Foxtrot X-Ray Supports BattleBots Team MAGNITUDE
Foxtrot X-Ray created this all-CG promo for Magnitude and their state of the art BattleBot. During the creative process VFX Supervisor Paul DeNigris saw an opportunity to incorporate Foxtrot X-Ray's new Cinema 4D to Unreal Engine pipeline to quickly iterate and finalize CG cinematics.
First some concept art was needed in order to convey to both the team and the client what the vision was for the piece. DeNigris turned to Midjourney for an AI assist and used that to craft some images to evoke the feel for the spot.
While the opening shot relied heavily on Cinema 4D for animating and rendering the Magnitude robot's parts flying through space, Unreal Engine was the star of the majority of this production. Starting in Cinema 4D the Magnitude robot was modeled and animated before being imported into Unreal Engine for further animation, lighting and rendering.
Midjourney concepts of the Las Vegas desert
The Las Vegas sign inside the Unreal Engine environment
The BattleBots Destruct-A-Thon event is held in Las Vegas, so Unreal artist Gabe Vigil used Unreal Engine's incredible landscape toolset to craft a portion of the Nevada desert. The landscape materials were perfect for capturing both the vastness of the Nevada desert, as well as the fine details visible in close-up shots.
The Magnitude bot inside Unreal
Unreal Engine's Lumen and Nanite systems were also useful in showing off the Magnitude robot in detail. Lumen generated dynamic light bounces across the metallic materials of the robot's body, and Nanite ensured every detail of the robot was rendered with fine detail, even down to the smallest screws and bolts! Finally, we used Unreal Engine's sequencer to quickly create the dynamic, cinematic shots that showed off the power of the Magnitude robot.
The Cinema 4d to Unreal Engine workflow was a seamless one. Taking advantage of the advanced modeling and animation strengths of Cinema 4D and the realtime rendering strength of Unreal Engine sped up the iteration process significantly.
Magnitude will make its Destruct-A-Thon debut in Las Vegas on December 10, 2023 and the Foxtrot X-Ray team will be there to cheer on our favorite bot!
