Last Player Standing | Valorant Animation

Softwares Used: #

Other softwares used:
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DaVinci Resolve
FL Studio

This animation was created to get myself back into creating small projects after working on my personal project for over 7 months. I tried to keep the scope simple, and focused on the quality of the animation. I made simple sketches of animation and timing, which helped the motions to seem more fluid and natural.

I wanted to plan out how the main part would have looked, from the timing to the layout. While very rough, I managed to create a simple 2D animatic.

I then moved to adding characters and animating them. Through several iterations and revisions, I got the animations to what was expected. I then created blood mist through simple smoke simulation.

Next step I took was putting everything together. I downloaded the extracted map from the game and found a place which was very similar to the cubes that was used for the wall. Since the map is set during the day, the night sky I intended made the entire scene too dark. I added in lights around the scene in order to make it more brighter while also using it to highlight certain areas such as where the characters are.

After rendering the animation, I went into post processing and editing process. I decided to try using DaVinci Resolve instead of Adobe Premier Pro or After Effects as a challenge to try something new, since it is also considered an industry standard software. There were wide ranges of color editing and compositing features built right into the software, which I used to change the brightness, contrast, and overall color of the animation. I also added little effects such as chromatic aberration on top as it has been one of the effect I wanted to apply on animations for a very long time.

Another element I really wanted to focus on this project was sound and music. I downloaded dozens of in-game sound effects, such as footsteps, gun shots, impact sounds, etc and edited them all together in DaVinci Resolve. I also created a short 10 second music to go with the entire animation, which I wanted to empathize on direness and desperation.

For the last step, I wanted to design a thumbnail that can grab the audience’s eyes. I created some custom renders on Blender, and edited them using Photoshop. I wanted the image to stand out, so I added a lot of contrast to the model, and added a reddish pink border around the image. While not easily noticeable, I added a grey polka dot background to give extra texture, inspired by the thumbnails created by youtuber Marblr.

Before editing	Final result

Overall, this project was a good exercise for me, and helped me dip my toes into areas I’ve never really explored such as color editing and thumbnail creation. I would certainly like to explore further into color editing such as color grading and correction, since it can totally change the mood or overall message of the scene.