Ep.10 Update #3: Relena's Plane

So, I realize it's been like a year and a half since my last edit update, but I decided to still name this one "#3". If you forget #2, don't worry, that scene was cut from the script. Whoops.

I wanted to showcase this visual edit because it was made entirely by LuckyBlue, who is taking a more active role in working on MSAGW to help me make progress faster. He did a stellar job with this one, and I wanted to show it off before the episode comes out!

In case it's been awhile since you've seen this episode in Wing, Relena's ship does not, in fact, fly fully across the screen. We wrote the script to have this happen, but editing it to make it happen took more effort than we realized, as there is no shot of Relena's plane in full from that angle anywhere in the show. In this scene, only the front half is shown, and there is no shot of Tallgeese without the plane obscuring its left arm.

So, we started with simply erasing the plane from existence in Photoshop, editing Tallgeese's arm and shield back in as a blank slate. Then, we rendered out her plane, Heavyarms and the ice behind him as separate layers. From there, Blue isolated each part of Heavyarms around the joints, creating five new layers to move Heavyarms like an action figure, and simulated him sitting up for when things get extra heated. After that? Blue simply used multiple plane references throughout the show to draw back in the rest of the plane, giving us a full new layer to move about as we please.

The gif shown is a bit choppy because I moved all the layers within Photoshop to make it, but this scene is fully finished and it all looks pretty seamless in motion. I'm impressed by Blue's work and will have him making more edits like these in the future. Well done, Blue!

I'll have at least one more edit update either before or after Ep.10 comes out, depending on if I think the edit is too "spoiler-y". So keep an eye out for that!