I love how almost all the tools you used for this project are either completely free or have a one time payment. Goes to show far the barrier has gone down in terms of being able to create anything you want, whether it's for TH-cam, a school project, or possibly even a whole movie!
I'd say Davinci is a decent software and potentially could be the best free editing software out there, it's just it probably takes time to understand it compared to other editing softwares like adobe AE, adobe premiere and final cut pro. And despite it being free while also having it's own premium version available to be bought anytime it's one of those rare softwares/brands that would be worthwhile in the end once you get used to it and potentially be better than the other editing softwares.
Blender has been blessing for me back in the days while making mods for a game, there's a lot of documentation around that help anyone willing to get into it. Bless Blender.
Do it little by little, step by step. What you see here is 10 years of experience in Gmod/Flash, 6 years in Maya, 3 years in a professional setting with 1 on high quality feature films. Don't set the bar too high at the beginning. Practice small stuff with time and be patient. If you truly love animating your skill will improve through experimentation and by seeking advices. 👍
@@ThatGrayCartoonPony as a kind of mlp movie combined with htf but without its acts of blood obviously but what do you say and if you want to know what it should be about just reply to me and also if you are interested
The Shark teeth are cute and make her more dangerous and I like her eyes with the TF2 logo in it But your opinion the regular face model is just better in my opinion than the 2D face However I will not lie the 2D face could work well with some other characters
I can already tell the amount of effort you took for that Mimi video. You made her look even more cuter than all the videos out there just by replacing her face with 2D expressions. I would love to see more of those ❤️
Greatly appreciate you showing how you made this, as an SFMer who wants to try moving over to blender at some point in the future this is really helpful! Just gotta say though, you adding facial deformation to accurately portray the mouth from a different angle at 2:25 is by far my favourite detail.
As a design student currently undergoing 3D animation lessons, this is quite an eye opener for what is possible! Experimenting like this really shows that creativity has no bounds when it comes to animation. I admire your passion, it's really inspiring!
ever since i was inspired by Alan Becker with his stickfigure animations, ive always wanted to animate. This video literally starstruck me, im both scared and determined to do something like this now!
Do it little by little, step by step. What you see here is 10 years of experience in Gmod/Flash, 6 years in Maya, 3 years in a professional setting with 1 on high quality feature films. Don't set the bar too high at the beginning. Practice small stuff with time and be patient. If you truly love animating your skill will improve through experimentation and by seeking advices. 👍
I like that you reveal the like and dislike ratio as of a certain date, it allows me to compare from what I see on my end with the return dislikes addon, and I've noticed the dislikes you report are slightly higher than what I see months later on my end, which means anytime I see a heavy dislike ratio on a video via the addon, the dislikes are actually *even worse.* Good data to have, I appreciate it.
Seeing stuff like this just makes me appreciate blender so much. So much you can do with it. :D Very neat little BTS! The hard work and effort paid off ^w^
Agree, really shows how much passion these animators put into such amazing work like this, such a shame some of these amazing artists weren't shown much more appreciations as much or so on. I'm grateful for such amazing animations like this one here.
Yeah, I love this channel, he uploads 1 or 2 videos every year because he is really busy, but you can tell that he does it with love and tons of quality.
This makes me appreciate how animations are made in blender alot more, let alone your animations. I think it was also genius doing the whole thing in front of a camera before rigging to get the idea how the scene plays out Huge props, would love to see more
I'm really glad you made this. I saw your comment about hoping this style takes over as a method for animating Mimi, and I absolutely agree, I would love that!... But then I thought to myself 'I don't know if people will know *how* to do that exactly...' 😅besides just general 'use the Grease Pencil' sorta hints.. especially if it wants to spread like a fad of sorts, the same way Mimi herself did. Definitely going to give this a look over though, maybe even use it as a tutorial to teach myself some stuff. Thanks for all the wonderful animations as always! 👍
I have been holding off learning grease pencil, but this makes me want to learn. It looks so good! What method did you use to mask the face since grease pencil stays on top of CG?
