Say My Name

Once I had a clear idea of what I wanted to do, I shot multiple video references and edited them to have a more cartoony timing rather than a realistic one.

Shoutout to my wife, who put up with several recording sessions while pregnant with our son Bruno, who "coincidentally" shares the same name as Batman in Spanish because, back in our childhood, Bruce Wayne was translated as Bruno Díaz due to some wild localization choices over the years.

Iterating a lot with video references helped me save tons of time on the PC defining key poses and breakdowns.

For this project, I had the immense honor of receiving weekly feedback from Sean Sexton, Head of Character Animation at DreamWorks. His attention to detail helped me achieve a highly polished final result.

I used a pose-to-pose workflow in Maya, focusing on getting clear silhouettes and appealing key poses before working on the breakdowns.

In the first pass, I worked on just a few frames in stepped mode.

Then, I made sure to have something every 8 frames to refine body mechanics.

After that, I filled in every 4 frames, then every 2 frames, adding more detail—especially in the facial animation.

Finally, I polished everything on 1s, hand-tweaking each frame.

I only used the Graph Editor to ensure smooth transitions when switching from stepped mode to splines. Other than that, I didn't let the computer do anything for me.

Even though I used Animation Mentor rigs, I wanted to customize them as much as possible to match the look I was going for and avoid a generic feel. I reached out to the amazing Anderson Lovato, who helped model the costumes. His idea went beyond just making Batman look cheap like Adam West’s version. So, he pushed it further into "cospobre" (cos-poor), a Brazilian term for low-budget fan costumes.

Throughout the process, we learned a lot from our own mistakes and limitations. I also realized that simulating the clothes would take way longer than expected for a personal project, so I ended up creating a "Frankenstein" mix of things Anderson modeled and things I modeled to simplify the workflow.

I experimented with different methods for animating the cape. I first tried a basic rig in Maya, which gave me manual control over the deformation and allowed me to add some nCloth simulation for realism and wrinkles. However, the best results came from simulating the cape entirely in Marvelous Designer and then adding a few deformers in Maya. This approach let me sculpt the cape into Batman's signature silhouette and ensured proper interaction when he gets angry.

I built the environment using assets from different KitBash3D kits to achieve the desired contrast between gothic buildings with modern cyberpunk billboards, and older structures for the dark alley where this shot takes place.

One of the biggest highlights of this project was having the incredibly talented Iván Benítez as my mentor for lighting and compositing. His experience in films like Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse was key in helping me push the lighting further.

Thanks to his help, I transformed a flat, gray scene into something visually striking, making sure that every light, shadow, and reflection had a clear narrative purpose. I used strategic lighting to guide the viewer’s eye toward the characters, creating depth and reinforcing the drama of the scene. The blue and magenta neon lights in the background enhance the cyberpunk feel, adding a dynamic contrast against the warmer tones of the characters.

After exporting the final animation as an EXR sequence with multiple AOVs to control each light group, I did the compositing in Nuke, where I refined the Spider-Verse look.

I added halftone dots in the brighter areas and hatching lines in the shadows, leaving some negative space between them to let the image breathe. These effects only apply to skin and clothing, without affecting hair, eyes, or teeth.

I also introduced a subtle 2D outline, closer to the comic book aesthetic.

Final touches included color correction, chromatic aberration, cinematic noise, and some 2D VFX to avoid relying on motion blur for fast motion.