BFDI 1 "Take the Plunge" Tutorial Stream

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BFDI 1 "Take the Plunge" Tutorial Stream
Watch on YouTube
Duration	3:28:40
Airdate	October 2, 2016
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BFDI 1 "Take the Plunge" Tutorial Stream was a stream that was uploaded on the jacknjellify channel in October 2, 2016. The stream was announced on the official BFDI Facebook page. It featured Cary Huang and Michael Huang going through the BFDI 1a & 1b flash files while giving out tips and tricks for animating and answering live questions.

The stream was originally unlisted, but due to YouTube's July 2021 update that privates unlisted videos before 2017, it was affected by the update.

On February 15th, 2024, the video was found and reuploaded on Epic Swoosh's channel.

Tips given in stream

1. If you're animating a large crowd of people, it's inefficient to have each individual do a detailed and intricate animation as it's likely that the viewer won't notice it so don't put too much work into those kinds of things unless you have the free time.
2. Managing your time is incredibly important for running an object show.
3. A tip for animating water is that you can draw one long still image of water and have it move horizontally across the screen, this will give off the illusion that the water is properly animating to the viewer and it's less work for you.
4. You should do your lip syncing first on the main timeline, then animate anything else on the character, then move everything into a graphic. This will allow you to move the whole character around without having to worry about bits and pieces falling off.
5. A tip for letting your camera smoothly ease in and out when moving is to either create a frame in the middle of the motion or to directly edit the smoothing of the motion. Doing the second option minimizes the amount of clutter on the main timeline even if it is harder.
6. You want to lessen the amount of clutter and frames in the main timeline by nesting animations inside of graphics to make your animation easier to manage.
7. It is recommended you learn to make custom commands for repetitive actions to save time with animating.
8. If the viewers can only see the things on-screen, then there is no point animating stuff off-screen as that adds more work and time for stuff that the viewers won't be able to notice.
9. Don't use blurring as the BFDI assets are designed to have flat colors, clear outlines, and simple designs, which the blurring effect goes against.
10. Don't use too many gradients as that also goes against BFDI's visual style.
11. Making things move in different directions and in different ways helps make the scene look more chaotic if you want it to look chaotic.
12. It's better to have a camera cut happen when things are moving on the screen so that the cut is less jarring.
13. Sometimes it's a good idea to add extra slight texturing and details to otherwise completely flat things that can help make things look better as long as it is not overdone.
14. Animating in higher frame rates doesn't always mean higher quality animation, sometimes it's better to animate in a lower frame rate if that makes the animation look better.
15. When animating, focus on key poses and then fill in the more minor moments later.
16. If a scene is very busy or confusing then it's a good idea to zoom out and show a quick overview of how everything is so that the viewers can better keep track of what is going on in the episode.
17. Using masks to keep mouth assets on body assets isn't really worth it as it just adds more work on you as you have to keep the mask to match with the body asset.
18. You can use techniques to get away with not animating lip syncing by cutting away from the character to the character they are talking to or the thing they are looking at however don't do it too much or the viewers will notice and don't use it as a crutch.
19. Try to keep things logical but if you are going to make things not make sense, exaggerate it as much as possible and make it over the top so that it's obvious you know it isn't logical and is instead a joke.
20. It's good to emphasize a motion even if it isn't logical for that motion to happen like that.
21. If you want it to be clear that a specific character is talking when you can't see their mouth you can have their body move around although the movement should still match up with the words.
22. It's a good idea to create a box on the guide layer that can be used to tell where the boarders of the screen are, especially when the scene involves a lot of camera movement. Making it a guide layer will still let you see it in the animating space but it will not show when the animation is exported.
23. You should work extra hard on cycling animations since those kinds of animations are things that the viewers will be looking at for a while.
24. You should also work extra hard on body, face, and limb assets as those are the building blocks of an object show.