I had to render the 3D models and Grease Pencil in 2 different ViewLayers, and separate the materials from Mimi's limbs and side hair bands while adding an AOV output in order to make a masking system that will hide the GP elements behind specific parts at specific moments. This masking system is what you can see a glimpse of at 3:35 in the compositing node tree, with the black and white parts in the Viewer Node. You should normally be able to achieve the same result with cryptomattes instead of AOVs (it's definitely something I need to try in the future). But yeah, I needed to create a sheet that specifies what limb is in front/behind the face at specific times (right hand, left hand, right hair band, left hair band) in order to make it work, with occasional trial and error.
I truly appreciate every single animation that you have done. I am glad that you are still able to do animations for the community even though you have a job now. Thank you.
good stuff! Love the way you block btw, I feel like even for the first block you did a great job at picking the right poses and factoring in the keep-alive at an early stage (I really wish I was better at this myself) Very good attention to detail, so high level. Love it
I always enjoy watching your content, even if it only comes once every blue moon. Watching the Mimi video was an absolute treat and absolutely adorable. I also loved seeing the subtle "easter eggs" you put in and the little details you added. For example, the chairs stacked behind Mimi after she runs off-screen and how the lights on her change intensity depending on her mood. Keep up the amazing work!
this is how Mimi SHOULD be portrayed in ALL fan animations. this was perfect! the amount of work, effort and dedication put into making this video is incredible! you're a legit a talent, and you deserve all of the recognition you can get :)
I love how some parts you had to do a lot of remodeling (replacing the face, the lights, rigging the hair), and then breaking down the animation, from key frames, low fps, then more in between s, rough sketches of the face, etc. This was so COOL
it is actually nice to see how much work behind a small video actually takes. a lot people think " its just a small video" but never ever thought about how much work IS actually behind it. srsly to say even IF it was a small video, the making of shows pretty well how much work it really takes to make such stuff. im impressed and say good job again ^^
Excellent work again, Gray. Love seeing your Behind The Scenes of this and you've certainly came along way from just Gmod and Sony Vegas! Also the self reference you used was rather hilarious I must say.
I absolutely love this! It’s really nice to see into your process, and it’s amazing at how you were able to do this in just 15 days! All of that work to make what’s definitely the best Mimi sentry animation on TH-cam! I’d love to see more, both of Mimi and of your process making it! Thank you so much for this!
The fact that you actually made the 2D facial features on the model itself in line with the camera view and didn’t just animated them over the finished 3D animation is hella impressive.
Neat choice using the DMCV track. I love this video, too! Really cool to see how you did it! Man, looking back on since watching Engineer Likes Trains, your work is stellar AF. Keep on improving dude!
I'm a big fan of blender behind the scenes, generally seeing what UNHOLY POWERS this software wields just makes me more excited to dwell deeper into my own projects, thank you for posting this, TGCP
You have really done a well job, man. All the effort was worth it! I still need to learn to use Blender properly some of these days so this helps me to keep that idea in my mind.
I've been using my own body and movements for reference but for some reason recording myself hasn't occurred to me. I will definitely be trying that from now on, thanks for the idea!
Remember when recording yourself to not think about the action itself and be in character (feelings, back though, personality, context). One of my animation supervisors had a great saying: “You’re not animating a character that drinks from a glass of water. You’re animating a character who’s thirsty”. If you have issues with acting, ask a friend for help. ;)
You have so much talent when it comes to animation and it amazes me so much! You are such an inspiration for starting animators! And I can not wait to see what project you make next!
