By the Power of The Moon! Anime Style Magical Girl (26SEP10)

[DJ Bonebraker]

Well, it only took me about a year, but I've finally managed to finish the generic anime-style Magical girl unit that I promised King Arthur and the other Super Civ modders.

Hope someone can find a use for her.

Download

Preview:

 

[Bluemofia]

That is so Card Captor Sakura.

Great job!

 

[Goldflash]

Consider my Copters Rofl'd, good sir!

If you were to make a version of the run where she is still in her costume, she would probably fit in GDFM somewhere.

 

[Takhisis]

Sakura Card captors sucks, Bluemofia.

Sailor Moon RULES.

 

[Bluemofia]

Sakura Card captors sucks, Bluemofia.

Sailor Moon RULES.

I summon Tomoyo to make his defense.

Yeah, well, I never watched Sailor Moon, so I can't say which is better. It's just that she (the unit) is waving around some baton and changing into some elaborate costume to use magics, just like CCS.

CCS I watched in Taiwan when I was bored went to visit like 8 years ago or something.

 

[General 666]

What a sweet Lollipop.
... and which nasty tricks she knew.

 

[T-mun]

Does the unit have a shadow or is it missing only in the preview ? Looks good otherwise, I like the magical costume and attack, very unusual and cool

 

[Plotinus]

It looks good. I like the curtsey. But how did you do the transition effects? I can't find a way to do that sort of thing smoothly in Poser.

 

[DJ Bonebraker]

Thanks guys! Good to be back (more or less).

@blumofia: This unit is based on/supposed to represent several different Magical Girl anime characters, including Card Captor Sakura, Sailor Moon, Magical Lyrical Girl Nanoha and others... I spent some time rifling through Youtube to get some decent reference material before making this unit.

@Themanuneed: There is a shadow, but it is rather faint in the preview... Shows up just fine in Flicster and in-game.

@Plot: Well, its a bit of a trade secret, but....

I created a version wearing both costumes, but with one having ALL the materials set to transparent and one set to fully opaque.... I created two separate animations for the first part of the fortify (when she's in the schoolgirl outfit) and one for the last part (when she's completely transformed into magical girl mode), then I created a third animation using the transitional file....

THAT is when it gets painstaking: I then set the first frame of the transitional so that all the school girl outfit materials are 20% transparent, and all the Magical Girl outfit materials are 80% transparent. I then render that frame in 8 directions, manually exporting the render as a numbered frame in each directional folder. I then step to the next frame, set the Schoolgirl outfit transparencies to 40% and reduce the Magical Girl outfit transparencies to 60% and repeat the process. The next two frames of the transitional sequence are the same, but with the original outfit becoming 60% transparent and the Magical Girl outfit becoming 40% transparent in the third frame and the original outfit becoming 80% transparent and the Magical Girl outfit 20% transparent in the final transitional frame.

Finally, I use SBB to generate three partial storyboard files, and patch them together in Paint Shop Pro for the final result.

The process is EXTREMELY tedious and time-consuming, but delivers great results! Thankfully, for the Victory animation I can usually just reverse the frames of the fortify animation...

 

[tom2050]

Well, the tedious work paid off... it looks tremendous!

 

[Plotinus]

@Plot: Well, its a bit of a trade secret, but....

I created a version wearing both costumes, but with one having ALL the materials set to transparent and one set to fully opaque.... I created two separate animations for the first part of the fortify (when she's in the schoolgirl outfit) and one for the last part (when she's completely transformed into magical girl mode), then I created a third animation using the transitional file....

THAT is when it gets painstaking: I then set the first frame of the transitional so that all the school girl outfit materials are 20% transparent, and all the Magical Girl outfit materials are 80% transparent. I then render that frame in 8 directions, manually exporting the render as a numbered frame in each directional folder. I then step to the next frame, set the Schoolgirl outfit transparencies to 40% and reduce the Magical Girl outfit transparencies to 60% and repeat the process. The next two frames of the transitional sequence are the same, but with the original outfit becoming 60% transparent and the Magical Girl outfit becoming 40% transparent in the third frame and the original outfit becoming 80% transparent and the Magical Girl outfit 20% transparent in the final transitional frame.

Finally, I use SBB to generate three partial storyboard files, and patch them together in Paint Shop Pro for the final result.

The process is EXTREMELY tedious and time-consuming, but delivers great results! Thankfully, for the Victory animation I can usually just reverse the frames of the fortify animation...

Ah, I was afraid it might be something like that. Thanks!

By the way, there's no need to do transitions for the Victory - contrary to popular belief, Victory animations should start and finish with the Default pose, just like Fidgets, not go from the Attack pose to the Default. They are always played in game immediately following the Default animation.

 

[utahjazz7]

I agree. You did a great job on the clothing transition.

 

[Kyriakos]

Great unit

 

[DJ Bonebraker]

Ah, I was afraid it might be something like that. Thanks!

By the way, there's no need to do transitions for the Victory - contrary to popular belief, Victory animations should start and finish with the Default pose, just like Fidgets, not go from the Attack pose to the Default. They are always played in game immediately following the Default animation.

Actually, when the unit is promoted after combat, it starts at the fortified position and goes back to default... I've witnessed this several times during playtests of the SuperCiv scenario and the Playground mod (which uses some of my morphing units). It is only if you clear a barbarian nest that it plays from the default frame....

 

[Takhisis]

I summon Tomoyo to make his defense.

He hasn't, therefore proving the superiority of Sailor Moon.

Yeah, well, I never watched Sailor Moon, so I can't say which is better. It's just that she (the unit) is waving around some baton and changing into some elaborate costume to use magics, just like CCS.

CCS I watched in Taiwan when I was bored went to visit like 8 years ago or something.

'Some baton'? Hikaro, please explain to this man the utmost-über-importance of this 'baton'!!!

 

[MeteorPunch]

Great unit! I was a big Sailor Moon fan...15 years ago, so I appreciate this (hey there was hardly any anime back then!).

 

[Bluemofia]

He hasn't, therefore proving the superiority of Sailor Moon.

Absence of proof is not proof of absence.

 

[The Omega]

Sakura Card captors sucks, Bluemofia.

Sailor Moon RULES.

This is exactly what we need in this thread. A debate over which magical girl anime is superior.

For my part in this, I would just like to state that Sakura is far more adorable than Sailor Moon.
The defense rests.

 

[Takhisis]

A debate? TYhere can only be debate when there's somethign to discuss. It's in the very thread title…

By the Power of The Moon!

Do you really need anything else?

 

[Bluemofia]

A debate? TYhere can only be debate when there's somethign to discuss. It's in the very thread title…

Do you really need anything else?

CCS has a character named after the moon. (Yue, the Guardian Angel of Doom)