun, and go to the root of what we cherish about anime fandumb. So, there was a sort of consensus to go "all out" with the next video and just do silly things.
  
  The next project was 4th Mix. A monster of a mix, with some great tracks. I heard Ninzaburo (Furuhata's Theme) and though "You know... you could do some awesome 3d stuff with this track". So I made a list of my track preferences for the DDR gods to decide. I think my top 4 were
  
  Furuhata's Theme
  Shooting Star
  Make Your Move
  Saints go Marching
  
  I wasn't the only one who wanted Furuhata's Theme so it came down to who's idea Brad, Hsien and Quu liked best. I said
  
  "If I get this track, I'll go all out. Something really special. Something I've never done before"
  
  I got the track.... whether this was a good thing... well the jury is still out on that one.
  
  The 2nd Mix project had a video by Nate 'Nightowl' Bezner called Stompy Bunny, which featured a 3D Haruko in Daicon bunny outfit dancing around. It was neat... and it got me thinking... "Hey, maybe this 3D stuff isn't all that hard". So, I convinced myself to make a 3D video.
  
  
  Concept:
  
  Pretty simple - Asuka realises she sucks at starring in an anime, so after breaking the 4th wall decides to play the game Virtua Anime to practice.
  
  
  3D Stuff:
  
  Cheaply and painfully. Used Poser, which sucks and I don't recommend to anyone who is serious about 3D work. It's a program that is really aimed more at producing 3d porn than anything else.
  
  As I say, as a piece of 3D it's very shoddy but hopefully its fun.
  
  Asuka's head was downloaded from a 3d model sales website (it was a free sample). The body is the default poser 5 female with new dimensions. The plugsuit I drew by hand (well, by mouse) in photoshop. The Max Headroom/System Shock/Holodeck room texture was done in photoshop.
  
  As for actual 3D modelling, I did very little. Attaching things onto other things - getting lightsaber from the 'net etc etc. That's how the video was done. Oh, except I did make Utena's sword. That was me.
  
  
  Putting it together:
  
  The video needed tons of planning. I had to make the game screens first - basically making those parts much like an amv. Once it worked as an amv it was ready to be used as a base for the 3d footage.
  
  Once I started putting together all the pieces in Poser I started to realise exactly how utterly daunting this video was.
  
  1) Poser is not a good program. If you think the video looks good then consider how hard it was to get this program to do that... and then consider that in comparison to other 3d programs this looks crap.
  2) Renders were taking aroung 6 minutes PER FRAME to render - thus forcing me to try and get thing right first time as much as possible. There were 2000 frames of 3D in the video so even if I only rendered once that was over 8 days of pure rendering.
  3) I hadn't really taken into consideration camera angles and other such things when I edited the game footage and as such certain scenes were tricky to get to flow well.
  
  When making this video I was basically animating all day and rendering all night to get it done in time. There are still numerous things wrong with it but they are just too tricky to fix with the software I have and the time I had until the ddr deadline.
  
  I was amazed and relieved when it was all over. I wont be doing 3D again in a hurry.
  
  
  
  2D stuff:
  
  Game title screens and other such things were made in photoshop. As was the Instumentality scene at the end of the video. The game title screen is supposed to look really blocky and crap, but when put into the 3d environment it was smoothed by resize algorithms so just looks like it was supposed to look good but is crap instead of supposed to look crap and is crap.
  
  The "blue digital mist" effect on the side monitors were made using a the winamp audio visualisation studio.
  
  
  The Music:
  
  Ninzaburo (Furuhata's Theme) is actually a remix of the main theme from a Japanese cop show. The lyrics, which I only found out after starting the idea and have little relation to the video itself are (some may be incorrect)...
  
  Don't do the crime...
  Don't do the crime...
  ...if you can't do the time
  
  Don't do the crime if you can't do the time
  Don't do the crime if you can't do the time
  
  Feel the heat, the vibrations
  On the streets, lil' situations
  From the grave, complications
  A part of people livin' life
  But it's slowing in the fast lane
  Life is ghettoy chaos
  Dust me, I've seen too many bloodstains
  Too many childs put in graves
  So c'mon people, see what's high
  I'll set it off like the sky
  Keep it real or leave it lie
  Let a part of your voice survive
  This is your life, no cute game
  List of what people say with pay
  So pump your fists, yeah!
  
  Don't do the crime if you can't do the time (Yeah!)
  Don't do the crime if you can't do the time
  
  
  So, yeah, no real relation but I like the "This is your life, no cute game" bit :D
  
  
  
  Anyway, after all the hard work it really was worth it. Everyone at the project showing seemed to really like it and it got a great crowd reaction. I really loved doing some of the animation in it - it was fun to do, but very hard work.
  
  Hope you like it :)
  
  
  The online version is a 2pass xvid encode, using bframes (for a change) in order to increase compression on the hard-to-compress CG footage. Audio is 192kbps lame mp3.