The Grease Pencil stuff was by far the most interesting part to me, since I've never tried it yet, but seeing how easily it can be integrated with 3D stuff was pretty cool
Damn, always looking up to your animations, and videos like this are just precious. It's like spending time with your favourite teacher, receiving his memes and experience...
any time an animated face is drawn onto a 3d character is just such a pleasure to my eyes. it is pure sweet sweet candy for them, and the way you implemented it on mimi is flawless............ i don't understand any of what you are doing except some really basic stuff, but i really see the effort you went throught to make this as clean (and cartoony!!!!) as possible!!!! greatest of jobs! good
![Creation of Mimi-Sentry [SFM]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/p1k9SIkt0Z0/mqdefault.jpg)
I love how almost all the tools you used for this project are either completely free or have a one time payment. Goes to show far the barrier has gone down in terms of being able to create anything you want, whether it's for TH-cam, a school project, or possibly even a whole movie!
One step closer for making an high budget show with smol balance
I will definitely dedicate a part of my life to making free tools. I admire the guy who made the tf2trifecta so much
I'd say Davinci is a decent software and potentially could be the best free editing software out there, it's just it probably takes time to understand it compared to other editing softwares like adobe AE, adobe premiere and final cut pro. And despite it being free while also having it's own premium version available to be bought anytime it's one of those rare softwares/brands that would be worthwhile in the end once you get used to it and potentially be better than the other editing softwares.
@@avokkaan open source future is the only future we should live in.
Blender has been blessing for me back in the days while making mods for a game, there's a lot of documentation around that help anyone willing to get into it. Bless Blender.
Damn no wonder why it looks so good man. I’m both determined yet EVEN more scared to learn animation lmao.
Do it little by little, step by step.
What you see here is 10 years of experience in Gmod/Flash, 6 years in Maya, 3 years in a professional setting with 1 on high quality feature films.
Don't set the bar too high at the beginning. Practice small stuff with time and be patient. If you truly love animating your skill will improve through experimentation and by seeking advices. 👍
@@ThatGrayCartoonPony Damn,thanks mate. Gotta works hard for what we love 💪. I'm kind of praticing with 2D currently kekw.
@@ThatGrayCartoonPony10 years... 😢
@@BVK. Time flies faster than you think. 😏
@@ThatGrayCartoonPony as a kind of mlp movie combined with htf but without its acts of blood obviously but what do you say and if you want to know what it should be about just reply to me and also if you are interested
the process of your animations is always so admirable
yes
@@Hog_rider45 ...what?
@@Hog_rider45what
The 2D-drawn anime expressions look incredibly better than the one we have currently. Please make more of Mimi in this style, this was incredible!
The Shark teeth are cute and make her more dangerous and I like her eyes with the TF2 logo in it
But your opinion the regular face model is just better in my opinion than the 2D face
However I will not lie the 2D face could work well with some other characters
Reminds me of “so I’m a spider so what”
Agreed.
@@OverratedPenguin2d drawn expressions, but more accurate to the premade model’s face would be SUPER good
This is one of the best tf2 animations I've seen, Nice job!
stop making cringe
@@wobmasterI was gonna say your cringe… THEN I clicked on the channel and I see where you’re coming from here…
ew
Ew a cringe youtuber responds?
My brain is abt to erupt bruh
Respectfully, you have to rethink your content ideas. I refuse to believe you wouldn't use your skills for anything else better
I can already tell the amount of effort you took for that Mimi video. You made her look even more cuter than all the videos out there just by replacing her face with 2D expressions.
I would love to see more of those ❤️
More animators have done this. This isn't new
@@JohnLasseter-ct5inGive an example
@@glogervr bully busters is one from the top of my head
@@JohnLasseter-ct5in Still, this is very good! No need for useless negativity or information for that matter.
@@gigachad9826 Not useless. OP and the uploader acts like this is new. Especially in the original video. Which is simply not true.
Greatly appreciate you showing how you made this, as an SFMer who wants to try moving over to blender at some point in the future this is really helpful!
Just gotta say though, you adding facial deformation to accurately portray the mouth from a different angle at 2:25 is by far my favourite detail.
This man actually managed to make Mimi sentry cute. Props to you man!
