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Description

She also walks a bit I think, so that’s kinda neat.
Anyway, this was a test animation I wanted to do after finishing up Twilight’s model (mainly the hair for the mane and tail for her). I first had to make a walk cycle animation (I believe the technical term here is a prance), and then work that into implementing that walk cycle into the scene itself and smoothly transition out of it.
I then wanted to show off Twilight’s mane. Twilight’s mane shifts shape based on its rotation relative to the active camera. And having her head turn a couple times was to test that out. Twilight’s mane in the actual show is really hard to make any real sense of in 3D space, it cheats perspective a lot, despite how simple it might look. You may know how other 3D Twilights look, such as the SFM model and a few others, struggle to replicate its show-style look a lot more than other manes. To get around this problem for my model, I opted to have the shape, or the silhouette, adapt depending on how the mane is rotated relative to the camera to help keep its shape relatively close to how it should be, while also not being so jarring with it that it just becomes obvious and distracting whenever it does change. I think I have a fairly neat middle ground for that.
As for the rest of the animation, a lot of it is sort of standard stuff I normally do for making ponies act, so not much more for me to add there. Always like to focus on continuous motion for the main body to make sure the body feels more real combined with weight shifting, and also make sure to nail the micro-expressions for the face during acting. Kind of curious how people will interpret the acting, actually. What’s the scene’s context that fills your mind when you watch this animation? What is Twilight reacting to? What is she doing after her main reaction? I have my own reasons, but I am curious what some of you think.
One negative thing I noticed is probably the ears. Subsurface Scattering is probably tuned a bit too high, so too much light is passing through the thin parts of them. And it looks a bit strange with the new shader configuration I added recently that essentially blocks off some of that light to imitate hairs that block it. I think in general the effect is good, just overtuned. I will make adjustments to that now that I see its issues in motion with this test render.
Now with this test animation out of the way, I plan to get back to work on The Magic Inside 3D. I really wanted to make sure Twilight’s mane was going to work in a final setting before I started using Twilight for the introduction of Coloratura’s speech before her song.
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Comments

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Background Pony #7BA0
The hair drapes around her…withers? amazingly, and you must have done the shapechanging well because even looking for it I couldn’t really be sure.
Is the shape.altering programmed in to the rigging or what-have-you or do you have to handle it manually?
Gemstone

You’re slowly building all the pieces to a proper animation set. Are you planning on doing anything with all of this? I mean, it’s a lot of work being put in for just a few random animations and models.
Captain Croissandwich

Twilight’s missing her wings in this model. Are those going to be added in later to see how the mane interacts with them? Or are you confident that the current rotation ranges of her mane won’t clash? The Magic Inside takes place post-ascension, so having a pre-ascension Twilight wouldn’t be chronologically accurate.
Carbonnanotube
The End wasn't The End - Found a new home after the great exodus of 2012

@JP  
@Mishka
 
I think it’s translucency through the surface roughness maybe.  
Blender is good enough these days that it handles a lot of physics stuff like that automatically. It is neat how the translucency is reddish like the light were actually going through a living ear; perhaps there’s a setting for it.
 
Anyone know where the 3D models are? I’d love to play around with them and learn from how they did it, and also 3D print a few copies for friends for Christmas.
Background Pony #E072
She’s startled by something, but not nothing; perhaps a bird that moves to the second location. Or are there two objects of interest?
Azerdoe
Solar Supporter - Fought against the New Lunar Republic rebellion on the side of the Solar Deity (April Fools 2023).
My Little Pony - 1992 Edition

Seriously, why haven’t you made the mlp films instead of Hasbro? You know how to make 3D models better than they do. Even make them look almost real life. Get this man a contract.
Background Pony #854B
@JP  
Pinned comment at the source:  
I mentioned this already in the description, but I am aware of the shading issues for the ears, the sub surface scattering was overturned, but it was too late to do a re-render by the time I noticed.
The detail you see within the inner ear is not veins or blood vessels or whatever. The effect was intended to show fur blocking the sub surface lighting that passes through the thin ear. But by my mistake, the sub surface effect was tuned far too high, and it ruined the effect. I plan to address this and make changes to how the ears are shaded for future renders.
Background Pony #2776
Oh, so cute yet awesome.  
It looks even better than Hello Pinkie Pie.
 
I have the urge to comb her mane.
JP
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I miss the show so much
I thought they were GIF artifacting, but I can see it here too: is there some kind of fur effect inside the ears? They have this reddish pattern which I assume is subsurface scattering, but with fur.
 
(I adore how lively her ears are.)