Title: Iron Man Land & Fire Animation
Work: Hollywood Animation Academy
Application(s): Autodesk Maya 2024, Unreal Engine 5
Created: September 2024

For our first assignment of the 2024 school semester, I was tasked with a simple land and fire animation for Iron Man from Marvel Comics. The animation would later be rendered in Unreal Engine 5 to add VFX and even better lighting to the scene, but the main challenge was nailing the timing – if there’s one assignment that taught me the idea that “character leads camera” and not the other way around, it would definitely be this one. Another challenge was trying to hit the right balance between robotic movement and fluidity – there is a man under all of that armor after all, so keeping things totally stiff wouldn’t work for Iron Man. Eventually, I found the balance and timing I needed to pull the animation together, and I am happy with the results!