Blizzard WoW Student Contest 2024
My submission for this year's WoW student contest!
This took me about 1.5-2 months of on-and-off work. A good few fun ideas had to be cut for time and I still cut it pretty close in the end, but it was a ton of fun! Whatever the outcome, I feel like I learned a ton through this project and will be able to do it faster and better next time :)
The effect ended up being made out of 10 systems in a trench coat to avoid the timing and emitters getting too difficult to control.
I wouldn't have been able to get here without the help and support of some awesome and inspiring VFX folks like Justin Woodward, Johnny Van Zelm, Anoop Herur-Raman, Isabel Warn, and Russell Higgins. They taught me a lot though-out my journey with this effect :)
Final submission
Reference board
The state it was in on December 26th (I did daily progress recordings). The initial idea was for the non-main enemies to be slowed, with a window to move out to avoid the damage. The idea had to be cut for time :(
System example 1
System example 2
As a part of pre-production research, I referenced Sarah Carmody's GDC23 talk on WoW's VFX Pillars. My approach to the entire project was colored by all that the talk taught me, especially the focus on "raid language" and Cosmology