Hello,
This cinematic is the first project I worked on when I started at DIGIC Pictures over two and a half years ago. DIGIC worked on three cinematics in total, and I only joined the project at the end for this one, which is the last pre-rendered cinematic in the game's history.
Since the project was already underway when I arrived, I started working with a light rig that focused on the wide shots. But since I was in charge of the shots with the Chaos Sorcerer Imurah in the beam, I had to start one from scratch. The light rig wasn't suited to close-ups, which, depending on the camera, flattened the character too much or cast too harsh shadows.
The challenge with the new light rig was therefore to correctly position the top and bottom lights to maintain the sensation of a lighting in a beam but without flattening the character too much, so that the volume of the character can be clearly read. The light animation at the end when Imurah explodes was also a bit tricky because it was necessary to progressively overexpose for the flow of the editing but to still maintain readability.
For the compositing, I don't remember any particular challenge. Simply the chromatic effect on the FX of the beam was done by another artist on the entire cinematic.
Thank you for reading,
Enjoy!
First shot of the cinematic.
The only one with remnants of the original light rig.