Imaginary Forces opens the door to an endless possibility of action-packed challenges and adventures for the launch of Strife for S2 Games. The :45 teaser trailer Rook introduces viewers to the world of the new MOBA game, enticing them with the boundless possibilities they can experience with the new IP. Strife will be available Winter 2014.
Click HERE to see the teaser trailer.
On the heels of the emotionally driven God of War trailer earlier in the year, Imaginary Forces (IF) has once again been tapped to bring a sense of humanity and depth to the characters in Rook. Director Ryan Summers led a team of IF artists to create a fully animated teaser that heightens the world of the game, hinting at the voluminous backstory S2 has created that provided extensive source material for Imaginary Forces to pull from. Though the characters and environments had already been designed for gameplay, the team aimed to stay true to the spirit of the game design while delivering an elevated and sophisticated visual look to the world of Strife.
After being given zBrush models of the characters, Summers made the move early on to do a complete character redesign from the ground up. He brought Natalie Hall on board, a seasoned character designer who brought her unique sense of shape design and detail contrast to the Strife characters. Though they sought to keep a similar aesthetic to the game, they wanted viewers to get a sense of the atmosphere and tone of the world of Strife, not just sample a moment from the gameplay. The team focused on building an in-house character animation pipeline in Cinema 4D that would leverage their knowledge of the program from previous projects. Part of that process was reaching out to artists who had not previously worked with Maxon's 3D program. Lead animator Rich DeForno was quickly able to acclimate to the software and establish a balance between cartoon and realism that established the look for the rest of the piece. With this test, the team went to work to insert these reinvigorated characters into the expansive game world.
Notes Summers, After doing so much research and planning in previz, it was incredibly rewarding when the team was able to see the final render of our first shot. It was such a satisfying culmination of the tremendous collaboration between Natalie Hall, Rich DeForno, our character rigger David Brown, and look dev artist Mikey Rogers. From there, I knew that each frame would follow suit and create an impressive end result.
Rook opens on a darkened, fractured moon as a voiceover intones, Perpetual night. That's what we are headed for. A crow soars over a nearly pitch-black, forgotten graveyard and the voiceover continues, Where every heart melts as the black forces of chaos consume us all. A shadowy, cloaked figure with a menacing beak stands atop an archway as an approaching bird morphs from bird, to bolt of light, to arrow and into the cloaked figure's hand. ...I am Rook, he says, high archer of the gray elves. And these are the trials of strife. He shoots the arrow, which turns back into the pyrotechnic bird and transitions to the title, STRIFE, closing out the teaser trailer.
A Product of Imaginary Forces
Top entertainment studios, global brands and A-list agencies tap Imaginary Forces (IF) to find new ways to engage and inspire audiences. IF's diverse talent pool of artists and creative professionals bring elite conceptual design solutions to projects in commercial, digital media, feature films and film marketing, television and architectural spaces.
Underlying each endeavor is their passionate belief that no project is too large, too small or too complex to benefit from beautiful and inventive design.
The innovative studio has garnered numerous advertising industry awards as well as multiple Emmy Awards including an Emmy for their iconic titles work on AMC's smash drama series Mad Men.
Credits:
Client: S2 Games
Title: Rook :45
Production Company: Imaginary Forces
Director: Ryan Summers
Producer: Melissa Johnson
Production Coordinator: Joseph Abou-Sakher
Previs: Grant Lau, Ryan Summers
Animation: Rich DeForno, Gary Hebert
Rigging: David Brown
Modeling: Margaret Dost, Aamir Karim, Steve Talkowski
Look Development: Mikey Rogers
Texturing: Ben Skutt, Steve Talkowski
Lighting: Mikey Rogers
VFX: Tom Bittikoffer, Gary Hebert
Matte Painting: Laurent Ben-Mimoun
Character Design: Natalie Hall, Brett Bean
Storyboard: Alejandro Lee
Editing: Michael Radtke, Ryan Summers
Compositing: Tom Bittikoffer, Gary Hebert, John Kim, David Park, Mikey Rogers, Ryan Summers
Titles: John Kim
Audio: Machinehead
###
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Imaginary Forces opens the door to an endless possibility of action-packed challenges and adventures for the launch of Strife for S2 Games. The :45 teaser trailer Rook introduces viewers to the world of the new MOBA game, enticing them with the boundless possibilities they can experience with the new IP. Strife will be available Winter 2014.
