Author: Mustafe Ahmed

Production gave way to presentation throughout the last stage of development. Given that Checkmate will be exhibited in public, the project’s tone, style, and professionalism must be reflected in the promotional materials and exhibition assets. This is a new challenge as promotion is something that has not been accomplished in a previous project. In order to convey the project’s themes, psychological intensity, strategy, and the internal conflict of a grandmaster, this step required creating a unified visual identity.

Visual Marketing & Promotion

hired an artist to create several advertising items that convey tone, style, and atmosphere in order to boost Checkmate’s visibility:

Poster Designs: To capture the dramatic, psychological tone of the project, high-contrast character renderings produced from Maya and Unreal Engine were turned into poster compositions.

Business Cards: To help viewers and prospective employers remember the work, custom cards with clean branding and a distinctive chess-themed visual identity were made for the exhibition.

using social media to track development to keep up momentum and professional engagement:

Updates on LinkedIn: Screenshots of animation testing, camera angles, lighting, and production innovations were frequently shared from Maya and Unreal.

Highlights of development: Viewport provides visitors with a glimpse into the creative process by tracking progress from previs to near-final renders.

In addition to creating a portfolio presence that supports opportunities after graduation, this stage helped create anticipation for the finished animation.

Using Unreal Engine 5’s Movie Render Queue, an established rendering process was created to get Checkmate ready for high-quality output. The objective was to produce a sturdy final image fit for post-production and portfolio use, with clear outlines and silhouettes.

Deferred Rendering was used for its higher-quality lighting, shadows, and post-processing compatibility.

Provided more accurate shading for the stylised look

Ensured better contrast for outlines

PNG image sequence was chosen instead of a video output.

• Allows lossless frames
• Easier to fix minor issues in post without re-rendering entire shots

Anti-aliasing settings were increased to remove jagged edges on silhouettes, especially around hair, clothing, and chess pieces.

• Utilised higher sample counts in the Movie Render Queue
• Reduced flickering during fast camera movements

Hardware Rendering:
All frames were rendered on a personal workstation. This required careful management of scene complexity, render resolution, and output batching to prevent GPU overhead and maintain predictable render times. However, this came at a cost of quality in the image sequence. Improvements can be made in the editing process.

Getting Sequencer’s Animations to Work

Converting Maya animations into Unreal Engine 5 presented a number of difficulties throughout production. UE5’s Sequencer became the main tool for putting together shots once the rigging problems were fixed and clean animation FBXs were imported.

• Organising animation clips into the correct shot “containers” inside the master level.
• Ensuring animation assets were bound to the correct skeletal mesh (a recurring issue when meshes and animations originated from different files).
• Manually adjusting start and end frames to prevent multiple clips from playing simultaneously at the same level.
• Using separate sub-sequences and shot-specific tracks to maintain control over timing, transitions, and character poses.

Cameras in UE5 played a major role in shaping the film’s tone and storytelling. The process involved:

• Creating CineCameraActors for each shot, using real cinematography principles such as depth of field, focal length changes, and controlled camera movement.
• Animating cameras directly inside Sequencer using transform keyframes, easing curves, and anchor points for smooth movement.
• Building dynamic movement for dramatic chess moments, slow push-ins, orbit shots, and tracking the character’s emotional beats.

Key Technical Issues

• Skin clipping through the shirt (especially shoulders and upper arms)
• Deformations increase when transferred from Maya to UE5
• Clothing not following the body correctly due to weight inconsistencies
• Missing or broken materials during import

When exporting animation from Maya to Unreal Engine 5, I frequently encountered problems with the Ramon rig during production. The character’s attire presented the largest difficulty since the body and shirt meshes have different weight behaviours despite being skinned to the same skeleton.

Importing the entire character rig with every layer of clothing into UE5 presented another significant issue. Sometimes the full mesh chain body, shirt, pants, and accessories arrived with faulty mesh binding, missing materials, or damaged texturing. Because the rig was nested inside a referred group at one point, UE5 was unable to identify the proper skeleton hierarchy.

which resulted in clothing stretching or detaching. The answer was to manually choose the necessary components of the hierarchy and export them as separate FBX files after experimenting with various export settings and troubleshooting tips. This preserved the proper weights and made sure that each piece of clothing joined cleanly to the skeleton once inside UE5.

Fixes Implemented

• Manually exporting mesh parts separately (body, clothing, accessories)
• Selecting the correct nodes in the rig hierarchy before exporting
• Rebinding clothing to the skeleton where necessary
• Testing animations in UE5 progressively instead of exporting everything at once
• Adjusting deformation curves in Maya to reduce clipping in key poses

Refining the character animation in Maya, with a focus on realistic movement, was a significant part of the Checkmate project. The animation had to convey emotional weight, accuracy, and internal strife because the project revolves around a single protagonist. The workflow mostly depended on reference material to accomplish this.

