Together We Rise - Valorant Champions
It’s been 15 months since the Team Liquid Valorant introduction video was made. Shortly after rival teams created their own 3D projects which were outstanding. But I wanted to go further. No longer is this only about gameplay, it's about telling stories too. I wanted to create a story that showed the journey the players took to get to this position! One creative choice was to have The Bots represent the opponents we have already conquered and who we are coming for next!
Still Frames
INSPIRATION:
It's funny how this started. At first, I was asked to make some wallpapers for the graphics team to use in case Team Liquid Valorant Qualified for Masters Berlin. I was first inspired by the "La Liberté guidant le peuple" painting about the revolution of France, but this was the Revolution of Liquid, us rising up through hard times facing large opponents and always persevering no matter a win or a loss. But when they didn’t qualify in the original tournament nothing was published, so it stayed hidden in my PC files until we crawled back from the dead, securing our place in the Championships through the Last Chance qualifiers.
Immediately I wanted to release the Liquid Revolution idea, but I wanted to do it bigger, so I thought ‘Let’s make a cinematic’.
Pre-Production:
I noticed a lot of videos from teams/studios where there is an emphasis on doing static 3D or limited animation, probably due to lack of resources, time or budget. So straight away I wanted to try something different, and work with an animator and do something rare in Esports content. The enemy of any commercial artist is time and that is a constant battle on this (and all my other projects) so you have to learn to schedule and prioritize. I had a few days to come up with an idea which isn't ideal, especially as I wanted to make something different. I am always inspired by music so that is my first step in creating a story. Putting the track into a timeline I input layers of references from anime, to crime shows, to blockbuster films that demonstrate camera, story and tone. I write on key VFX, movements and characters we need so the team is on the same page as sometimes there isn’t time to draw or create hardware renders. Although TOP TIP: I highly recommend Hardware renders it lets you (and your clients) visualise the piece better and in turn shows the opportunities and limitations certain shots may propose. Once we agreed on a rough idea, a shot list was made for everyone to be aware of which shot was which, where it is, length, key points, who is making it and what stage it was at. Communication and clarity are key when working within a team of creatives (especially spread across different time zones) to make sure the project stays on track.
Light & Composition:I took this opportunity to combine my experience with camera/light and knowledge of 3D to create this cinematic story. It was a challenge to light certain scenes, for example when there is an action sequence and there is a lot of movement from the camera/characters. Each character always required between 6 to 10 different lights, and then you had the environment which needed to be lit to meaning I had around 70/100 lights in total. It came to a point where I had the challenge to hide a lot of lights to work on a clean workspace. Another big challenge was lighting the volumetrics which I still don’t think is perfect and I need to finesse more in the future.
Animation:
So this was my first time directing an animator and I found it a similar experience to directing actors in films. There has to be a lot of groundwork before you can even think about starting to animate. You need to establish your references, the camera movement and the geography of the piece, so everything is clear and done correctly the first time. Animating is time-consuming so mistakes or miscommunications can be harmful to the timeline of the project, meaning you have to be a good team manager otherwise it can reflect on the outcome of the piece.
I directed and designed this project, taking it from my original concept to the final product. My vision wouldn’t have become a reality if it wasn't for my fantastic team. @Joel Ho was an excellent choice as a 3D animator. I worked with him to help create custom animations to bring this piece to a whole new unique level. I can vouch for his professionalism and enthusiasm. To help with the time flow of the project I created the small/easy animations while Joel made the hard time-consuming ones that elevated the standard of the piece! We had great communication between us (even though we had an 8 hour time difference) going back and forth making revisions and tweaks until we got the product I envisioned and a standard Joel was proud of.
3D FX:
@Joao was brought in as a Houdini master, who assisted me in the creation of dynamics/details. While waiting for the animations and environment to be completed for him to start his main role, Joao helped me in creating the textures for the robots. The robot models themselves were super low quality so I knew I had to use Substance Painter to push for more details into the robot models to take away the low poly meshes. I wanted to add the detail of Enemy Orgs logos engraved into the armour of the robots to represent who Team Liquid faced and who we were facing next, this was such an awesome concept and paid off in terms of social media engagement with other Esports Orgs.
