I had a dream about Deltarune last night where not only was Dess revealed to be The Knight in Chapter 6, they were also revealed to be human. Some kind of accident with the Dark World turns them into The Knight but they're actually fine at first...they're made entirely of shadow and their voice is deeper (they had voice clips by Toby, like Jevil and Flowery) but they're still themselves. They're actually excited about it, since they always wanted to be a monster and they think it's amazing. However everyone except Kris and Noelle distance themselves from Dess after this, and it causes them to eventually snap and lock themselves in the Shelter. Spending years in the Dark World makes them lose their mind and eventually they become The Knight we know today...
The whole thing was a metaphor for being trans, I think? Like becoming The Knight was Dess transitioning and it was supposed to show how an unsupportive family can drive a person away and cause them to isolate themselves. Anyway, I'm sure there's no way this is what happens in the actual game but I thought it was a really cool dream...
(There was a really sad part where Dess is excitedly running around as The Knight and playing with Kris and Noelle, and Asriel drags Kris away because he thinks Dess is a "bad influence" even though they're literally just running around and doing that thing where you stick your tongue out in the snow so you can eat snowflakes)
(Fun fact: 385 days is exactly 55 weeks, and the Thorn Ring makes Noelle go down to 55 HP. 55 is LV in Roman numerals, and we all know LV stands for LOVE…)
It's been just over a year since Deltarune chapters 3 & 4 released! I did the 3D work, which mostly means Tenna 📺 I figured it's been long enough to share some "behind the scenes" stuff, starting with a look at the Maya file for his static poses...
I'd individually render the poses to get that early 3D shine ✨ Here's some of them at their original resolutions! I would work from text descriptions from Toby, and sometimes there'd be a Paint sketch to help out. Gigi drew the concept that I modeled from and some poses too!
I had a lot of fun pushing myself to match the dynamic poses Toby had in mind for Tenna - making him so crazy and expressive was something I couldn't have done without his prompts. He'd draw the faces on afterward too, which really brought Tenna to life!
(lots more after the Read More cut...!)
Here are some of the Paint sketches Toby drew to help me with specific Tenna poses! I love seeing his drawings LOL, genuinely really good and evocative 👍
There was a time when I was struggling to capture what he wanted for these specific Tenna poses… Until Toby acted them out himself, and I thought, "Ah, it's like that. I understand." and then I was able to make them just how he pictured them.
When looking through the renders and choosing what to share, I laughed at these two… Remember when Tenna had a gun? Remember when he bent over in a very specific way that might remind you of another, different image? No? Maybe you don't…? Well. Don't worry about it.
These ones are cute… Tenna is pretty cute sometimes! Has anyone ever thought this? Actually, before people knew he was going to be a strange 3D sprite the Whole Time, I was worried people wouldn't like the style and it'd sour people's views on him. I'm glad that didn't happen.
Toby thought it would be funny to have Tenna do some really smooth, mocapped animations sometimes - specifically free to use ones that often pop up in other things. An extra funny part to me is how many frames these take up in the game, and how his tails are stuck to his legs…
Speaking of mocap, Toby wanted Tenna to use custom mocap animations as far back as 2016 - Ten(na) years ago! I got an Xbox Kinect at the time and learnt how to set this up, but then never used it. Here's a look at messing with mocaped stuff again in 2022. So Normal.
Don't bother trying to help him here, he's just being dramatic 🙄
I particularly like these poses - I think I improvised most of these just based off the context they get used in… I always liked posing his tie and coat tails as if they were also parts of his body he could move. Which I guess they are?
After I rendered out the individual poses in high quality, I'd force the color palette to be limited to just a few shades and then I'd shrink the result down to pixel sized sprites. Like these! I'd tidy them up a little, but they'd really get improved on at the pixel scale by Clairvoire.
As well as Tenna's sprites, I also worked on his intro "movie"…! Seeing people be completely overloaded by this on first playthroughs would always make me laugh. In game, there's a ton of extra editing done by Everdraed, but my unedited cut looks like this ⬇️
This was the entire storyboard I had to work from, and I'm realizing now that there's the note "put him in car etc" that I never did and actually don't know what it would mean exactly. Working on this had me listen to the accompanying audio many times, but it's good so it's okay.
Here are a bunch of random clips of the Maya project for Tenna's intro movie. This is how movies get made, I think!! Yeah… Just like this.
Say it with him, folks!!
For the 3D Ralsei clip from the intro, Toby really wanted it to look a certain way, and drew more sketches for guiding me with this part than any other. They genuinely helped.
Remember how Toby's original storyboard has the note "covered in slime and shrinks"? That meant I had to learn how to make 3D slime. You can see my tech advancing here.
I'm really happy with how the final Tenna animation at the end of the intro movie turned out! It wouldn't look as good if it wasn't for some 2D animation to reference from SmallBuStudio, so thank you to them for the help! Tenna is cute… Huh, I already said that…?
Phew!! That's a lot of Tenna. I hope it was fun to look through my posts! Oh, one more thing - the Fangamer Mr. Tenna Figurine just straight up uses the 3D model I made, which I think is really funny and cool and nice. Check it out if you want! Thanks for reading!
we need to instill a new storytelling rule of thumb into people called "show don't tweet" where we encourage them to put all pertinent canon information into the actual story and its official supplemental material instead of using reddit AMAs as lore dlcs
"go to hell" is basic. "i hope your favourite game that literally shaped your teenage years gets sequel after sequel undermining its previous themes and only serves as a cash cow for the company" is smart. it's possible. it's terrifying.
I was thinking about how Chapter 4 introduced the concept of Darkners based on the memory of loved ones, and it made me realize Susie trying to bring back the Old Man and accidentally creating a knight-like monster is probably relevant foreshadowing. Ever since then I came up with this idea that the Shelter would be full of Darkners based on Dess, only they're all different because it's been so long since she disappeared that the memories are fading and it's getting harder to remember what she was really like. Each attempt feels more and more like a shadow of who she used to be, until eventually the Roaring Knight is created...
(Some of the Decembers here are based on art by blackheart-6, huecycles, geistboy1 and vapor-eight. I think my favorite part of this idea is it's a way for ALL the fan designs to be canon)
I was thinking about how Chapter 4 introduced the concept of Darkners based on the memory of loved ones, and it made me realize Susie trying to bring back the Old Man and accidentally creating a knight-like monster is probably relevant foreshadowing. Ever since then I came up with this idea that the Shelter would be full of Darkners based on Dess, only they're all different because it's been so long since she disappeared that the memories are fading and it's getting harder to remember what she was really like. Each attempt feels more and more like a shadow of who she used to be, until eventually the Roaring Knight is created...
(Some of the Decembers here are based on art by blackheart-6, huecycles, geistboy1 and vapor-eight. I think my favorite part of this idea is it's a way for ALL the fan designs to be canon)
on a very real level i think it's the duty of a creator to stay out of their audience's business. offering something to someone else means that it's no longer about you alone, it's also about them, their emotion, their experience, their thoughts. you are inviting someone to bring their self into it because that's how interacting with media works. the shared meaning-making is an essential and inviolable part of why art even matters like ...... sorry that's how it is.
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