HOME | DD

Description
Youtube Link: youtu.be/y49kMcDCcPM

Story: (Slight spoilers for Xenoblade 2 kind of)

While out on an expedition to secure an area in Aionis for Alrest, Pyra and Mythra were attacked by a strange monster. Sensing a dangerous attack with foresight, Mythra just managed to dodge out of the way in time. Unfortunately, Pyra wasn’t lucky enough to avoid it, and took a blast of ether magic. Left only with a slight feeling of weakness, Pyra fought on and the monster soon fell at their feet.

With their mission complete, the aegis decided they should probably head back to regroup with their party, but as they journeyed onward, Pyra began to feel strange. Her whole body felt tight and like it was being forced into itself. She looked down to check on herself, but didn’t find anything strange. However when she looked up, Mythrawas standing taller than her. That wasn’t right. She and Mythra had always been the same height. (Except in their Pneuma form but that didn’t count!)

“Um, hey Mythra?” Pyra called out. As she turned around, it only confirmed Pyra’s feelings. Despite being as tall as her sister before, Pyra’s head was now level with Mythra’s chest.

“Yeah, what’s up? Is something wr- Uh, Pyra, are shrinking?”

“I- I guess I am. Let’s go find Nia, hopefully she can help me with this.”

As the two journeyed onwards, Pyra continued to grow smaller and smaller, until she stopped when she was merely a few inches tall. Barely as tall as Mythra’s foot, she had to keep up nearly a full sprint to keep up with her sister’s leisurely walk. Luckily they were passing through an abandoned fortress, with easy terrain for the tiny blade to walk over.

After what felt like miles to Pyra (despite it only being a few yards for a normal sized person), she was out of breath. “Mythra-” She called out in an embarrassingly high pitched voice, appropriate for someone of her stature. “Wait-, wait for me.”

Mythra turned around, rolled her eyes, and slowly strided up to Pyra, who ran up and jumped into her lowered hand. “Come on, we’ll be faster this way.” She said as she lowered Pyra gently onto her shoulder. She began walking in the other direction.

“Um, Mythra? Isn’t Nia’s party that way?” Pyra said, pointing behind her.

“Yes, but Rex’s party is this way, and I just realized how much he’d enjoy seeing you this small. The mighty Aegis Broadsword reduced to a mere Pocket Knife.”

Notes:

I like both the run and walk cycles in this animation. I wanted to go for a slower and more relaxed walk for Mythra so that she would only walk slightly faster than Pyra runs, which worked out pretty well. It’s probably the most natural looking walk cycle I’ve made seeing as how her feet don’t pick up too far, and her motion isn’t too exaggerated.

Pyra’s run cycle is also pretty good. Her hands are a bit jumpy because they have a few too many misaligned keyframes, but overall it looks decent. The frame where she jumps up into Mythra’s hand is really cool too. It’s hard to see because she’s far away, but its a really strong pose where her legs go out to the side and she vaults onto her fingers. It’s somewhat inspired by how Samus moves in Metroid Dread how she’s always moving really quickly. I should have added an extra keyframe after Pyra vaults so that her momentum doesn’t just cut for no reason, but it’s pretty hard to see unless you’re looking for it.

One shortcoming though, the camera work here is pretty bad. I like the first angle where it’s following Pyra until she gets overtaken, but then the next few shots were pretty bad as its hard to frame everything with the huge size difference between Pyra and Mythra. It’s fine enough and you can still mostly tell what’s going on, but it’s not the greatest. It also uses a ton of low angles because I wanted to focus on Pyra, but this has the unfortunate effect of making Mythra look like a giant instead of making Pyra look tiny.

In order to alleviate that I used the setting of a room to give some surrounding objects for scale. With the story it would have made more sense to be outside, but I do think it would have been much harder to get a sense of what size each of the characters are. The reason that Mythra walks towards the camera instead of the same way she was walking isn’t because of story or anything, I just didn’t want to animate Mythra turning around again.