She was always cute
@@jamesverner9132Agreed! People just started using her in cringe ways
fdym? She was always cute
Fair enough. I agree.
@@LordVader1094fr
As a design student currently undergoing 3D animation lessons, this is quite an eye opener for what is possible!
Experimenting like this really shows that creativity has no bounds when it comes to animation. I admire your passion, it's really inspiring!
Mimi is a top notch addition to the TF2 community. She’s a star in most of our hearts.
Yo this is NUTS
Fr
Wallnuts
Heh. Nuts and bolts.
@@insane7718 💀
@@xVelvetrihehehehhe
3:37 I just realized her eye is the TF2 logo, Nice! :o
It was very nice and fun to see behind the scenes.
Indeed, this animation is well done and deserves respect for how much was invested in it!
Love watching your process and results! Keep it up dude! :D
ever since i was inspired by Alan Becker with his stickfigure animations, ive always wanted to animate. This video literally starstruck me, im both scared and determined to do something like this now!
Do it little by little, step by step.
What you see here is 10 years of experience in Gmod/Flash, 6 years in Maya, 3 years in a professional setting with 1 on high quality feature films.
Don't set the bar too high at the beginning. Practice small stuff with time and be patient. If you truly love animating your skill will improve through experimentation and by seeking advices. 👍
I like that you reveal the like and dislike ratio as of a certain date, it allows me to compare from what I see on my end with the return dislikes addon, and I've noticed the dislikes you report are slightly higher than what I see months later on my end, which means anytime I see a heavy dislike ratio on a video via the addon, the dislikes are actually *even worse.*
Good data to have, I appreciate it.
Seeing stuff like this just makes me appreciate blender so much. So much you can do with it. :D
Very neat little BTS! The hard work and effort paid off ^w^
Agree, really shows how much passion these animators put into such amazing work like this, such a shame some of these amazing artists weren't shown much more appreciations as much or so on. I'm grateful for such amazing animations like this one here.
Not you again
Okay now this is some good backstage video to learn. I will try to learn blender and make animations like you buddy.
No wonder whythe animation feels so fluid
Love your style of blended animation with 3D renders. It adds a lot of character and comedy to these shorts!
Yeah, I love this channel, he uploads 1 or 2 videos every year because he is really busy, but you can tell that he does it with love and tons of quality.
"this thing aint on autopilot son!"
if this took 18 days, then damn i appreciate all animators work! it takes time and effort and work to do these stuff!
it took 18 days
@@joop2005j oh right
"And yes, its as easy as drawing from the camera view"
damn, thats how really handy.
What an amazing and inspiring animation process!! Thank you so much for sharing this and breaking it down!!!
00:49 fire heater dawg
A faceless Mimi Sentry reminded me of those "faceless" portraits where it lacks the eyes and mouth, with only their eyebrows and nose are drawn
You reminded me of the style of characters where only the giant eyebrow and the mustach replace the eyes and the mouth
ANIMATION IS SO HARD! PEOPLE WHO DO THESE KINDS OF THINGS FOR A LIVING DESERVE MORE CREDIT AND RESPECT!!
it was really fun to see your journey in the TF2B discord and some bits here. You are absolutely amazing!
This makes me appreciate how animations are made in blender alot more, let alone your animations. I think it was also genius doing the whole thing in front of a camera before rigging to get the idea how the scene plays out
Huge props, would love to see more
I'm really glad you made this. I saw your comment about hoping this style takes over as a method for animating Mimi, and I absolutely agree, I would love that!...
But then I thought to myself 'I don't know if people will know *how* to do that exactly...' 😅besides just general 'use the Grease Pencil' sorta hints..
especially if it wants to spread like a fad of sorts, the same way Mimi herself did.
Definitely going to give this a look over though, maybe even use it as a tutorial to teach myself some stuff.
Thanks for all the wonderful animations as always! 👍
I've watched this little channel grow for quite some time now. good to see it still going :)
I have been holding off learning grease pencil, but this makes me want to learn. It looks so good! What method did you use to mask the face since grease pencil stays on top of CG?
