A neat look at what goes into animating Overwatch highlight intros

This took four days!

What goes into creating a character’s highlight intro for Overwatch? Far more than you might imagine.

This annotated video from Blizzard senior animator David Gibson shrinks about four days worth of animation work in Autodesk Maya down to a digestible four-minute recap. “Animating Mei’s face takes the most time because of all the fine detail,” he notes, “but it’s the most fun.”

According to Gibson, “This video was originally made and presented as part of the Overwatch Exhibit in Blizzard’s Irvine Museum. I hope this video will be helpful to animation students or anyone that is interested in learning more about the computer animation process.”

Speaking of, the behind-the-scenes peek at this Frosty intro led me to a related and much more in-depth talk that Gibson delivered at last year’s Game Developers Conference called “Animation Bootcamp: Overwatch: How A Hero Is Mei-d.” Even if you’re less interested in the technical aspects of animation, this is still a fascinating watch for fans of Overwatch and Mei in particular.

[Via reddit]