IRL Footage:
Of course, although it’s cool to make a Valorant Cinematic we have to remember why we are making this, it’s to promote the team. That’s why it was really important to me to have IRL footage of the players shot for this particular piece. Now a key issue I faced was directing an IRL shoot while being in a completely different country, (I am in the UK they are based in the Netherlands). So I had to make sure my pre-production documents (shotlists and references) were clear for @Rhys & @onemorebart who were responsible for following the shotlist and directing the players in the IRL footage in this piece.
Composition:
From the start, I wanted to create a more anamorphic look so I had to render in a higher resolution to then warp it in post to create that oval look. Of course, with anamorphic, the bokeh needs to stay consistent throughout all clips with that style. The composition part was all made in After Effects, using EXR files to get all 3D passes (i.e. every individual volumetric light, other lights, reflections, etc...) to increase the quality control and focus/details as well as define what should have chromatic aberration or not.
I wish I had more time to apply other aspects that come with an anamorphic lens for example more optical flares which adds a nice touch to any type of video content. In AE I also created and mixed different types of lens dirt overlays for different types of shots in order to create a realistic look. Adding stock layers (of smoke, fog and snow) over the EXRs volumetric passes were used to add up a more realistic effect into these elements. To blend this together I would take elements such as the robot lights and stage it so it looks like the snow and smoke illuminates giving the impression that the light is interacting with the snow and in conclusion, this is one shot made up of multiple undetected layers.
UI Effects:
Working with my core team of Joao and Joel was absolutely inspiring and I wanted to bring in people from Team Liquid so they can feel the excitement over this project. I wanted to bring in a select few from the TL graphics team so they could have some creative freedom and contribute some of their graphic design knowledge into this piece, as I know they will do a way better job than me with their knowledge, experience and skills. TOP TIP: Never be afraid to outsource work to the right talent or at least ask for help on the creative side so the project quality isn’t affected, leading a commercial art project isn't about being a hero or doing everything its about learning when to rely on key members around you. @Hendrik was selected to make the graphic UIs for the robots POV's as well as the final outro. I gave him some basic references to demonstrate tone and expectation on standards but told him to get creative. Giving an artist creative freedom sometimes is the most rewarding thing you can do as 9 times out of 10 they will come up with something fresh, exciting and new and that is what Hendrick did. In the end, all I had to do was fine-tune it so it blended better with the video.
SOUND EFFECTS:
This is probably my biggest regret of the project and that is I didn’t get to work with a sound designer. At the start, my main goal was to use one but unfortunately due to budget and a tight deadline we were not able to. So in the end I had to create the sound design within 48 hours. This is never ideal as sound can make or break a project. As the intro is quite long and I had less than 2 days to complete this, I had to decide to prioritize the action sequences to make sure they were truly impactful. A sound designer would have managed to add so much more to this piece (again outsourcing work to the right talent) and I think it's important for creatives not to overlook the need for good sound design. Although this is not what I originally wanted I believed I got it to a standard that didn’t take away from the piece. Here's a bit of the video with no music:
A key aspect of this piece from the beginning was the voice over. I wrote an original script of what kind of story I wanted to tell and then @Indu gave feedback and helped finesse it for me (although I use fancy words like ‘finesse’ I am not English.) As far as the actual male voiceover, I researched and got in contact with the multi-award-winning British voiceover actor @Jo Troy and worked with him as he had that crisp deep voice that I envisioned for this piece.
Finally, I want to say thank you to @Josh and @Victor from Team Liquid who gave me the opportunity and resources to lead and create this piece. I hope I proved to them that investing in 3D is a huge leap forward in Esports content and that I can make more pieces like this in the future. Josh was also responsible for leading the creation of banners, wallpapers and social media assets that were created from this video.
Link to that Behance detailing the techniques used in that graphics campaign HERE
Link to that Behance detailing the techniques used in that graphics campaign HERE
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