Cinematic Director for
@Blizzard_Ent
Story & Franchise Development. Neck deep in
#Overwatch2
production. These views are my own so don’t blame my employer.
I worked at ILM on this film years ago. This clip has what would generally be considered a HUGE vfx error in it. It was going to be fixed but Dennis Murren said “if people are looking there we’ve failed”. Wisdom I applied going forward in my work. Focus on the important stuff.
And of course these two. 😁 Glad we could surprise people with them showing up. It's been fun watching all the speculation online as to the future of
#overwatch
's story.
Starting the morning recording lines for this bad boy just means the day has peaked. Everything else is going to be downhill. Sorry, I don't make the rules.
#ramattra
During
#overwatch
production there are always moments where I worry to myself "please don't let this leak early". This was one of those moment. Bringing Mondatta back was super important to me. We need to see the relationship between Mon/Ram/& Zen.
The point of this thread is not to shame the shot (because it's awesome) but celebrate the idea of knowing you don't need to fix every pixel in your work. If the shot works it's not a treasure hunt to find an error. Be smart about where and how your time and resources are used.
Here's another good example of the quality of the shader and lighting upgrades. The difference in face shapes is largely due to one shot using a wide angle lens and the other is more flat.
#Overwatch
And I swear to god if I see one online article about this thread called "20 movie mistakes you'll never believe you missed!!" I'll burn this place down.
Overall we produced over 20 minutes of
#overwatch
cinematics for Season6. I think it was around 300 individually animated shots. Navigating a cast this large, pushing the lore forward and helping to bookend game missions is a challenge but a welcome one. So glad these are out.
I’ve been sitting on
#ramattra
since 2019 when I was asked to add him to the end of Storm Rising! So excited that the
@PlayOverwatch
team has finally announced him. So much more to come with him !!!
#Overwatch2
I purposely didn't call out the error because I wanted people to enjoy the sequence first. But knowing there "is" an error messes with your mind because you start questioning every shot and what is "real". Anyway.. Let's pull back the curtain:
A large scale miniature was built at ILM that matched the real world building. Then a large ram/sled was slammed through the miniature from the back to simulate the tripod falling through the building. (They weren't going to destroy the real building on location.)
So much work goes into dev that sometimes gets taken for granted. Left is OW Invasion right is StormRising cinematic. Huge props to the
@PlayOverwatch
people writing lighting, skin shader, motion blur, and other tools that elevate the experience.
#Overwatch
You can even watch shadows get cut off from falling miniature debris in the shot. BUT, it didn't need fixing because as viewers we're not watching this part of the shot. The shot composition MAKES us watch the tripod falling towards us. Great shot design.
Yes, Moira is barely holding back a smile in this shot after Reyes shoots Antonio in the face. It's clearly visible if you're watching her. She was already on her path.
This brick building appears in several shots. It's real and was on location. The Tripod and smoke trails/weapon fire was fake. There's something else very real in this shot. The tree on the left in the foreground.
This was of course another
#overwatch
moment I worried about getting out before S6's launch. We had seen bits of the Iris in the anime pieces and in other media but never this much of it. The full reveal needed to be keep under wraps. (Especially with who was in front of it.)
The miniature was then comped on the front of the real building and then a CG tripod was added that matched the move of the ram. But the problem was the tree in the foreground. A lot of work would have been needed to key/roto the tree and integrate it with the miniature footage.
More
#Overwatch
BTS. “Hey Jason…uh.. why did some of these shots change between Blizzcon and release?” Welcome to game development! So much about game design is finding the “fun”. During that process gameplay can effect narrative and narrative effects gameplay. 1/6
This shot from the
#overwatch
story missions is another example of the improvements made to the engine over the years. Aside from better lighting and skin shaders the motion blur and depth of field were captured in engine. Small things that make for better looking end results.
So yeah... The cat's out of the bag. I'm directing the in-game cinematics for
#overwatch2
. The content is super exciting but it's the team that makes the journey fun. I couldn't do it without them so I just want to say a huge THANK YOU to the entire crew! You're awesome! Luv ya!
I've been cagey about S6's cinematics. But, this was from this week's
#Overwatch
Director's Take blog. "Second, each mission is bookended with 2 cinematics, and the heavy lifting of driving the plot forward is handled through these cinematics."
Yes, more lore is incoming.
Random Blizzard fact: Back in the day our space marine model had so much geometry that our cinematics machines didn't have enough memory to render him in one pass. We had to break him into parts, render, and reassemble him in compositing. In the end, worth it.
#blizzlife
Retribution BTS story. We pitched a huge hallway fight between Genji and Talon guards. Got the thumbs up. Animated the fight sequence of Genji tearing through guards. Showed animation for approval. Didn’t go how we planned. “Oh no!… Wayyyy too violent. We can’t show that!” 1/3
The first VO record with the awesome
@CheriseBoothe
as
#sojourn
was for the
@PlayOverwatch
StormRising event. We ended that event teasing today’s new OW announced character
#Ramattra
. It’s been a journey! So much more to come! We’re blessed to work with such rockstars!
