by JR Cook - 7 years ago     show comments

2 years ago at Blizzcon 2014 we were introduced to the amazing world of Overwatch with the very first animated short.

In that time they have released 6 animated shorts.

It has been an amazing run of shorts. Recall and Alive to The Last bastion and the newest Infiltrate, Overwatch has captured our imagination and helped us understand the charaters so much more then we ever expected. We get to explore the background and motivation behind our favorite heroes.

What is the process?

The first animated short took 12 months and over 300 man months to complete.  With a quarter of the time and half the artist resources Overwatch has continued to shine. A streamlined process and new technology has helped make this all possible.

Ben Dai project Director walks us through the process.

Every story starts with an idea or theme. From this they make “Story Beats” to show the flow of the story. This makes sure it is entertaining. From these the script is created.

With a script approved we move to a new phase. Next we move into pre-production and “blue sky concepts”. This phase is full of concept artwork to flesh out the ideas and set the tone for the animators.

Next they make lists of concepts to make resources for.

This can range from forests to crowds. Story guides are made to narrow the focus, and refine the animations. Storyboarding uses the beat boards to create the actual story. This will go through many edits. This is done with a rough story board.

From this 2d animations are made and use to find the spots that need refined. From this process you get cleanup boards. These are put to music and sound affect and you start being able to see the animation really taking shape.

It takes an impressive amount of boards to create each episode.

Next we take on Previz which is the process of taking the 2d scenes and making the 3d ones.

With lots of refinement they can work out the quirks before they move to production. It helps narrow down what is needed to produce the final full product. This is only a small fraction of the work that goes into every animated short.

What can we expect from the future? Your guess is as good as mine but we can expect more magic in the future.