LogInOuanes Bilal spoke to us about the process and some of the challenges involved in animating the characters in the game UFO ROBOT GRENDIZER – The Feast of the Wolves.
Introduction
Hello everyone! I'm Ouanes Bilal, a mid-3D animator from Belgium with Tunisian roots. I studied at the Haute École Albert Jacquard in Namur, where I specialized in 3D animation, and later landed my first job at Endroad in Nantes. I worked there for four years, most notably on the production of UFO ROBOT GRENDIZER – The Feast of the Wolves.
My learning curve at school was pretty standard. I learned the principles of animation and did my best to apply and understand them. I also became familiar with Maya (which I think was the hardest part). But it was during production that my progress increased, especially when I met the Gameplay animator, Youcef Mnakri, who made me realize that the most important thing was for me to improve my body mechanics.
I’m truly convinced that what makes an animation compelling is how accurate the body mechanics are, while the principles of animation make it appealing. With this mindset, I’ve trained myself to the point where I now clearly recognize both my strengths and weaknesses, and I have a much better idea of the next steps I need to take to improve.
My experience with the Endroad team was so unforgettable, and the project, as an enormous Japanese animation fan, was so perfect for me that I had to make something to honor that journey.
Like my old animation reel, I wanted to create something that was truly engaging to watch and set the bar a little higher. My goal was to experiment with some motion design and build the best setup to showcase the versatile work I produced during the project. I had been thinking about it ever since I was still at Endroad, with some Y2K-inspired designs in mind, but in a more simplified way.
Composition
During the 3 years of production, we re-iterated a lot. Grendizer and all the characters are robots up to 30 meters tall, so at first, we really wanted to have a straightforward approach to weight in the game. The result was interesting, but everything was too slow, and it was not that fun to build up some interesting game design regarding the scope of the project.
So we shifted toward a faster-paced, more dynamic, closer to how anime portrays robots in modern animation, such as Evangelion, Gundam, Gurren Laggan, and so on. I mixed Grendizer’s iconic poses with modern mecha poses to create something with clear intention, readable, and appealing. Keeping the weight was all about the anticipation and the idle return of the attacks.
For the Grendizer Reel, I wanted to record the animations in-engine with the VFX done by Romain Coste. It was really tricky to do it. For the locomotion, I attached the camera to the root of the rig, and for the attacks, I placed it in the center of the scene. I used a green skybox to be able to remove it in After Effects. It was important for me to have transparent records to be able to move them as I wanted when editing the video. To show that many iterations were done, I had this idea of a “timeline” evolving during the video, and showing some old/research animation before showing the final result.
Bosses & NPCs
Recording the main character was pretty easy to do, but for the enemies and bosses, being NPCs, it was much more difficult to record in the engine. So for this reel, I showed my animations in Maya with some dynamic camera movement and transitions. It was pretty straightforward to do and really fun. The goal was to highlight the key poses with the best shot.
For the rigging review, as for the enemies, it was also shot in Maya with dynamic compositions. The real challenge was to have screenshots of the attributes on the side showing how you could influence the rig. To be able to place it wherever I want, I recorded it separately with the same timing as what is shown in the video.
I rigged a lot of characters, especially bosses. To show this amount of work, I made this frame with all of them, but my Maya scene was burning. There were 17 referenced rigs in it! From that frame, I used some FOV tricks to be able to focus on some interesting rigs.
Cinematic Animation
The cinematic reel was really simple to do, as I just recorded them and did some dynamic editing on them. I had to make sure I only showed the shots I had done because, at times, other animators were working on the blocking phase. I made sure to credit them when they contributed to something related to the cinematic.
In addition to those 4 videos, I wanted to make an animated intro for them. Something that tributes the work done in the production and also starts the video with something catchy.
During production, I understood by seeing footage of Guilty Gear -Strive-, that to achieve a 2D anime feeling, I had to parent the character to the camera, and play with the focal to have the best shot possible. I also animated my skybox to have something interesting for the background. The transition to the title at the end of the intro is different for the ring, enemies, and main character.
Conclusion
It took me 5 months to finish everything, from the selection to animation recording, editing, and animating the intro. The hardest part was to find the best way to showcase 3 years of production work while keeping it clear and digestible. I learned a lot about After Effects and have a better vision about showcasing my work with a better scope.
Considering my still young career, I would say to those starting that animation can be judged by almost anyone. So you need to train your ego to accept the feedback that truly matters to your work. In production, iteration is inevitable, so you need to find the fastest way possible to test your animation in-game.
As I've said, the principles of animation, timing, and spacing are keys to twisting reality so it looks good on screen and feels appealing. But in reality comes from body mechanics, so never underestimate it!