Title: Technical Director & Animator
Channel: YouTube RED
Production Time Frame : 7 Months
Roles: Character Rigging, Retake Animation, Technical problem solving, and Character & Assets Management.
Dallas & Robo is by far my favorite animation production!
Not only because it has 2 of my top favorite voice overs - John Vena (Robo) and Kat Dennings(Dallas), but also that working with Shadow Machine team was a fantastic experience!
Beyond everything above, the fact that this was one of the most complicated production I have been worked on also brings me the joy and excitement!
The rigging system for D&R is intense. By leveraging all major features from Toon Boom Harmony 14, we've pushed the rigging system to its limit(prior to the release of TBH 15 with 360 rig). Take a look at the Dallas rig below to have a feeling the complex level of the rig:
Kat Dennings
Dallas rig: every movable part is a separate piece, including the lid of the gun case, the single sub-stripe on the belt, every piece of shadow, and also, there is deformers, lots of deformers
INTENSE level of deformer usage - to ensure overall quality control through the collaboration between internal and external teams, each movable piece has been applied envelope deformers.
In TBH 14, a new feature has been developed - Drawing Syncing system. It gives us the ability to align multiple drawing files and have them animate/modify at the same time, which opens the door of animating multiple objects automatically at the same time, with proper preset of course. This feature is very helpful when it comes to lip syncing, considering in a complex rig, the mouth could be divided into Lips, upper teeth, lower teeth, tongue, inner mouth, lower jaw and potentially jaw shadow.
However, the downside is, since the entire system hinges on the naming system, meaning drawing #1 on drawing A, aligns with drawing # 1 on drawing B, and so on. Therefore, it makes the system very easy to be break if any of the sync/chained drawings has the name changed, which would mess up the entire chain.
This might not be a huge issue if the entire production is managed in door with internal team. However, it could be problematic while working with out sourcing teams.
Since the story happens in a futuristic world, where machines and human live together, lots of our characters are either having mechnical body parts, or being an entire robot, like Robo
John Cena
Jane Lynch
After all, the entire production was challenging and fun. Together with the teams, we have went through many road blocks and accomplished many things, and finally delivered all 8 episodes of the first season of D&R!
The SHADOWMACHINE Family!
Feel free to check out episode one on YouTube, it's FREE!
At last, working over 12 hours per day, accompanied by my ra-men tower was my daily routine during the production. However, I did manage to take some spare time and did some Chinese traditional paper cut out for my team members!
