MLP EG Adagio Dazzle (1 Viewer)

[InterlockingCamel]

I would like to request Adagio Dazzle from My Little Pony Equestria Girls. This is what she looks like from different angles. She is so hot! ;D. I'm terrible at art, so I appreciate any contribution.

http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2014/208/7/3/sexy_adagio_by_katequantum-d7shbaj.png <- only side view I could find, and it is big.

 

[Shinigami_no_Jinnai]

Sorry to disappoint ya, but I think her Hair is a bit too big. I once asked Guyra to do Nightmare Rarity, and he said her Hair would be to gigantic. And since Adagio also has giant Hair (and is on Sucking-Position so that you can see how it might look)...

 

[stuntcock]

Sorry to disappoint ya, but I think her Hair is a bit too big. I once asked Guyra to do Nightmare Rarity, and he said her Hair would be to gigantic. And since Adagio also has giant Hair (and is on Sucking-Position so that you can see how it might look)...

It depends. If you scale it to her body then yeah - it's ridiculously large. But the MLP EG characters are super deformed; the hair is only 2.5 "skulls" tall. If we shrink it down to fit the SDT head template then it would be shorter than some of the anime hairstyles that already exist.

It would still be uncomfortably thick, though - you'd inevitably get clipping with her shoulders, back, arms, and buttocks. You could avoid collision by assigning it a gravityAngle of 20-30 degrees, but that would look artificial - the hairstyle appears to be a loose mass of curls, and there's no reason why it "ought" to hold itself stiffly away from the character's body.

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I'm inclined to be generous to thornytowers because the reference image that he linked is almost perfect. Full profile, high resolution, limited colour palette, includes highlights, character is in the correct posture, shows outfit as well as hair, no foreground clutter, no irrelevant background to crop out, no JPEG artifacts. Compared to most of the garbage that we see on the request board, this thing is goddamned beautiful. I'm volunteering for the hair. Not the outfit, or the facial details though; that's not my department.

thornytowers - what's your preference here? Would you be okay with scaling down the hair (e.g. extending to lower back rather than buttocks, and reducing the thickness) while retaining the original colour scheme and the general design? Or would you prefer to see a more faithful rendition of the character, even if it tends to misbehave during gameplay?

P.S. "I'm bad at art" usually means "I can't draw." But that doesn't mean that you can't contribute! Have you ever tried vector tracing? If you can get me an SVG of that deviantart image then I could quickly fit it onto a template and rig the dynamic parts of the hair. If I need to do the tracing myself then I'll treat it as a low-priority item -- I'll still do it, but there will be an additional delay (at a rough guess I'd say 2 weeks extra).

 

[Shinigami_no_Jinnai]

If you scale it to her body then yeah - it's ridiculously large. But the MLP EG characters are super deformed; the hair is only 2.5 "skulls" tall. If we shrink it down to fit the SDT head template then it would be shorter than some of the anime hairstyles that already exist.

I'm inclined to be generous to thornytowers because the reference image that he linked is almost perfect. Full profile, high resolution, limited colour palette, includes highlights, character is in the correct posture, shows outfit as well as hair, no foreground clutter, no irrelevant background to crop out, no JPEG artifacts. Compared to most of the garbage that we see on the request board, this thing is goddamned beautiful. I'm volunteering for the hair. Not the outfit, or the facial details though; that's not my department.

thornytowers - what's your preference here? Would you be okay with scaling down the hair (e.g. extending to lower back rather than buttocks, and reducing the thickness) while retaining the original colour scheme and the general design? Or would you prefer to see a more faithful rendition of the character, even if it tends to misbehave during gameplay?

P.S. "I'm bad at art" usually means "I can't draw." But that doesn't mean that you can't contribute! Have you ever tried vector tracing? If you can get me an SVG of that deviantart image then I could quickly fit it onto a template and rig the dynamic parts of the hair. If I need to do the tracing myself then I'll treat it as a low-priority item -- I'll still do it, but there will be an additional delay (at a rough guess I'd say 2 weeks extra).

