Vertical Slice Changes - SPnU

When Rob asked us to do vertical slice we got right to it, only to realise we'd already done something similar - a colour test. Halli threw the character design of Kilo into a scene to see if the colours worked right and how shading might work but we hadn't yet followed the processes of the pipeline from start to finish.

Vertical slice by Halli (Kilo not to scale)

I also took a frame of a scene I'm working on from start to finish, to see how everything would potentially work:

I outlined all the brush setting and tool techniques so the final animation would be consistent

I then tested out different styles of shading, weighing their pros and cons:

Flat shading - Pros: Saves time, Cons: Less visually appealing

Background shading - Pros: Matches backgrounds, Cons: feels flat

Cel shading - Pros: Conveys mood well , Cons: time-consuming

 For now, we've decided to go with the middle option, background shading that doesn't move but still shows light and dark. This might change though, depending on how much time we have left.

Tisa also turned a rough scene into a vertical slice to test how the demon looked with the backgrounds:

Link to Tisa's blog post about this

We realised that the grey overlap outlines looked odd in motion, as they bobbed in and out of existence. And so I updated her character design to have completely grey outlines (we also tried black and white outlines, but grey worked best):

Then I put all the character designs into a universal template for consistency (Kilo designs by Damo):

Also did some book/prop concept sketches

What went well:

• Doing the vertical slice proved very useful as we were able to iron out the kinks beforehand,
• Efficient communication and teamwork meant we had 3 times the vertical slices we needed.

What could be improved:

• The vertical slice should've been done much earlier (what if we found that making SPnU was practically impossible after months of work??).