Trivia

• Various moments in the stream are incredibly low quality. According to the Huang Twins this is because their house had incredibly poor internet connection and speed at the time.
  • Cary also elaborates saying that his college has better internet connection and speed.
• Michael Huang states that he originally was going to make more storyboard videos at the time but decided against it because he found the act of moving the camera of the storyboard so that the image matches up with the content of the episode too difficult and time consuming.
• In the stream, Cary Huang found a notepad that detailed a story entitled "Brothers" that was written before BFDI.
  • Apparently the story is about Ron and Harold the robots, who are brothers and are only a few inches tall.
  • The drawing of the boy in the notepad was drawn by Michael Huang, and apparently depicts "him functioning normally at school."
  • Other details about the story are shared on the stream, however the Huang Brothers are barely audible over the sound of the viewers who were also in the call and often talking over them.
• Michael states that he prefers Hangouts over Skype.
• Michael explains that for BFDI Is Back he put the audio of the characters talking inside of the graphics so that he could lip sync easier.
• In the stream, after someone asked what their least favorite episodes of BFDI are Cary states that he doesn't really dislike any of the episodes.
• According to Cary the grey tube system used to transport the contestants from the Plains onto the Balance Beam was entered willfully by the contestants from the left side and quickly transported to their individual places on the beam.
  • He also states that the contestants all signed a contract prior to the start of this challenge and part of this contract was the agreement for the contestants to be transported via the aforementioned grey tube system in order to compete for Dream Island.
• Apparently Cary doesn't use a tablet to animate and instead uses his mouse.
• There are a number of custom Flash commands created and used by Cary in order to make animating episodes easier, these include:
  • "EaseSmoother" and "EaseSmootherAll": Automatically smooths out camera panning.
  • "MouthA/F/M/O/T/Y": A series of custom commands that instantly swap out the different mouth symbols depending on the sound. Each command is mapped to a numpad key.
  • "Mouth Smoother": Fills in the in-between motions that happen between the key mouth shapes.
    • Cary has stated that he wishes to release these custom commands to the public, however it is unknown if he ever did this.
    • He also said that he wanted to do another tutorial to tell people how to make custom commands, this appears to have not happened.
    • Cary himself only started making and using these custom commands in 2013 for episodes of BFDIA, this is because Cary did not know how to make custom commands prior to 2013.
• Apparently the only reason why the physical words "help" appear flying between Leafy and Pin on the Balance Beam is because that's how the scene was drawn in the original storyboards.
• Michael jokingly states that the imagery of a cloud moving between Pencil and Ice Cube as they fall off the Balance Beam and into the water is actually representative of the metaphorical wall of divide between the two of them after this negative interaction between them.
  • Cary states that instead it's likely this was an error of his with the layering of the cloud causing it to appear on top of Ice Cube.
• Cary jokingly states that the reason why Pencil's mouth stays in the "O" shape after falling into the water despite the fact that this would cause her to inhale water and begin drowning is because her reflexes are too slow and it all happened too quickly so she didn't close her mouth in time.
• When someone on the stream questioned the relationship between Pencil and Eraser due to Pencil having an Eraser on her top Cary jokingly states that Pencil carved a chunk of Eraser out of him using a knife and used it to put on her head as a sign of dominance over Eraser.
• Michael states that he likes the little sound effects that play throughout the early episodes whereas Cary states that he doesn't like them.
• Apparently Michael was really rushing to get the animation for Paper Towel done.
• Apparently Cary had included a moment of a character glowing when mentioned by another character in BFDI 9 similar to what happened when Pin selected Eraser for her team in BFDI 1b however apparently Michael told him not to include the glow since he didn't like it, to which Cary did.
  • Michael did state though that he no long dislikes the glow effect used in the original episode.
• Apparently Michael created the vast majority of the assets used throughout the BFDI episodes up to the point of the stream.
• Cary states that he found animating the lip syncing of IDFB 1 to be a grind, although a productive one as he knew that every second of animation was worth it according to him.
• Cary and Michael state that the yellow faces that turn green and are sick floating above the Goiky Canal with the other creatures are the first canonical appearance of the character Yellow Face, rather than the more commonly accepted appearance in the next episode.
  • It's hard to know how serious this claim should be taken, since a lot of other moments in the stream are incredibly jokey in nature, although this claim itself is stated rather matter of fact.
  • It should also be noted that the Goiky Canal faces use the exact same round yellow face design as the appearance of the yellow face in BFDI 2 and since the Yellow Face Advertisement Compilation includes that advertisement in the list of Yellow Face's advertisements so it's not unbelievable to assume that those faces were actually Yellow Face.
• When asked which part of episode 1 the two twins prefer, Michael states that he prefers the first part due to how iconic it is whereas Cary states that he prefers the second part due to how many more things happen in that part and the fact that the first ever votes were cast on that video.
• Michael jokingly states that one of the leaves that blow off the tree when the wind picks up in BFDI 1b actually becomes Evil Leafy later on, with Cary very quickly cutting in and telling Michael to not randomly invent more lore.
• When asked what part of the BFDI series was their favorite parts to animate Michael responds with the IDFB intro whereas Cary gives two answers.
  • His first answer was the contestant creating machine from the Last BFDI video but he says that it doesn't really count due to it not being canon.
  • His second response is the scene where Golf Ball tips the Dream Sauce onto the factory floor causing it to coagulate into Dream Island in BFDIA 4 due to the fact that Cary thought he did a good job making the sauce really look like it was coagulating.
    • In response to Cary saying that Last BFDI wasn't canon Michael jokingly states that it was canon and that it takes place "at some point" before actually clarifying that it can't be canon due to the lack of recovery centers to recover the contestants after they are turned into other contestants.
      • This is despite the fact that eventually the contestants that are turned into other contestants are remade by further contestants when the animation loops, meaning that recovery centers would not be needed and this video could actually be canon.
• Throughout the first half of the stream where the two of them went over the BFDI 1 flash files Michael would randomly edit small parts of the animation as jokes. These edits include:
  • Putting a blue hat on Pin's finger.
  • Extending Firey's tongue while he screamed.
  • Making the fish that bit Blocky angry.
• A fake "reupload" of the stream had surfaced on YouTube on June 11, 2023, it is rather obviously fake as the date on the Windows 7 Taskbar reads 11/06/2023 instead of reading 2/10/2016 (the date the original stream took place) and that the language on the computer is in Portuguese.