It would be really sweet if ya manage to do a good Adagio :D

 

[InterlockingCamel]

This is the first time I've done this sort of thing. I have created an svg file, I'm not sure if I did it right though. Could you, or someone else look at it and see if it is correct?
Stuntcock, I'm fine with the hair being scaled down some as long as it is still fairly large.

 

[stuntcock]

This is the first time I've done this sort of thing. I have created an svg file, I'm not sure if I did it right though.

Oops - you misunderstood what I was asking for.

It's not that "I need this exact same raster image, but packaged up inside a SVG file with an auto-trace operation run on top of it". Actually, my request was "please open up the PNG file in a vector-graphics program (such as Inkscape), crop away the non-hair parts, and then trace the paths by hand with the overlapping parts split out onto multiple Layers of the drawing." The resulting file should be only a few dozen kilobytes. The chief benefit of vector graphics is that it allows us to have highly-detailed images with very small file sizes.

In order for the hair to become a Flash object, its component shapes must be traced. One of us must put in an hour or two of work (note: an expert tracer could probably get this hair vectorized in less than 20 minutes). Tracing isn't fun; I'm asking you to do it anyways. If you do so, it will push this item further up on my "to do list" and your request will be finished sooner. And also you might learn a somewhat-useful skill in the process; you can add "Some experience with vector tracing and Flash animation" to your resume :)

If you're not comfortable doing the vector work, or you try it but find it very boring, or you can't spare the time, or you finish it but then your computer explodes, that's okay. I'll trace it myself when I've finished a few other things (most importantly: technical documentation for a recently-released Loader mod).

As I mentioned earlier, you've already earned huge points in my book because the reference image that you posted is absolutely ideal and it greatly simplifies the remaining work. The SVG stuff is just an option available to you, in case you're anxious to see the character come to life ASAP.

 

[InterlockingCamel]

That makes a LOT more sense. I feel stupid :P. As I was configuring the tracer in flash professional, I thought to myself "wow this is easy, I wonder why Stuntcock acted like it was such a pain". Now, I understand. I hope you don't think I was just being lazy :-[. I appreciate the amount of information you have provided.

So, I would guess that the hair that is covered up by her head must be created by hand, since it will rotate/move in the game and reveal the covered area. I also guess that the amount of layers would depend on how dynamic the hair is.

 

[stuntcock]

So, I would guess that the hair that is covered up by her head must be created by hand, since it will rotate/move in the game and reveal the covered area.

Correct. You may want to leave that until near the end of the task, because at that point you'll be more comfortable with the tools and you'll have a bit of "muscle memory" regarding the patterns and curves of the hairstyle. Also - you can copy/paste some of the paths that you've already traced, move them into the "hidden" layers, and then rotate/stretch them until they line up with the visible segments.

I also guess that the amount of layers would depend on how dynamic the hair is.

Yes. I'd be aiming for three layers on the ponytail, three for the hair on the head, and then two for the hairclip/fastener (one for the object itself, one for the spikes).

Of course, "more layers" is always fine. You may find yourself creating additional layers as you work -- please do not bother to collapse or merge layers before sharing your SVG file.

The two large sets of curly hair in the ponytail will be the focus of the animation work. The third ponytail element (top-right) will be mostly obscured; we can slack off on the detail for that one. The frontal reference shots seem to suggest a fourth strand in the ponytail, but let's just aim for consistency with the side reference shot.

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The actual animation technique for the ponytail is going to be exotic, because the hair is too wide (even after we shrink it!) for a conventional centerline-pivot approach. I'll explain the details in the modding thread, but that stuff is pretty esoteric. I'll post some early concept images and animation samples once I've begun work; what I'm hoping to get from you is general feedback: "it doesn't seem bouncy enough", "there's too much inertia in the way it swings", "the curly bits get squashed when her head tilts backwards". Please don't hesitate to offer criticism at that stage, because I haven't actually seen the TV show and so I'll be relying on your feedback to build something which feels correct for the character.

