Another dragon-related piece I am working on for the same very small studio. This time it is a more epic version, closer to a short cinematic.
For me, this is the first project of this kind that looks like a cinematic. Many times, I wanted to bring something like this to life and built small scenes in my head, but now I have a chance to actually make it happen.
For this task, I will be working as the art director, cinematic artist, tech artist, and VFX artist. Basically, the entire process will be on me. In the end, I will also need to add everything into Blueprints so it can be activated in the game, but that part will be outside the scope of this forum.
Before starting the work, I collected references and clarified with the CEO what he liked. We agreed on several videos and a few references.
The first thing I did was a rough animatic. Most likely, the cameras will stay like this, but I may adjust the timing once the effects are ready.
The dragon itself is from the marketplace, but it does not work very well. The Control Rig is poor, the tail has no rig at all, and when animating the left eye, it also pulls part of the facial geometry with it.
The tasks I set for myself for these four shots are:
- Environmental effects: small pieces of rock scattered around the characters for perspective, levitating above the ground, with magic around them. The flying “lines” around the characters will most likely also be small dragons, but I will see how difficult that is to implement. Clouds in Unreal, separate cloud elements, the moon, possibly, and maybe some elements in the air for depth and perspective.
- Character effects: effects on the characters that will charge the beam in the middle, the beam itself, and negative effects on the characters from the opposing team.
- Destruction effects in the second shot and the final shot.
- Effects connecting the beam to the dragon, effects around the dragons, and some kind of portal effect.
- Dragon attack effects and damage effects on the characters from the opposing team.
- Magical dust from the dragon hitting the ground, and its impact on the characters.
I am planning to finish this by the end of June, but I may need to stretch the schedule a little.
My client is giving me the opportunity to share this process publicly, so I will be posting updates here every week. I also have my main job, so I will only be working on this during weekends.
So far, I have spent 15h 25m 22sec on this part.