Gallery

Cary Huang showing the original storyboard of what is presumably Take the Plunge.

The beginning of the "Brothers" story, written by Cary Huang prior to BFDI.

A drawing of an unknown character in the "Brothers" story, drawn by Michael Huang.

The Huang Twins opening the first flash file of the stream.

The Huang Twins making a silly face using their video recording software.

Cary showing the functionality of putting animations in graphics by moving an animation of Leafy on top of Pin.

Cary making a four Leafy pattern while Michael explains the tip more.

Cary has now increased the amount of Leafys in the pattern from 4 to 8.

Cary has decided to turn his pattern into a flower.

Cary showing off all of the different custom commands that he has made.

The Huang Twins checking on the status of their stream.

Cary explaining how he would improve the animation of Blocky knocking Flower off the balance beam if he was animating it nowadays.

Cary explaining the swinging motion of Pin and Teardrop.

Michael explaining the finger positions of Pin when she was telling Leafy that only one of them could win.

Michael then proceeded to randomly draw a blue hat on Pin's finger.

Michael's edits to Pin's hand have now effected Leafy's hand later on in the scene.

This also effected Coiny's hand later as well.

A shot of the Huang Twin's folders showing a series of files, some of which haven't been seen outside this stream.

Michael trying to find which arms belonged to either Pen, Eraser, or Bubble.

Michael showing how he would better do a water overlay for Tennis Ball in the water.

Michael randomly decided to extend Firey's tongue.

Michael also decided to also make the fish that bit Blocky angry.

Michael and Cary explaining how Cary animated the scene of FreeSmart on top of the Yoyle Needy.

Michael decided to turn a night scene into what he described as "super day time".

Then he turned it into what he described as "super hell time".

Michael messing with Google Hangout filters after finishing the main tutorial part of the stream.

More of the "Brothers" story, although barely legible due to the poor stream video quality.

External links

• Original stream^[dead link]
• Original Facebook post