A quite unique champion has joined the playable character lineup of Riot Games’ multiplayer online battle arena hit League of Legends: Naafiri, who has the ability to inhabit multiple mortal bodies at the same time. To introduce her origins to LoL fans, Riot tapped Los Angeles- and Seattle-based creative studio We Are Royale to craft a two-minute cinematic in its tradition of character spotlight animations.
Launched last month, “Hounds of Iron” garnered 1.7 million views in its first 24 hours. The team at WAR set out to visualize how Naafiri’s mind would look as it split among beings, allowing them to dive into unexplored depths of CG surrealism.
“Riot was very open to our point of view and approach to the creation of this introduction spot, which is something they do every time a new playable character is added to the game. Their brief was absolutely bursting with references and intriguing ideas. At WAR, we focused on honing a narrative approach that would bring everything together cohesively,” said We Are Royale Executive Creative Director, Loren Judah.
“The story explores the physical and metaphysical transformation of Naafiri. In League lore, she was a Darkin assassin who became entombed in a dagger. Eons later, she is discovered in the Shuriman desert by a lone explorer. This sets off a series of events that will ultimately lead to her inhabiting not one single entity but an entire pack of Dune Hounds. We take the audience through that abstract idea of the mind splitting to control the many and revealing the character’s final form back at the spot that started it all.”
Aiming for an artistic style inspired by manga and graphic novel illustration, WAR produced “Hounds of Iron” using a blend of animation techniques, as well as machine learning technology. The spot is introduced in 3D animation, augmented with hand-painted textures to give the world a grounding effect, while storybook-style 2.5D whips viewers into Naafiri’s violent memories. Generative frame analysis tools helped the artists create a more frenetic sense of action as the character’s mind splits among hosts, smearing shots together.
“Our animation team brought different skill sets and styles to the Naafiri project. This all results in a very painterly, brush-stroked and detailed style. That unique visual approach was applied to the whole spot, where essentially we start with a base 3D model and then we animate over the top of that,” Judah explained. “The collaborative thought process and detailed artistry involved in this project are exactly what we love doing at WAR. We’re really proud of the final film.”
The project’s creative director was Elie Lehman; video director was Chris Eaton and writer was Cat Cheresh, with Marissa Alanis as video producer, Jack Shenker as campaign producer and Arman Aivazian as brand lead. Steve McCrumb was art lead and Dan Norton was art director for “Hounds of Iron,” which features original music composed by Jason Walsh.
See more of the Naafiri cinematic process at weareroyale.com.
