🪄 Hogwarts Legacy
| Realization of a 3D rendering accompanied by animations and visual effects of a Hogwarts Legacy wallpaper.
Overview 🔎
Hogwarts Legacy is a video game developed by Avalanche Software and published by Warner Bros. Games and Portkey Games, released in 2023. It is a 3rd person “action-adventure” game type and inspired by the Harry Potter universe.
The objective behind this project was to bring to life an official poster of the game: by providing a 3D effect, by animating the different creatures, the central character and the vegetation, and by adding visual effects.
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Process 🛣
In order to realize this project, I went through several well-defined stages.
1. Realization of the scenarios (3D, VFX, Animations, Editing) in order to clarify the direction of the project and to know all the elements to be produced.
2. Creation and configuration of the composition within After Effects: dimensions of the production (1920x1080 px), choice of the number of frames per second (60 FPS), duration (30 sec.).
3. Cutout of all the elements of the poster through After Effects in order to constitute the plans of the 3D part. Deletion of elements, additional adjustments and retouching were necessary to perfect the plans, using Photoshop.
4. Insertion of the plans previously cut in the 3D space, and configuration of the camera and its path.
5. Creation of the various animations.
6. Design of the visual effects (VFX) using plugins.
7. Editing of the production: Intro & Outro, color corrections and details enhancement.
8. Editing of the production on Premiere Pro: Research and addition of the soundtrack and sound effects (SFX).
9. Production export (H.264): 1 video file (.Mp4); 2 cover pictures (JPG & PNG).
Audiovisual production details 🎞
🎞 Composition
• Dimensions: 1920x1080 px.
• Frames per second: 60 Fps.
• Duration: 30 seconds.
• Editing: 3D editing with a shot by 2-nodes camera.
The composition is based on the principle of a “looped video” in its design, apart from the intro, and thus being able to last indefinitely. This can be observed in the repetition of the path taken by the camera and the animations and visual effects.
A division by 2 of the poster’s dimensions was carried out to adapt it to a more conventional resolution: 1920x1080p. The high FPS number choice has meanwhile allowed to render the production very fluid to watch, it brings a more realistic and captivating side.
🪄 Photo retouching
○ Suppression of the lightning
○ Suppression of the dragons and ghosts
○ Reconstruction of certain parts hidden by elements as part of the realization of the various plans for the completion of the 3D rendering
When making the cutouts in order to obtain the different plans to create the 3D part of the production, it was necessary to proceed retouching to faithfully reconstruct the plans behind each cut element.
On the other hand, the removal of the visual effects initially displayed (such as lightning for example) also had to be carried out in order to add these same effects but in a different and animated way within the production.
✂ Cutouts (from the foreground to the background)
1. The central character, the rock and skeletons (foreground)
2. The rocky mound with the little spider on the left
3. The vegetation to the right of the little spider
4. The passage lit from the inside on the right
5. The ghosts
6. The mountain face with the cave housing the giant spider and a part of the vegetation further down, behind the passage on the right
7. The game title
8. A part of the vegetation with the dead tree behind the plan 6, on the right
9. The whole of the part below before the lake and including the village on the left
10. The dragons
11. The first mountain overhang after the village, on the left
12. The castle, the lake and the mist
13. The second mountain overhang after the fist one
14. The tower in the distance, on the right
15. The sky
✨ Effects & Elements
○ Transitions
• Intro in fade by blur
• Outro in fade to black
○ Motion Design
• Subtitle
• "Portkey Games"
○ Color grading
• Color corrections
• Slight details enhancement
○ Visual effects (VFX)
• Appearance of the title
• Luminous ball within the title
• Magic emitted by the wand
• Magic emitted from the eyes of the skeletons
• Orange glow emitted from the interior of the passage
• Body movements of the ghosts
• Smoke emitted from the chimneys of the village
• Mist above the lake
• Luminosity via the windows of the village
• Luminosity via the windows of the castle
• Thunder in the clouds located on the right
• Lunar rays
All the elements and effects were made in After Effects by hand and using plugins.
⚙ Animations
○ Camera
○ Appearance of the central character
○ The character's cape and his arms
○ The dragons
○ The skeletons
○ The ghosts
○ The little spider
○ The giant spider
○ The dead tree
○ Certain trees and vegetation
All the animations were made by hand, some of which required additional cutouts in order to animate a very specific element without hindering other elements (eg: a hind leg of a spider).
🎚 Sound effects (SFX)
○ Whoosh
○ Wind blowing
○ Thunder
In the objective to add a deeper dimension to the production, I wanted to insert, in addition to the soundtrack, a slight sonority of wind accompanied by the rumble of thunder.
🎵 Soundtrack
"Hope Fades" from Chuck e. Myers "sea" | Hogwarts Legacy (Original Soundtrack).
Takeaways 📣
It was the most ambitious project on which I could work until now especially through the Animations part. I indeed sought to go further in the realization of certain animations to try to achieve body movements as realistic as possible according to the situation in which the subject finds himself.
It is to be taken into account that these animations are made from pictures (2D) and that they therefore do not allow to restore a hidden face of an element during its movement (eg: the wings of the dragons during their flapping).
Example 1 : depending on a displacement and taking into account the earth’s gravity (like the dragon which turns around in the sky to then dive).
Example 2 : depending on multiple coordinated movements (like the giant spider emerging from its cave).
Julien Carlier Productions
2023