skip to main content
10.1145/3078345.3099617acmconferencesArticle/Chapter ViewAbstractPublication PagessiggraphConference Proceedingsconference-collections
other

Blizzard Entertainment presents: the making of the "Overwatch Animated Shorts"

Published: 30 July 2017 Publication History

Abstract

In March 2016, Blizzard Entertainment released the first in a series of animated shorts set in the world of their highly anticipated franchise, Overwatch. Over the course of the year, six stand-alone episodes - comprising over 40 minutes of original content - were released, giving millions of viewers their first look into the background of Overwatch's most iconic heroes. Combined with the simultaneous release of short-form comics, teasers, and even the release of tracks from a character's debut album, the Overwatch shorts are part of a robust cross-media approach to original storytelling and world building.
To tell this much story, Blizzard Animation had to radically alter some of its production workflows and much of the technology used to produce the final episodes. Using the groundbreaking GPU-based ray-tracing renderer Redshift, the Overwatch shorts represent an entirely new, cost-effective animation pipeline that allows rich, high-quality content to be created in a fraction of the time traditionally associated with pre-rendered workflows. From story and animatic though 3D animation and delivery of the final content, Blizzard's team shares some of the strategies, tools, and techniques employed to create a world worth fighting for in the Overwatch animated shorts.

Supplementary Material

MP4 File (production-0013.mp4)

Cited By

View all
  • (2018)In the Data KitchenExtended Abstracts of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3170427.3188407(1-10)Online publication date: 20-Apr-2018
  • (2018)3rd Early Career Development SymposiumExtended Abstracts of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3170427.3173461(1-2)Online publication date: 20-Apr-2018

Recommendations

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Conferences
SIGGRAPH '17: ACM SIGGRAPH 2017 Production Sessions
July 2017
15 pages
ISBN:9781450350167
DOI:10.1145/3078345
Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the Owner/Author.

Sponsors

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 30 July 2017

Check for updates

Qualifiers

  • Other

Conference

SIGGRAPH '17
Sponsor:

Acceptance Rates

Overall Acceptance Rate 1,822 of 8,601 submissions, 21%

Contributors

Other Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

  • Downloads (Last 12 months)9
  • Downloads (Last 6 weeks)2
Reflects downloads up to 15 Jan 2025

Other Metrics

Citations

Cited By

View all
  • (2018)In the Data KitchenExtended Abstracts of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3170427.3188407(1-10)Online publication date: 20-Apr-2018
  • (2018)3rd Early Career Development SymposiumExtended Abstracts of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3170427.3173461(1-2)Online publication date: 20-Apr-2018

View Options

Login options

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

PDF

eReader

View online with eReader.

eReader

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

Share

Share

Share this Publication link

Share on social media