I had to render the 3D models and Grease Pencil in 2 different ViewLayers, and separate the materials from Mimi's limbs and side hair bands while adding an AOV output in order to make a masking system that will hide the GP elements behind specific parts at specific moments. This masking system is what you can see a glimpse of at 3:35 in the compositing node tree, with the black and white parts in the Viewer Node. You should normally be able to achieve the same result with cryptomattes instead of AOVs (it's definitely something I need to try in the future). But yeah, I needed to create a sheet that specifies what limb is in front/behind the face at specific times (right hand, left hand, right hair band, left hair band) in order to make it work, with occasional trial and error.
Constantly rewatching this keeps reminding myself how i need to switch from sfm to blender LMAO, great work love it!!
this is incredible! I'm really excited to see what you're cooking up next!
I truly appreciate every single animation that you have done. I am glad that you are still able to do animations for the community even though you have a job now. Thank you.
good stuff! Love the way you block btw, I feel like even for the first block you did a great job at picking the right poses and factoring in the keep-alive at an early stage (I really wish I was better at this myself) Very good attention to detail, so high level. Love it
I always enjoy watching your content, even if it only comes once every blue moon. Watching the Mimi video was an absolute treat and absolutely adorable. I also loved seeing the subtle "easter eggs" you put in and the little details you added. For example, the chairs stacked behind Mimi after she runs off-screen and how the lights on her change intensity depending on her mood. Keep up the amazing work!
The animations is so clean and well made
I love how much care you put in a short animation video
I love those Making of episodes!
Gives us so might insight on how all of this is made!
This is actually awesome to see. Props to you man.
The 2D Eyes are the best part of this version of Mimi, so much more emotion is shown with them than any other version of Mimi
Love to see a peek at the effort that goes into your stuff, love your work man!
bro is jack of trades in animating, literally.
so in art too.
Even without the facial expressions added on I can feel the emotions in the animation. Job well done!
0:19 is one of the funniest shit you've ever seen. its so fucking funny, that it can make you wheeze very hard.
Man that so cool ever seen! but your animation on mimi so cute lol :D
Love seeing my favorite TH-camr in action! Keep up the good work your content is amazing dude/dudette!
this is how Mimi SHOULD be portrayed in ALL fan animations. this was perfect! the amount of work, effort and dedication put into making this video is incredible! you're a legit a talent, and you deserve all of the recognition you can get :)
I love how some parts you had to do a lot of remodeling (replacing the face, the lights, rigging the hair), and then breaking down the animation, from key frames, low fps, then more in between s, rough sketches of the face, etc. This was so COOL
how much you care about every little detail and the exact processes for all your work really shines through in everything you make
it is actually nice to see how much work behind a small video actually takes. a lot people think " its just a small video" but never ever thought about how much work IS actually behind it. srsly to say even IF it was a small video, the making of shows pretty well how much work it really takes to make such stuff. im impressed and say good job again ^^
Excellent work again, Gray. Love seeing your Behind The Scenes of this and you've certainly came along way from just Gmod and Sony Vegas! Also the self reference you used was rather hilarious I must say.
I think Mimi is reviving the community
I absolutely love this! It’s really nice to see into your process, and it’s amazing at how you were able to do this in just 15 days! All of that work to make what’s definitely the best Mimi sentry animation on TH-cam!
I’d love to see more, both of Mimi and of your process making it! Thank you so much for this!
Thanks for such a cute animation!!
This is definitely one of the makings of all time
The fact that you actually made the 2D facial features on the model itself in line with the camera view and didn’t just animated them over the finished 3D animation is hella impressive.
I like the idea of Mimi being a flustered shy daughter of the Engineer.
Oh I am so glad that I subbed to you.
Going behind the scenes to see the process of your phenomenal animations is incredible!
What kind of animator uploads at 3am?
TGCP: Oh boy! 3am!
