Overwatch player discovers secret about how highlight intros are made

An Overwatch player has discovered the secret behind how highlight intros are really made after finding a new perspective on Mei’s ‘Frosty :)’ intro.

Reddit user Owlero came across a frame in Mei’s highlight intro that gives a whole new look at what’s really going on, and offers some insight into how the intros are made.

Highlight intros change their background to whatever map they are featured on, and it might be easy to assume – especially for the more extravagant intros – that Blizzard have simply created a series of animations outside of the game that are played when appropriate.

Instead, to accomplish this it seems that Blizzard actually use the in-game maps and models to produce the intros, placing the characters within the map themselves and having them perform the intro, like actors on a set, with the camera placed so as to capture the desired effect.

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What this means, however, is that when you get a look from a different camera angle at how those shots are really captured, things don’t always look quite so polished. The behind-the-scenes view of Mei’s ‘Frosty :)’, for instance, reveals the bizarre floating window on which she’s drawing.

This isn’t the only time fans have gotten a peak behind the curtain at how the animations and models in-game are actually made. For instance, the various ‘R.I.P.’ victory poses, which see heroes breaking out from beneath a gravestone, do actually have the full character model beneath them, often in some rather awkward poses to make the visible side look right.

Curious fans can even see how the animation itself for Mei’s ‘Frosty :)’ intro was done, with animator David Gibson chronicling his work and showing off the process in a sped-up video. This is the first time, however, that fans have seen how the intro is actually manifested in-game.

It’s not clear yet whether these kinds of alternative angles can be found for other heroes, although there are certainly plenty that would be interesting to see from a new perspective.