Self-Recorded Facial Reference Utilisation

Facial expression was crucial for the close-up shots, particularly when the protagonist is concentrating, hesitating and finally frustrated. Micro-expressions as eye darts, minor jaw tension, and breathing shifts, were studied using self-recorded video references. In order to better comprehend timing and physical intention, animators frequently act out scenes themselves. This method is in line with traditional animation techniques.

Using Live-Action and Stunt Movement References to Understand Body Mechanics

Stunt references were employed for full-body animation, particularly during intense motion or dramatic posture. Understanding balance, timing, and weight transfers was made possible by observing skilled performers. This was particularly crucial for scenes where the protagonist’s movement becomes more symbolic and dynamic, such as when he takes heavy steps, adopts grounded positions, or braces his body intensely.

Influence From Avatar: The Last Airbender — Especially Earthbending

With an emphasis on earthbending animations, Avatar: The Last Airbender provided a significant artistic influence for the animation. Earthbending is renowned for:

Heavy postures
Low gravitational centre
Intentional, grounded body language

Several important positions that emphasise steadiness, intention, and the importance of mental warfare were influenced by earthbending.

The concept of mental strength, represented physically, formed a foundation for the character animation, even though Checkmate is not a martial arts story.

Create a distinctive visual identity for Checkmate by utilising controlled lighting, unique shading, and a post-process outlining system influenced by the aesthetics of graphic novels and anime.

Created an outline effect using a Post Process Material that detects depth and normal differences. This produced controlled ink-like edges around the character and chess pieces, supporting the project’s stylised tone.

To manage the animation efficiently, the artist structured the Unreal Engine 5 project utilising huge box “shot containers” inside a single level.
Every box served as a specific location for a single shot, complete with camera, lighting, and animation elements.

Industry Background Research

While many studios employ distinct levels or sub-levels for intricate cinematic pipelines, it is also acceptable to use several shot “zones” inside a single level, particularly in:

small groups

Independent and student productions

early-phase previs

projects that prioritise animation refinement above significant environment transitions

In order to minimise memory duplication and facilitate Sequencer management, Epic Games’ documentation also enables working in a single persistent level for sequences where the scenes share the majority of the assets.

Using Blender to model the chess pieces to produce original images. wanting them to convey a feeling heavy, metaphorical, and larger than life. inspired by Roman and Greek architecture.

The stone work was the main interest; however, I was interested in applying some curvature to the pieces

In Blender, I also created a straightforward, striking, and evocative cinematic intro

Outlining the main piece, which only the camera can capture, straightforward regulated lighting to complement the later UE5 design, Motion inspired by physics for floating or drifting objects, and blocking basic camera animation for a dramatic reveal.

Blender was used to create a stylised opening sequence that represents the protagonist’s psychological decline in order to set the thematic tone of Checkmate.

The crew went over previs content made for an earlier module in the early phases of production. This choice was initially made to save time, but it also exposed a basic problem: the original story, which focused on a grandmaster and a budding prodigy, was too grandiose for the project’s timeline. Dual-character dynamics, complex body mechanics, and a back-and-forth structure that required a lot of animation effort were key components of the early design.

It became evident throughout pre-production that trying to completely develop both characters would not give them the depth they deserved. This is shown in between my previs, which shows both characters exchanging what would be dialogue to just a monologue in my storyboard with the main protagonist.

a more unified emotional journey that highlights the grandmaster’s obsession, perfectionism. fewer shots, enabling more focus on performance, timing, and staging. Better animation quality since more time could be spent on polish and subtlety rather than character juggling.

During this time, stylistic experiments from previous personal work could also be revisited. Checkmate’s visual identity was shaped via tests in cel-shading, outline rendering, and stylised lighting, which helped establish the project’s tone and feel. The plot acquired clarity and artistic direction despite being shorter, turning constraints into a deliberate creative decision.

I took a difficult decision when I started my final year project: despite having only approximately six months of practice and minimal experience, I would challenge myself with character animation. Animation has always been my weakness, even though the majority of my previous work focused on environments, composition, and experimental shader work.

Checkmate’s objective became evident: produce a cinematic short with stylised images, compelling narration, and emotionally based character animation.

Inspirations included:

Oppenheimer for visual storytelling

Death Note and its psychological tension

Arcane for its lighting and stylisation

Sports for character development and stories

High-level chess tournament aesthetics

Right from day one, the magnitude of the project was felt. But also felt excitement. This was the project that would push to grow, technically and artistically.