@MysteryVFXSuper
I worked on a production once with a "famous" director. They hired a third party facility to A/B every green screen plate against our comps to make sure we retained all hair and other fine detail. I started adding camera shake to everything so they couldn't do that. F that noise
Today's the day. The
@PlayOverwatch
team & SFD worked really hard to bring you something special. I'll talk more about it later but for now, see you on the other side. Enjoy!
#overwatch
I’m not supposed to be posting this Animated Short but let’s be honest, what’s anyone really gonna do about it? 😏
Watch me go in guns blazin’ on a recent Talon mission with Reaper and Sombra in “A GREAT DAY”💥
🏝️ Mauga
Next Tuesday join myself and fellow Blizzard directors
@TerranGregory
@dalexgregory
@BFDbdai
@ovalteens
and Marc Messenger for a candid discussion about creating our cinematics. Head over to the CTN-Live website for free tickets. Hope to see you there!
I did the lighting and comp on this shot. Monitor wall never looked how I wanted in 3D so I built it all in Nuke and added my own painted fake light reflections. Rendered the guard/desk separate and combined them. Nobody knew the wall was 2D until after approval. Use what works.
Sometimes it's the subtle things we put in our cinematics that I love the most. The side eye Alexstrasza gives Hanzo as he sees the Nexus for the first time gives an extra bit of character. Everyone is watching Hanzo's reaction.
@BlizzHeroes
#hanzo
#Alexstrasza
#BestFriendGoals
HEY YOU!!! Yes you
#BlizzCon2018
peeps! The
@Blizzard_Ent
employees are there for YOU this weekend. Approach us. Talk with us. We don't bite and we love interacting with you. We want to make sure YOU have a great experience! Have fun and much love to all!!!
#blizzlife
@mihawkenshi
I posted in another thread that that was an "oops" moment where the wrong skin got turned on for final output. I should have caught it and we're working on fixing it. Just consider it a Zenyatta fever dream for the moment. 😉
For some missions like Gothenburg the locked roster still makes sense. It’s a family story that centers around 4 characters. It would feel weird to randomly dump someone like Genji into the mix. (Although the uncomfortable conversations might have been hilarious...) 6/6
Thanks to everyone who came out to our
#CTNx2018
panel this morning! Your energy and passion for art is energizing to all of us. We love seeing what you're doing too. In the meantime we'll keep making stuff if you keep watching it!
#CTNexpo
#Ashe
#Overwatch
Story Missions 💥
New co-op mode 👥
New Support hero ⛑️
And more 👀
Get ready for all-new ways to play in
#Overwatch2
: Invasion, our biggest content drop yet, coming Aug 10 ✨
I stood in the back for this as it’s always energizing to hear people’s live reactions to stuff.
@PlayOverwatch
team is working really hard to bring players cool stuff. We love our creators and fans. Thank you all!
#Overwatch
I needed to revisit this piece this morning for "reasons". I forgot how great this cinematic is. Mega props to director
@dalexgregory
and
@Wolfsmokestudio
for this amazing bit of storytelling.
A simple life was never in the cards for Sojourn.
Introducing "Calling", an Overwatch Animated Short 🥐
Jump into the game on Aug 4 at 11am PT and watch it in full 🎥
Goal was always to show Genji as an effective fighter. By showing the end results of the fight and how calm he was we got the same story beat but in a different and appropriate way. 3/3
It was true. What worked as a script and a storyboard by the time it was animated wasn’t in tone with OW. It got dubbed the “murder hallway” and we immediately went back to the drawing board. This was a good lesson. 2/3
One of my favorite moments from the Storm Rising outro was an animator adding Genji's rage/shaking fist because he doesn't get to poke holes in Max. They were worried I'd ask them to remove it. No way, it was hilarious.
I dreamt over the weekend that Blizzard released retro style
#Overwatch
trading cards complete with stale gum and stickers and now I really want them! I had to do mock ups. THESE IMAGES ARE JUST FOR FUN AND NOT OFFICIAL!!! Now, I need to find out who can make these for real. 😉
Early on we tried a locked roster per mission. There were good reasons for this but the fun of having more characters to choose from was more important than other design decisions. In Rio it was still important to lock Lucio as the mission narrative swings around him. 2/6
Behind the scenes: During a take while recording the VO for the
#Ashe
Origins piece
@jhaletweets
improvised the comment "who am I kidding..." at the end of the clip. It was so perfect I had to leave it in so we altered the original line. Jen IS Ashe. (Only a lot nicer!!!) 🤠😀🎤
Cinematic VO records scheduled for this morning. Both home phone and internet service went out right before. Drove my ass to
@Blizzard_Ent
locked up campus and borrowed WiFi while sitting in the parking lot. Got work done. How’s your day going?
#Blizzlife
@LifeatBlizzard