Hearthstone &
Heroes of the Storm
Blizzard Entertainment
Another dream come true! You know the gaming company, creators of WoW, Overwatch, Diablo, Hearthstone etc. I got to work as a Motion Designer for Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm on DLC and launch content!
I was tasked with created stylized 3D motion frames out of disparate components of 2D concept art. I used Maya and Nuke to animate & texture these 3D scenes.
Impact Summary
I’ve collaborated within my own team & the broader windows team in feature creation. I’ve also independently designed and pitched features that were interaction focused.
In addition I’ve built the presentation for edge browser that was delivered to leadership with rubrics of color, typography & interaction design.
The results of the presentation were unanimously positive & later became a north star to future design within the edge browser. A few of my features that I directly created are now in production including split-tabs, micro-interactions, and detail work all around the browser itself. 😀
The cinematics accumulated over 3.5 million views over youtube itself
Collaborated with pipelines engineers to build out a tri-planar projection workflow that maps & exports UV & vertices data from maya to nuke
The Grand Tournament Trailer
Heroes of the Storm – Butcher Trailer
Heroes of the Storm – Leoric Trailer
The Process
I was tasked to create 3D animated clips of hand drawn concept art. I created topology for everything in the paintings. Created dynamics simulations for cloths, particles for atmosphere and explosions.
Frames were created to take advantage of the full Z-space of the scene, with flying wood in the background, snow clouds in the mid-ground, and smoke and characters in the foreground
Animations were created to feel impactful in few moments of screen time. Most of the time characters and environment were hand animated because of how context heavy and time precious the shot was.
Details were scrutinized upon, for example reflections of Leorics armor were hand animated to give a correct reflection through its armor details.Hair was hand animated to feel dynamic. His armor plates were built in 3D to create depth and presence.
Thanks for looking!
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● Credits
Blizzard Entertainment
2016
Date
Michael Diaz 😄
Matt Mede
Jermery Nelligan
Team
Maya
Nuke
After Effects
Photoshop
RV
Pipeline