Description
Youtube Link: youtu.be/y49kMcDCcPM

Story: (Slight spoilers for Xenoblade 2 kind of)

While out on an expedition to secure an area in Aionis for Alrest, Pyra and Mythra were attacked by a strange monster. Sensing a dangerous attack with foresight, Mythra just managed to dodge out of the way in time. Unfortunately, Pyra wasn’t lucky enough to avoid it, and took a blast of ether magic. Left only with a slight feeling of weakness, Pyra fought on and the monster soon fell at their feet.

With their mission complete, the aegis decided they should probably head back to regroup with their party, but as they journeyed onward, Pyra began to feel strange. Her whole body felt tight and like it was being forced into itself. She looked down to check on herself, but didn’t find anything strange. However when she looked up, Mythrawas standing taller than her. That wasn’t right. She and Mythra had always been the same height. (Except in their Pneuma form but that didn’t count!)

“Um, hey Mythra?” Pyra called out. As she turned around, it only confirmed Pyra’s feelings. Despite being as tall as her sister before, Pyra’s head was now level with Mythra’s chest.

“Yeah, what’s up? Is something wr- Uh, Pyra, are shrinking?”

“I- I guess I am. Let’s go find Nia, hopefully she can help me with this.”

As the two journeyed onwards, Pyra continued to grow smaller and smaller, until she stopped when she was merely a few inches tall. Barely as tall as Mythra’s foot, she had to keep up nearly a full sprint to keep up with her sister’s leisurely walk. Luckily they were passing through an abandoned fortress, with easy terrain for the tiny blade to walk over.

After what felt like miles to Pyra (despite it only being a few yards for a normal sized person), she was out of breath. “Mythra-” She called out in an embarrassingly high pitched voice, appropriate for someone of her stature. “Wait-, wait for me.”

Mythra turned around, rolled her eyes, and slowly strided up to Pyra, who ran up and jumped into her lowered hand. “Come on, we’ll be faster this way.” She said as she lowered Pyra gently onto her shoulder. She began walking in the other direction.

“Um, Mythra? Isn’t Nia’s party that way?” Pyra said, pointing behind her.

“Yes, but Rex’s party is this way, and I just realized how much he’d enjoy seeing you this small. The mighty Aegis Broadsword reduced to a mere Pocket Knife.”

Notes:

I like both the run and walk cycles in this animation. I wanted to go for a slower and more relaxed walk for Mythra so that she would only walk slightly faster than Pyra runs, which worked out pretty well. It’s probably the most natural looking walk cycle I’ve made seeing as how her feet don’t pick up too far, and her motion isn’t too exaggerated.

Pyra’s run cycle is also pretty good. Her hands are a bit jumpy because they have a few too many misaligned keyframes, but overall it looks decent. The frame where she jumps up into Mythra’s hand is really cool too. It’s hard to see because she’s far away, but its a really strong pose where her legs go out to the side and she vaults onto her fingers. It’s somewhat inspired by how Samus moves in Metroid Dread how she’s always moving really quickly. I should have added an extra keyframe after Pyra vaults so that her momentum doesn’t just cut for no reason, but it’s pretty hard to see unless you’re looking for it.

One shortcoming though, the camera work here is pretty bad. I like the first angle where it’s following Pyra until she gets overtaken, but then the next few shots were pretty bad as its hard to frame everything with the huge size difference between Pyra and Mythra. It’s fine enough and you can still mostly tell what’s going on, but it’s not the greatest. It also uses a ton of low angles because I wanted to focus on Pyra, but this has the unfortunate effect of making Mythra look like a giant instead of making Pyra look tiny.

In order to alleviate that I used the setting of a room to give some surrounding objects for scale. With the story it would have made more sense to be outside, but I do think it would have been much harder to get a sense of what size each of the characters are. The reason that Mythra walks towards the camera instead of the same way she was walking isn’t because of story or anything, I just didn’t want to animate Mythra turning around again.