Animation Enhancement in the Crop Circle Warriors Introduction

31 10 2019

It took a lot of time to re-enhance or remaster the old introduction of the animation series. We thought hiring experienced animators working in the industry would get the job done faster and with no errors, although some were fast workers they did not follow the instructions faithfully. This caused some errors in the retracing of the animation. Another time-consuming task was adding or changing the special effects to make the animation better. The experience we got in re-enhancing the introduction will be used to re-enhance, improve, remaster the whole series. Although this will cost a lot of time and money to do this; we are committed to finish the job. The enhanced Crop Circle Warriors introduction is placed in the Crop Circle Warriors Mobile Game Facebook page or Youtube.

Converting to 4K

Conversion from Standard Definition which is also used in DVD (720 x 576 resolution) to Quad High Definition or 4K (3840 x 2160 resolution). We have to retrace the old drawings to make the drawings more defined. See below for size comparison.

If you watched an SD movie on a large TV, the image will stretch, hence the noticeable pixelation. Details like facial freckles and Zipper teeth are seen in a higher resolution, whereas in the standard definition it does not exist.

We had to trace the original drawings digitally in a vector-based (crisp lines at any size) animation software so we can render it at any size. Originally we drew on paper then scanned and colored in a raster-based (pixels) software.
Because of the higher resolution, we had to redo ALL 3D Objects (Mechanical Crop Circle, Frogee’s Mother Ship, and Tadpole Ship) and ALL the Special FX.

Improved Special Effects

Instead of redoing the special effects, we improved it (Jobert’s energy). We also placed effects on scenes that didn’t have any before (Frogee’s Heads Up Display (HUD)).

The energy for the Cyber Warriors also needed to be consistent so we applied the same effects to all of them.

Tany’s staff/sticks are now more like a lightsaber than before. With energy moving around the object.

Krystel’s wings are now more Cybernetic looking, although we are thinking of enhancing this more in the series.

Texture has been added to light flashes from weapons and energy.

Enhanced Backgrounds

Most of the backgrounds were created larger than HD, so we just had to enhance some of them. We enhanced them by adding blurs, color correction, and some atmospheric effects.

The Nebulas and Space Backgrounds were redone from scratch, we had to look for Royalty Free Nebulas in high resolution before we could add animating stars and give them volume.

3D Models were also used to improve backgrounds (Zem in Power Plant Door), we plan to use 3D models for other backgrounds in the series to create depth and to minimize redoing everything in 2D.

Improved Character Design, Animation and Poses

Most comments we had for Moleth are “Why does he look like a tongue?” and the worst comment was “He looks like a phallic organ.” So we did a minimal redesign so it wouldn’t be too hard to fix. We changed the head to have only one hump and raised hi facial features so that he looks like he has a body, instead of a head with arms and legs.

We also improved the poses to be more dynamic and more appealing.

Some animations were also improved, both in modeling and in action.

We improved the designs for Frogee’s Mother Ship and the Tadpole Ship, making the designs close to those used in the game. The artist here suggested giving the two ships’ names, similar to the Millennium Falcon of Hans Solo (Star Wars) and the Star-Lord’s Milano (Guardians of the Galaxy). Names suggested were O.C.A.C. or Cybercraft Operations Conducive for Alien Contact and B.O.T.E.T.E. or Bio-Oceanic and Terran Exploration Tactical Envoy.

Additional Scenes

We added new scenes from Episode 7 especially the actions scenes of Jobert with the Tahug Ziga Core. The actions in Episode 7 have greatly improved compared to the old version. We plan to do this in all of the episodes.

We also redid the Title, to match the title of the game.

Story Enhancements

Some changes were made more for story enhancements also to make plot points clearer.
We reduced the Crop Circles in space to those of Jobert, Jess and Tany, so it won’t confuse them on what those images are. When the audience sees these symbols again at the Character introductions, it becomes clear who those symbols belong too.

While the camera zooms in to a Crop Circle on Earth we added a Nazca Line of a frog while the crop circle is revealed to be an eye. Interconnecting the plot points of the Nazca Lines and the Crop Circles that we can use in later stories. We also made it an “easter egg”, to make it a surprise to audiences who notices it.