The sidelocks can be handled conventionally -- as long as you're okay with the idea that her ears are permanently obscured (which I'm assuming is okay because that's how she appears in all of the reference images).

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One important note: you mentioned Flash Professional. If you have access to it, then it would be much more convenient for me (and for other modders, if you eventually end up tracing the clothing, shoes, etc) to share your work as an FLA file instead of SVG.

I mentioned SVG only because there are free software tools available for that format, whereas Flash Pro is licensed software.

 

[stuntcock]

ThornyTowers isn't answering PMs, so I did the vector tracing myself.



I mentioned that I would need to shrink the hair in order to fit it on the SDT model, and I've done so. The forelocks now end at the collarbone (rather than reaching the breast) and the curls have been shortened from buttocks to lower back. The width/thickness of the curls is reasonably final - "big hair" seems to be an important aspect of the character design, and I think that it's currently thick enough to be recognizable without causing too much grief during the dynamic-hair-rigging phase. If collision is a problem then I'll probably just rotate the hair further away from the body, rather than changing its dimensions.

I'm hoping to get some feedback from people who have actually seen the show. If you notice something that seems wrong in any of the images or animation samples that I post, then please let me know. The most obvious error would be layering (e.g. "the orange curl should slide behind her body when she stands up!") but I'm open to feedback on weight, springiness, bounciness, etc...

WIP animation sample - removed

 

[stuntcock]

The animation work is almost complete. Remaining stuff:

• the frontal strands show delamination during rapid movement, allowing occasional glimpses of the right ear and the neck. Needs a bit more fine-tuning.
  • done. Delamination should no longer occur during "normal" Auto-Mode gameplay. It still occurs during Hard mode -- that's a deliberate "sacrifice" that I've made. I can fine-tune the hairstyle to eliminate delamination completely, but we'd simultaneously lose most of the "bounce" - which is what gives the hairstyle its charm.
• the spiky hairclasp should bounce around to emphasize the weight of the hair. It's currently moving 2-4 degrees, which is scarcely visible. I'm going to try to get it up to at least 8.
  • done. The effect is too rigid. I have an alternative approach in mind, but it will need to wait until V3 or V4 of the mod.
• the rear strand is too narrow.
  • It's a faithful trace of the main reference image, but I should have double-checked it against the other images.
  • The strand is anchored at her hairline and slopes down across the forehead, but it ought to be thicker -- starting near the left ear and arcing upwards to the hairline and then down across the forehead.
  • I'm not sure whether I'll adjust it... the "missing" details are almost entirely hidden by the face and become noticeable only during rapid movement. I'll probably just leave the anchor as-is and apply a half-ass fix to the second segment.
  • meh. The fixed version looked worse so I'll stick with the "too skinny" strand for now.
• the animation technique that I'm currently using is fairly flexible; it could support much larger hair. I don't plan to resize it, though, because:
  • larger hair would cover her shoulders more-or-less permanently and would obscure her breasts when she leans forward.
  • after a size change, I'd need to do a lot of manual adjustment and testing to get everything aligned again.
• <any additional fixes or suggestions from forum members>
  • meh. Nobody offered any input (except for sby's cryptic remark and I have no idea what he meant by it).

Static Version: SDT-MLP-staticHair-adagio.swf View attachment SDT-MLP-staticHair-adagio.swf

All of the other download links (and the animation sample) have been moved to the Loader subforum.

 

[Dyxid]

Wow, impressive, we haven't gotten much in the way of dynamic hairs for MLP:FIM.

 

[sby]

that hair with the custom ropes ::)

 

[InterlockingCamel]

Yeah... with the holiday season and then New Years, I haven't really been thinking about porn, or super deep throat. This is just a dirty past time that went to the back of my head while I was thinking about preparations. You know, family before fapping. It looks great! I hope it did not take you too long, since I was of no help. I'm not too picky, what you have done already surpasses my expectations ;D. I have not actually seen the movie. I have just seen the fan art of her, so I do not know how her hair acts normally.