A recent interview with Bocchi the Rock! staff members Shota Umehara and Yusuke Kawakami revealed interesting behind-the-scenes stories on animating the Kessoku Band’s live performance.
The interview was shared recently by Febri, and it dived deep into how the show’s staff members animated the Guitar, Loneliness and Blue Planet! performance from Episode 5.
Given the impressive and accurate animation of that sequence, it should come as no surprise that it was made thanks to a mix of motion capture and 3D animation.
Bocchi the Rock! Episode 5’s Performance Motion Capture Behind the Scenes
Early on, producers at Aniplex told producer Umehara that they wanted a “hand-made version of the live scene.”
This meant that motion capture was needed to accurately depict the Kessoku Band's audition performance, but it must also be animated to match the series’ look.
Because of this, Umehara asked the help of Kawakami, a director who is experienced with using Blender, a popular 3D animation production software.
What happened next was that the staff worked on storyboards for the scene which were shown to the motion capture performers.
Following storyboards wasn't the only thing to do though as the director and the performers also had to rehearse the specific movements of the band members to match what the staff had in mind.
Aside from the series director and the motion capture director, this rehearsal stage also saw the participation of series creator Aki Hamaji.
She shared her input on how the performers should act based on their respective characters.
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Transforming the Motion Capture to Animation
The storyboard and rehearsal part took a while. Though interestingly, the actual recording and transfer to 3D animation only took one day.
What happened was that the final motion capture data was taken in the morning. Then, in the afternoon, the scene was transferred into a 3D layout where a virtual camera can be used by the live director.
How this works is that the motion capture data can be used to simulate a 3DCG version of the performance.
Using a virtual camera, the director can then virtually film from certain angles based on the storyboards.
For instance, the angle where the camera is seemingly put on the head part of the guitar was all done virtually.
Of course, this wasn’t the end of production for the scene as it still had to be touched up.
Regardless, it’s definitely interesting to know the level of effort that the show’s staff went to when creating this pivotal sequence.
With the level of effort put into the first season, fans are no doubt excited about the possibilities if and when Bocchi the Rock! gets renewed for a second season.
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Source: Febri.jp
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