A Golden Light in the Dark: The Making of Reideen CG Animation (2)

Mitsuru Hongo's Reideen inherited the DNA of Reideen the Brave, the animated classic that aired on Japanese TV between 1975 and 1976. But at the same time, it returned as an entirely new Reideen with refined mechanical designs and settings. Furthermore, the new series features high-quality 3D CG animation that was unthinkable for a TV production until now. Shigeki Hayashi and Keiji Ikeda were responsible for the modeling and VFX of Reideen and the Self Defence Police. In this second part, Hayashi-san and Ikeda-san confide about the effort they'd put into the much-talked-about "fade-in" sequence, when Reideen descends on earth and join with Junki.

Profile: Shigeki Hayashi - Born on January 26th in Chiba Prefecture. 3D CGI director. Board member of SimImage Studio. While still at school, he was convinced that CG was going to be the indispensable technology for the future film industry, and he decided to become a CG creator. The first creative work was to make a film that was shown at Fujitsu's pavilion at the 1990 International Garden and Greenery Exposition held in Osaka. After working for Polygon Pictures, he landed a job as lighting artist for the 3D CG movie, Final Fantasy (2001), and continued to participate in several projects including SD Gundam Force (2004, TV series, animator), in the game Monster Hunters (2004, movie part, animatics director) and Zoids: Genesis (2005, TV series, 3D CGI director). On Reideen he comments, "It was a venture to challenge the limits of 3D CG in a TV series."

Profile: Keiji Ikeda - Born on October 31, 1980 in Okayama Prefecture. 3D CG VFX designer. He decided to work in the CG visuals industry because he wished to share what he enjoyed the most as a child. In 2004, he debuted as a CG designer with a TV ad for Pocket Monster Emerald (Game Boy Advance software.) Since then he has worked on Gundam Evolve (full 3D CG OVA, 2001 to 2003) and the game Monster Hunter 2 (2006). He is one of Japan's promising young CG creators. On Reideen he comments, "Yeah, it definitely was a challenging project."

Our first idea was to make it more extravagant, with colorful lights and a flashing screen.

What were the challenging parts in the "bank" scenes?
Ikeda: Actually, the "fade-in" sequence was the first bank scene we worked on as the 3D team, so we had a hard time deciding how to visualize Reideen, because what we were about to do was going to affect the whole series. However, as for the visual effects, we received precise requests, so we didn't have too much to ponder around. For example, in the beginning of the fade-in sequence where light shines from the sky, they requested light rays to be this thick and outline it around here without coloring the inside. We were also asked to disperse the rays sporadically and not systematically.

The most difficult one was to have double light spirals to circulate independently on the outside and inside.

What do you mean by double spirals?
Hayashi: You see, on top of a falling light ray, another light ray falls over. And when you pan the camera, you can see that they describe a spiral movement.

Ikeda: But one is moving clockwise and the other on the opposite direction.

I see. You might miss it at a quick glance.
By the way, who was most committed to the "fade-in" sequence?
Ikeda: Hayashi-san, no doubt.

Hayashi: Huh? Really?

Ikeda: First of all, when we began the project, Hayashi-san had too many ideas. But when we had finally dealt with them, we hit the wall of Takeuchi-san. (lol)

While you were making the fade-in sequence, what was your idea like?
Ikeda: Delicate all the way through. My first idea was to make it more extravagant, with colorful lights and a flashing screen. But when we worked on the actual sequence we tried to make it look subtle and natural.

Hayashi-san, what was your advice about the "fade-in" sequence?
Hayashi: I just told them what I wanted without too much thinking about the challenges the staff might face. (lol) For instance, I wanted a crystallized Raideen at the beginning, and I wanted objects to be seen through that crystal body shining in slight golden light. I was quite fussy about things that in fact the audience might just as well overlook. Although I was the one who requested it, when I look back, I realize it must have been difficult to do...

Ikeda: We didn't have much problem with the crystal texture itself, but we had to decide what kind of crystal it was going to be. And we had difficulty with the circling lights and the shining hair. We could have toned it with red or make it shine in a bluish color or many other ways; the difficult part was to decide.

What did the mechanic designer Atsushi Takeushi think of the finished "fade-in" sequence?
Hayashi: It wasn't like he told us his impression when it was completed, because we had consulted Hongo-san, Takeuchi-san and Aramaki-san in-situ while in production. So at the finishing stage, he'd say, "This part could be so and so" or I'd propose, "we could do it like this too." We shared ideas and enjoyed the process; that was good thing about working on this project.

So it was like taking time and working thoroughly without making compromises.

Hayashi: Exactly. As a matter of fact, we were sort of pulled to the level where Takeuchi-san could compromise. (lol) Even in those cases, I am sure Takeuchi-san had to bear with us.

(2 - to be continued)

© 2007 Tohokushinsha Film Corporation · Production I.G