Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora – Secrets of the Spires DLC – In-game Fall from ikran Cinematic 7 Feb 2025, 3:56 am

Cinematic creation from the previz stage to the final implementation to the game in collaboration with various teams.

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora – Secrets of the Spires DLC – In-game Opening Cinematic 7 Feb 2025, 3:44 am

If I think back to a few years ago, I didn’t really like working on scenes with flying characters or vehicles. I much preferred scenes on the ground. When your character is on the ground and you’re creating a scene in a realistic style, you’re naturally restricted by the physical capabilities of the character. Movement is limited in terms of speed and usually happens along two axes because the ground itself serves as a boundary.

In the air, you gain a third axis of movement and the freedom to define speed and trajectory, which sounds great in theory but, in practice, significantly increases the chances of making “mistakes” or creating unnatural, unrealistic motion. Additionally, there often aren’t many objects around to help convey a sense of speed. It’s similar to looking out of a plane window, where the world appears to move slowly even though your actual speed is around 900 km/h. And on top of that, in real-time cinematics you can’t go too crazy with the speed – it still needs to feel believable and technically feasible within the game engine. The challenge becomes even greater when you’re working on a cinematic with a single, bespoke camera. You have to maintain the feeling of speed over long distances and time without relying on cuts or editing techniques.

In such cases, you end up working a lot with the relative movement of the camera, the field of view, background/foreground elements when possible, and balancing the speed and trajectory of the action. You don’t have the same limitations that ground scenes provide – limitations that actually make things easier by giving you a framework to work within.

After breaking my brain multiple times trying to solve these challenges for specific scenes, I can now say I’ve grown to enjoy working on them. They’re always a challenge, but that’s what makes them so rewarding, and they really push you to improve your skills.

One such scene is the opening cinematic for Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora – Secrets of the Spires, which was released recently. I had the opportunity to work on it as a Senior Cinematic Designer alongside amazing professionals, from the previs stage all the way through polishing and implementation. In this scene, players get to see their character entering a breathtaking and stunning new region on their ikran.

I’m truly happy with the result we accomplished together with such a talented team of specialists, directors, and managers, to whom I would like to express my gratitude. And a special thank you to the people I worked with on a daily basis – thank you for your help, great atmosphere and exciting process. This was a great collaboration! And I’m looking forward to new challenges!

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora – The Sky Breaker DLC – In-game Intro Cinematic 21 Jul 2024, 12:01 am

The release of Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora – The Sky Breaker DLC happened recently, and I had the opportunity to work on the third-person intro cinematic that opens the DLC and the new map, as a Senior Cinematic Designer, alongside many wonderful specialists.

The scene was both challenging and enjoyable, allowing for growth. Even after many hours spent, I still enjoy watching it like a child. And it’s rewarding to see that players can now enjoy watching their customized characters in this scene too. We aimed to convey a sense of flight and adventure, and I believe we succeeded, thanks to the efforts of many teams. The music and sounds support this feeling perfectly. The area and assets look so beautiful. The work on animation is truly impressive. This project is one of my favorite and most inspiring, with many pleasant memories associated with it.

My contribution spanned from the first previsualizations to the final result. This included the work on designing the scene and putting the elements of it together, action staging, camera, trajectories, timings, basic animations, props placement polishing, technical setup, and integration into gameplay, resolving technical issues. I collaborated with numerous professionals to ensure the result was cohesive, consistent, and functional with the rest of the game.

One of the most important part of the project for me is the people. The cinematic is the result of collaboration between many specialists, directors, and managers. I’m very glad to be part of the team and to work alongside amazing people who are ready to help and strive for excellence. I want to thank everyone who contributed to this project. I won’t list all the names (although I really want to) because everyone’s contribution is important, and I don’t want to forget anyone. But if you worked on the project and you are reading this, know that you are awesome! Thank you! It was a pleasure.

In-engine scenes for Star Wars Outlaws: Official Story Trailer 9 Apr 2024, 7:40 pm

My work included creation of a few in-engine cinematic scenes.

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora – In-engine cinematic scenes 26 Mar 2024, 11:49 pm

Cinematic in-engine scenes I worked on as a Senior Cinematic / Video Artist for Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora trailers from the initial idea and previsualization to the final polished result.

My responsibilities included defining the overall look and action of the scenes, which encompassed staging, layout, camera work, animation blending, prop placement, lighting, technical setup, and detail polishing.

Kudos to the many talented and highly skilled specialists working on the high-quality game’s assets and systems. It was a pleasure to assemble all these together in the scenes, ensuring that each piece reflects the game.

Special thanks to all the specialists/managers who supported the creation of some of the scenes.

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora – In-game Intro Logo Scene 26 Mar 2024, 11:45 pm

I’m excited to share a scene that I’ve been working on as a Senior Cinematic / Video Artist from the initial concept to implementing it into the game – Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora.

Players see this scene when launching the game. It was a joy to assemble all the elements together, creating an environment that immerses players into Pandora from the very first moment. My work included defining the overall look and action of the scenes, blocking, previsualization, layout, camera and action animation, logos implementation, path creation and propping, detail polishing, lighting, technical setup, coordination.

This was a highly creative process.

I want to give a big thank you to:

• The specialists and technical teams for their contribution to this project. Collaborating with you brought this project to life.
• The directors for their constructive feedback, which improved the scene with each iteration.
• The audio team for their amazing work on the sound.
• The management for their support at various stages.

And to my team of artists:

• My lead Carlos Hidalgo, for pushing for this project, supporting it and me all the way. Without your enthusiasm and adventurism, this project would not have happened.
• Nataliya Poshtar, for the stunning lizard animation that enlivened the scene and for your endless attention to details.
• Florent Garcia, for the creative discussions and fresh perspectives.

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora – In-engine cinematic scenes 27 Dec 2023, 11:38 pm

Cinematic in-engine scenes I worked on as a Senior Cinematic / Video Artist for Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora trailers from the initial idea and previsualization to the final polished result.

My responsibilities included defining the overall look and action of the scenes, which encompassed staging, layout, camera work, animation blending, prop placement, lighting, technical setup, and detail polishing.

Kudos to the many talented and highly skilled specialists working on the high-quality game’s assets and systems. It was a pleasure to assemble all these together in the scenes, ensuring that each piece reflects the game.

Special thanks to all the specialists/managers who supported the creation of some of the scenes, to my teammate Nataliya Poshtar for her work in polishing / creating custom animations for part of these scenes, to my lead Carlos Hidalgo.

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora – Official Game Overview Trailer | Ubisoft Forward 2023 6 Aug 2023, 10:28 pm

I’m glad to share what I’ve been working on together with a group of highly talented people! This project is a result of the collective effort and I would like to say a big thank you to everyone who was part of this journey, full of ups and downs.

My work included creating the majority of the in-engine cinematic scenes from the initial concept to the final result, technical setup, gameplay capture sessions holding and editing as part of the team, technical environment and documentation maintenance, part of coordination.

Warface: Breakout – Launch Trailer | PS4 (2020) 31 Oct 2020, 10:53 am

My work

Animation management, motion capture directing.

Project management, layout, cameras, animations as a part of team.

Warface: Special Operation “Mars” – Trailer (2019) 30 Oct 2020, 8:06 pm

RU Version