Red’s got her temper. The Huntsman’s got his heater. And we made sparks fly from their encounter. So here’s how the teaser was built - blow by blow.
So, you prolly think, the starter for all of that was a scrupulously written score. Surprise, slipper-backer, we didn’t write a traditional script. Nope. This wasn’t a cinematic monologue or lore-dump - it was action-forward from the start. Our game director, art director, and designer aligned early on: let it be fun, kinetic, a tad topsy-turvy. That meant jumping straight into sketching, with nods flying across the board - from Batman intros and TMNT alley fights to old-school 2D brawlers and even Pikachu’s run (bet you noticed which part.)
So once we had the gist, we moved fast.
Storyboard Meets Blender
A rough storyboard got scribbled together during brainstorming. That was enough to lock in the vibe, the rhythm, and camera creative ideas. Not much overplanning and before-hand overthinking that would stop our creativeness - we jumped into Blender and threw down a dirty animatic using whatever animations and in-game assets we had. Block it, break it, rebuild it, heck yea!
The entire cut was edited within Blender as one scene. Keeping it under 30 seconds was the challenge - so we cranked up the tempo, restructured for more rhythm, and added breathing room with clever direction choices. It took three full passes of the animatic before we moved on.
Music Follows the Structure
Music was cooked up early - once again by our composer, same as the first teaser, thank you very much. The animatic came first, setting the rhythm and structure. The track followed, shaped tightly around those beats - with sound effects given the room to play more freely.
Tools, Assets & Effects
From there, it became a multi-threaded machine. While some of us started building the teaser environment inside Unity, others refined the character animations in Maya.
We weren’t crafting cutscene-only stuff - this was all based on real in-game assets and systems. Set dressing was 100% built from existing game pieces, with only two custom additions: the fairy cage and stylized cloud textures for those specific shots.
In-engine tools gave us flexibility until the very end. One of the most dynamic shots (the one that follows the faux-2D fighter framing) was actually added at the final stage - reason: it felt right.
Once first-pass animation was locked, we passed it to our FX artist for dust, portals, hits, and the rest of the flair. A single animator worked throughout - iterating until the final moment, tweaking not only animation but also rigging, mesh, and face geometry. It was actually a fast and dirty process - exactly how this kind of teaser should be made.
NPR Lighting
Lighting, however? It got precise here. NPR rendering means every light and shadow needs to play nice with stylization. Highlights were reworked multiple times. Faces needed extra help - we used a simplified face-lighting system that’s still in development, plus plenty of specular edits for characters to look great under heavy motion.
Polishing
Next, the polish pass: - Custom blendshapes for facial expression - Stylized shadows adjusted by hand per shot - Adjustments to jiggle physics - Cleaned-up skinning
If anyone of you ever wondered, all of those fixes and upgrades will be making their way into the main game. An interpenetrating organism. No fancy lies here.
As for the final render. All done in-engine. Then stitched together in Premiere Pro for the final cut.
All in all - Red Hood landed her shot, didn’t she?Now, who’s next?
Mass Creation Team