The Story
Krunker Bunker, an online community within the FRVR game Krunker.io, hosted an art competition in which participants could submit a drawing, render, or animation. The winning submission would receive a vaulted in-game weapon skin known as Unobtainable: Keeper of the Deep. At this point, my alias ZBG VFX had largely faded from public activity. I had taken an extended break from YouTube and community content creation after beginning official work with the developers of Krunker. When I noticed another contestant submitting an animation that referenced one of my earlier works, I felt compelled to return—quietly, and with impact. Over the following days, I produced a high-end cinematic animation, aiming to create one of my strongest visual pieces to date. I submitted the entry just before the competition deadline, and the response was immediate. Many in the community were surprised to see my return, and even more so by the quality of the submission.
Inspiration
This animation was heavily inspired by Spider-verse. I used a stylistic apporach with creating brush like backgrounds and exposed glow replaced with comic dots.
Stylistic Details
Throughout the video, you can also see a RGB Chroma warp effect at the edges of of the screen to represent depth. This was a common effect that Spider-verse used and I carefully implemented that.
Animation and Specific Stylistic Details
With this running scene shown above, I animated on twos instead of ones like this running scene. This is a common technique shown in action scenes in Spider-verse. I also made this box like style comic strip to further enhance the idea of a comic put into video. If you look hard enough, you might even see some action smears that I've carefully added at the end of the arm swining to give it that extra comic action styled sequence.
Animation and Human Naturalistic Movement
This animation featured significantly more character movement than any of my previous work. As a result, careful attention was required for every frame, particularly in how the human body moves. For example, during the jump sequence, the arms were animated to swing upward in order to reflect natural momentum and create a more realistic sense of motion.
"Leap of Blocks" Submission Results
Ethan / ZBGVFX won first place for overall winner and took home the Keeper of the Deep in-game asset.
#1
Place
$700+
In est. value prize
86
Competitors
500K
in-game currency prize value