Neat choice using the DMCV track.
I love this video, too! Really cool to see how you did it!
Man, looking back on since watching Engineer Likes Trains, your work is stellar AF. Keep on improving dude!
Sincerely, your expertise is immaculately illustrious! The produced products of animation are invariably inspiring and show legendary prowess!
I love behind the scenes videos. The mix of 2d and 3d animation turned out great. It feels so natural for this character.
I'm a big fan of blender behind the scenes, generally seeing what UNHOLY POWERS this software wields just makes me more excited to dwell deeper into my own projects, thank you for posting this, TGCP
"Say hi, Mimi!" It is one of my favorite animations and seeing the process of how it was created makes it even more special ❤️
I appreciate the video, I actually learned some things
*and that splines and graph editing is always going to be inevitable lol*
Great animation and glad to see you had fun with the grease pencil I can’t wait to see more
its nice to see this every once in a while from a fellow artist, to see how their work flow goes and what they do to get a project going.
nicely done.
You have really done a well job, man. All the effort was worth it!
I still need to learn to use Blender properly some of these days so this helps me to keep that idea in my mind.
I've been using my own body and movements for reference but for some reason recording myself hasn't occurred to me. I will definitely be trying that from now on, thanks for the idea!
Remember when recording yourself to not think about the action itself and be in character (feelings, back though, personality, context).
One of my animation supervisors had a great saying: “You’re not animating a character that drinks from a glass of water. You’re animating a character who’s thirsty”.
If you have issues with acting, ask a friend for help. ;)
@@ThatGrayCartoonPony I more or less had that in mind already, but that saying really clears it up for me somehow. Thanks for the good advice.
your animations are so worth it to watch no matter how long it is.
its so high quality
I didnt even realize you made this because its not cursed
Just simply amazing! Really good to see the tremendous work put behind it!
Thanks for the insight! always love to learn about the animators thought process
I love how the making of is longer than the video itself
The sketches are so adorable!
That spy ALWAYS just gets me, that scream is amazing
You have so much talent when it comes to animation and it amazes me so much! You are such an inspiration for starting animators! And I can not wait to see what project you make next!
The Grease Pencil stuff was by far the most interesting part to me, since I've never tried it yet, but seeing how easily it can be integrated with 3D stuff was pretty cool
In my opinion this is not only animation but also a perfection of realistic
…boys today WE ANIMATING SHET
I still have yet to use the graph editor I really gotta learn, also great work!
As a tf2 fan, WE ARE SO BACK
I seriously loved that. She looked so cute and felt like that embarrassed teenage daughter.
Damn, always looking up to your animations, and videos like this are just precious. It's like spending time with your favourite teacher, receiving his memes and experience...
The expressions you gave her were absolutely top-tier 😊
i love that blender is able to do all of this stuff for free, especially with grease pencil.
Loved the expressions, and also your videos are amazing!
any time an animated face is drawn onto a 3d character is just such a pleasure to my eyes. it is pure sweet sweet candy for them, and the way you implemented it on mimi is flawless............
i don't understand any of what you are doing except some really basic stuff, but i really see the effort you went throught to make this as clean (and cartoony!!!!) as possible!!!! greatest of jobs! good
It's always so helpful to see a creator's workflow! Big thank you for sharing!
I Always appreciate the little drawings that appear on the side like the one seen in the end credits
Loved the animation!! Can't wait to see more content in the future ^^
Its so cool how much stuff you can do in blender, I really like the animation!
Dang, that sure is a lot of hard work. Once I get into animation. I will problably go through the same process. Great work Pony!
Really loved the original animation. I’m glad to see how it all turned out.
I still can't believe that he did his animation in 4 minutes. Blender looks so easy
I love this Man, And I could see the Process, And I love that you made the faces by drawing, That's something
Btw it is nice Mate
I love the way you make, nice job. ^^
If there is a 2d face rig like this one then all Mimi SFM animations will feel more... natural and expressive.