Creating Batlecast Illaoi: Visual and Sound Creation Behind the New League of Legends Skin

The long road to bringing the fan-chosen League of Legends Battlecast Illaoi continues to make leaps and bounds with its progress, and the team over at Riot Games have provided another insight into the creation of the new champion skin.

From jetpacks, to flames, to even nailing down that angry voice – there’s a lot that goes into bringing a simple concept to fruition. Now that the basic modeling is almost wrapped, it’s time to look at the audio and visual effects that give the Battlecast Illaoi fresh life. Here’s a deeper look inside at what it takes to bring a new skin to the world of the popular MOBA.

Voice Over Work

The process of bringing an accurate, angry voice layer to the champion was an intricate one that underwent several trial and error faces. The timing needed to be perfect so that the flow and enunciation of keywords had the highest effect. 

“Due to the enormous number of lines Illaoi has (one of the highest in the game), and the extreme margin of error once we account for all the languages, plus the fact that she has a very complex kit (looking at you tentacles!), the original plan to create an angry Battlecast layer that phases in and out is probably out of scope. Additionally, heavily-affected VO processing would feel pretty at odds with Battlecast Illaoi’s story and visuals.

So we’ve had to drop that idea. Instead, we’re looking at doing heavy processing on her E lines (there are over 60 of these), which are the trippy, delayed ones that sound like she’s in your head.”

The team also gave the update that they haven’t begun work on voicing her abilities just yet, but are actively working on having more to share. 

Visual Effects

“Generally when we make visual effects, we work on them over a number of iterations. While other disciplines can use concept art to quickly work out how something will look, VFX only exist in motion, so the usefulness of concept work can be limited. The first visual effects pass is a very rough blockout for what an effect will look like to help get a feeling for how something will look in motion,” Riot said. 

The above video shows the very beginning stages of the passive effects of her robot head in an effort to encapsulate the “trailing effect” that is seen with her base skin, while still capturing the nature of the Battlecast improvements. 

Visual Testing

The second video, the one above, is where the team got down to business when testing the VFX final touches when refining the colours. This isn’t the final product by any means, there are still bug fixes to address and overall polishing to be done – but it looks much cleaner than the previous footage shown:

“From a VFX standpoint, Illaoi is one of the more complex champions in the game (a reoccuring theme!). A normal champion such as Nasus has around 35 individual particle files. However, between Illaoi’s tentacles, hit impacts, torn out spirits, countdown timer and dunk effects, Illaoi has over 100 individual files, all of which will need updating for her skin. Because of this, building out the skin’s VFX is going to take a little longer than usual.”

Recall Animation

The next step in the developer update deals with proper interaction and that highly revered jetpack! The tricky part was making such a cool idea realistic and natural, and not just a gimmicky after effect, “We also really wanted her to interact with the robot head since it’s such a major part of the skin. This recall seemed to be a good mix of action and fun and hits the Battlecast tone. We blocked some poses and showed it to the team. Everyone seemed to like it, so we moved forward with animating.”

The above video shows off some more of the polishing done and a timelapse sequence of the progress made thus far. There’s still more on the way but you can check out previous steps in development with our previous coverage here! Stay tuned!

(via Nexus)