At the end of 2020, while in confinement, I decided to take this forced time off to work on my craft. I took the Styleframes course by Learn Squared taught by Xiaolin Zeng a.k.a. Zaoeye. This was the first time that I seriously dove into C4D and Octane. The lessons taught me how to texture, light and render style frames. The final project for the course was an invitation to develop your own project and eventually animate it. I took the challenge to heart and decide to create a full-fledge main title sequence.
Here is my process, I hope you enjoy my journey.
IDEATION AND MIND MAP
I’ve been an avid fan of the Witcher since the first game release; since then I have read all the novels and played all the games. I was extremely exited when Netflix got the rights to make a TV Series and Henry Cavil was starring in it.
After I watched the Series, and seeing there was no title sequence it dawned on me that there was an opportunity to create my passion project.
After I watched the Series, and seeing there was no title sequence it dawned on me that there was an opportunity to create my passion project.
I need to thank Ash Thorp for this workflow. Starting by laying down all your ideas and creating connections in-between them is a great way to kickstart a project.
Posing
Mixamo is a brilliant website by Adobe. It allows you to upload a character and attach a basic human rig to it. Once set-up you can pick and choose from a massive animation library.
With 21 models, I'm just shy of the 32 needed for a game of chess.
Textures
A chess set implies a play with blacks and whites. I loved the work of Imaginary Forces on Black Sails and wanted to dive deep into texturing.
For the light pieces, after trying some silver, alabaster and marble I ended up deciding to go with an ivory material. Ivory was also used on the Lewis Chessmen. (Chess pieces from the 12th century.)
The Dark pieces were more straight forward. I based my material on old bronze statues that had worn of edges.
ANIMATION
After watching the Art of the Title’s article about Hunter’s title sequence I revisited my motion to add in some vibration as it moves. I could not simulate every animation like Elastic, but faked it by having a vibrate tag on the rotation whenever a piece would move forward.
LIGHTING
I played with candle lights and moonlight. Mixing color temperature and having flickering warm lights. Having some large sweeping motion coming form the moon during time-lapse.
As a time-lapse photographer myself, it’s pretty magical how much can be achieved by rotating an HDRI. To emulate candle light, I had to learn the very basic of Xpresso. Adding an animated noise to the intensity of the light.
TYPEFACES
I knew I wanted to have two very contrasted fonts with only a subtle animation on it. Having it brake as if hit by a blade fit with the Witcher’s theme well and gave it just that touch of animation I was looking for.
Bembo is an Old Style Serif released in 1929 based on the work of Giovanni Antonio Tagliente a printer during the 15th-16th century in Venice and is very reminiscent of the Italian renaissance.
DIN 1451 Condensed is a German standardized sans serif font. Used on the road signs and license plates it has a minimal and modern design.
Compositing
To make the most of my renders, I exported multi-pass EXR sequences. This allows to tweak each and every aspect of the image once rendered.
To increase the realism, I choose to stay with a set of existing lenses. I picked 2X anamorphic in the following focal lengths. 22mm, 28mm, 35mm, 40mm, 50mm, 60mm, 75mm, 100mm and 180mm. Never opening the aperture passed T1.9. These lenses create oval bokeh, streaked lens flare and have a more pronounced vignette. To be able to achieve the macro effect, you must reduce the focal distance of the lenses by adding diopters (a front lens elements that changes your range of focus). Increasing the chromatic aberrations and shallow depth of field. Tools like Quick Chromatic Aberrations 2 and Diopter were really great to bring these one step closer to reality.
David Ariew’s was teasing his course on School of Motion at the same time I was working on this and learned a ton from his series of quick tips “Making renders look better”.
Final Frames
Credits
The 3D models in this sequences were created by the following:
Henry Cavil’s Geralt by The Printing Goes Ever On
Nekker and Rogg the troll scanned by geek_dad
All the other characters and assets are from the Witcher 3: Wild Hunt game files by CD Project Red
More process on instagram/vivianmotion
This project gathered a Video Of the Day award from motiondesignawards.com
