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INCARNADINE

What is it?

Incarnadine is a game made by Sheridan's Co-op/Mentorship program, overseen by professionals at Niantic and EA, with team members including employees from Larian and Sondering Studios.
I worked on this Animated Opening from June to August 2024. I loved the thought of working on something so immersive and part of something so much bigger than just a film. I also love video games and have always wanted to make animations for one, so I was incredibly grateful when my long term friend Iris reached out to me.
My friend, Iris Wei served as the link between me and the game development team. To maintain an element of surprise in the animation, I kept the details close to myself and consulted only a few trusted people, such as my music composer, Joon Oh.
I worked on everything from Thumbnails to Final Edits. Within the timespan, I had to learn Davinci Resolve as a pure Adobe Suite user. I loved learning a new program as versatile as this one and I'm glad to have it under my belt.

Visual Developement

In early discussions with Iris, we decided on a grayscale or black-and-white direction. The game team was inspired by titles like Vampyr and Darkest Dungeon, while I drew inspiration from Castlevania’s glass-painted opening and Black Swan and Acheron's dance from Honkai Starrail. I was excited by the challenge and chose to blend all these influences during the storyboarding process. I went ahead and sketched up a style guide for myself as the game only had lower poly 3D models at the time.

Backgrounds

I specialize in Character Illustration and 2D Animation rather than backgrounds, and focusing on backgrounds doesn't align with my interests or efficiency. It's important to recognize what your strengths and weaknesses are when working on a solo project like this.
Luckily I'd say my other specialty is optimization and creative problem solving.
Being that the whole project would be black and white, I asked for screenshots from the current build and applied binarization. After that I painted over, textured, and strengthen values + forms. I got the idea while scouring manga panels for ideas on how to create depth with only two values.
The process still took plenty of time, especially with all of the hatching and reforming, but the process saved me from having to start from scratch, and also showcased actual areas you would be exploring in game! Win-win in my book.

Animation and Timing

From start to finish, I had around 3 months to work on Incarnadine.
I decided that the animation would ramp up throughout the short until we reached our climax and abruptly end. To do this I started with planning for keyframed animation which would transition into a few shots of slower hand drawn animation, and then to our little fast paced monster mash.
"Coloring" the film was interesting, it was a lot of hatching, tones, and texturing shots. Keeping directional velocity along with being able to carve forms out got difficult at times.

Sound

I was told I would be on my own for everything, including music. Luckily, Joon, who worked on Little Things. was available and willing to help compose for Incarnadine. I have never been more grateful and I respect Joon so much, he is incredibly skilled and makes awesome tracks.I usually always do my own sound, but I wanted to be absolutely sure I would have enough time to finish all animation. I recruited Jake Snyder (who in turn recruited Mayan) to help me hunt for some SFX while I worked on everything else. Luckily Davinci Resolve also came with a database of over 5000 free to use sounds.

Talent

I was told that there was no need for a Voice Actor, and we would only need captions. I didn't want to cover all of the shots with captions, especially the faster paced ones, I was worried that there would be too many things to focus on and it would become overwhelming. I quickly realized this opening needed a Voice Actor, due to how silent it was with the slow paced animation towards the beginning.
I had a perfect voice in my head for our protagonist, Ramon, but the issue was I had no one that could do a voice that deep.
Like an angel, Adrian Sifuentes appeared before me in my instagram dms, claiming he could do this magical voice - somewhere in between Yasuo and ProZD. Although he had never seriously voice acted before, I assured him that he was perfect for what we had. We quickly arranged to do line readings over a call, with me giving voice direction and making alterations. Afterwards, I had Iris and Sam, our original script writer, take a listen and pick their favorites.
He knocked it out of the park, in such a short time span, and I'm honored to have worked with him.

Composite and Editing

I knew this day would come. The day where I would have to say goodbye to Adobe Audition, After Effects, and Premiere. Where was I going to find 3 programs on short notice that I could afford? Oh wait... DaVinci Resolve has dedicated editing modes for all 3 of those categories? and with plugins? and it's free!!!!?!?!?!?
To be honest, I struggled a lot, I was fully talking to my walls trying to troubleshoot and learn new this new program in a few days. I got the hang of it, and I'll say that it was amazing. DaVinci Resolve, Fusion, Fairlight, I love you.

Other Struggles

At times it was difficult to keep focused and motivated due to feeling isolated. As the only person working on everything aside from music, and some sfx gathering, there were times I felt quite lonely. I took on this project as a challenge to myself to do something completely alone in short time span. Not only that, but something that I mostly kept to myself from anyone I worked with was that I had developed an extreme form of OCD and struggled with it for an entire year. I've been getting better slowly, but there were times working on this that I felt plastered to my seat unable to pick up my pen. Finally, as I came closer to wrapping this project, I was finding new methods to help myself recover for the first time. I think working on Incarnadine gave me an amazing outlet to help me work through my pain. And I still finished right on time - a few days early even.
Unfortunately, the day I hit "render", and finally went to bed at 7 AM, I was awoken by upsetting commotion. I ran downstairs and found that my beloved, healthy, and smart bird had passed away. Sudden death with no explanation, but also no pain. So I guess I dedicate my hard work to her this year. Just as "Little Things" was partially dedicated to Dolce. Goodnight Ceetris, fly high and I hope where you land has all you love.

Conclusion

This project would not have been possible without the small team I was so lucky to have. If any of them sound like you'd like to work with them too, please take a look below, the best thing I can do for them is give them my recommendation.
Joon and Adrian specifically, you have been great!
Aside from that, there would be absolutely no end result without DaVinci Resolve, and Clip Studio Paint.

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