Creating rough 3D animatic (Pre-visualization) for trailers

Creation of Rough 3D Pre-visualization and Animatic

Pre-visualization — rough 3D render of video with proxy geometry, basic animations and positioned cameras. Not final quality — "sufficient quality for decision making". Previz exists exactly for this: so director, producer and client see video in motion, with time code and rhythm, before team spends months on final production.

In game development previz is especially important for trailers and cutscenes with non-trivial requirements: complex camera movements, large character count in frame, VFX effects in composition.

What previz consists of

Proxy geometry. Characters — basic meshes or capsule/box placeholders with correct proportions. Environment — blockout from primitives. Goal not beauty, but exact dimensions and proportions: so camera sees characters correctly, so distances between objects match final scene.

If game assets already exist — use them directly in previz scene. This speeds process and gives more accurate result. But for new project at pre-production stage when assets don't exist yet — proxy geometry is mandatory.

Basic animations. Not polished keyframes — rough animations sufficient to understand movement and timing. For characters often use mocap data from free libraries (Mixamo) or game animation placeholders. Task — show character walks, runs, attacks, reacts — without final polish.

Cameras. Most important previz part. Each angle created in Cinemachine (or equivalent in engine/3D package) with correct FOV, movement, transition timing. Cameras in previz are most detailed — they determine final edit rhythm of video.

Audio substrate. Rough music track or sound design. Without audio impossible to evaluate edit rhythm — proven many times: same video with music feels completely different than without. For previz any mood-appropriate track from Creative Commons libraries works.

Tools and pipeline

In Unity: scene with proxy assets, Timeline for camera and animation management, Cinemachine Virtual Cameras, render through Unity Recorder to ProRes or H.264. This is full in-engine previz — cameras and animations later reused in final production scene.

In 3ds Max / Maya / Blender: separate previz scene with own pipeline, render through Eevee (Blender) or Viewport 2.0 (Maya) for speed. Faster for standalone trailers rendered off-engine.

For fast camera movement previz — MotionBuilder or even standard Unreal Engine Sequencer cameras (excellent previz tool in real-time).

What's agreed at previz stage

Previz — point of key decision making. List of what must be agreed:

• Number and timing of cameras (how many cuts, what pace)
• Movement type of each camera (static / dolly / handheld)
• Overall video duration
• Key beat points: where peak action, where reveal, where final frame
• Previz correspondence to storyboard — if storyboard was made earlier

Everything not agreed at previz is agreed at final production — but it costs 5–10 times more.

Iteration and production transfer

After first previz screening team makes adjustments: reposition cameras, change timing, remove frame, add new angle. This is fast and cheap — proxy animations and rough cameras fixed in hours, not weeks.

After approval previz becomes production bible for video: animators work by previz time codes, technical director knows where VFX effects needed, light artist sees where light should fall in key frames.

In in-engine production Unity Timeline with Cinemachine from previz transfers to production scene: cameras stay same, animations replaced with final ones. This saves time — no need to reposition cameras.

Cost is determined by duration, scene complexity, and number of agreement iterations.