Autodesk Media & Entertainment
When Alexandre Lerouge and his team took on the “No One Rivals Doom” cinematic trailer for Marvel Rivals, they knew they had to think outside the box. Marvel Rivals, an action-packed game where iconic heroes and villains face off in epic battles, demanded a visual style that was as bold and dynamic as its gameplay. The goal was to create a toon style that broke away from the usual Japanese anime look.
Lerouge, an FX artist and TD at Unit Image since 2021, saw the solution in the creative use of custom shaders in Autodesk Arnold that brought a fresh, stylized rendering to life. This innovative approach was key to capturing the epic world and characters of Marvel Rivals, proving that no one rivals their legendary artistry.
Custom shading made easy with Arnold
“I knew Arnold had a lot when it comes to C++ shading, so I asked my boss to give me a week,” says Lerouge. “I had a basic stylized shader in 24 hours.” Despite limited experience with C++, Lerouge found he could easily create custom shaders with Arnold.
“My favorite feature is the API because it enabled us to do exactly what we wanted,” Lerouge says. “We wanted the lighting to be like that of a normal project but stylized immediately within the render.”
That’s where Arnold’s path-tracing engine came into play. “We were able to do our stylization everywhere, including in reflections,” he says. “All the shading lies directly inside the world. We just plugged everything into the engine, and Arnold carried out the results.”
No one on his team had any experience with Arnold, but that wasn’t an issue for Lerouge. Arnold had an easy learning curve and fit perfectly into Unit Image’s existing workflow.
“We used Autodesk 3ds Max for creating assets, environments, and ultimately assembling the whole scene with lighting and rendering. Maya was used for animation, and Nuke for compositing,” Lerouge explains. By using Arnold with Houdini, they were able to apply the same shaders for their FX work, ensuring an identical look. “Arnold ensures your code works in all those programs, which is helpful for me.”
The role of shader writers in stylized rendering projects
Stylized projects can be challenging for 3D artists who tend to work on realistic projects, says Lerouge. His job was to provide artists with tools to explore and exceed their creative boundaries. To achieve the stylized look for the trailer, the team adapted their approach using Arnold and 3ds Max – normally using V-Ray for realistic projects.
“Render engines have become more realistic and less open to stylization compared to the past when artists could do whatever they wanted,” Lerouge observes. “The shader writer is responsible for saying, ‘I’m going to break open the door from the render engine and do whatever we want.’”
The Unit Image team was given very specific guidelines for the project, so Lerouge had to communicate closely with the client to convey their vision. Although Arnold’s imagers weren’t used in the final project, Lerouge used them during production to guide his artists.
“With imagers, I was able to give a pre-compositing look to the artist,” he explains. “Imagers stylize the 2D image while rendering to get all the features that may not be in the compositing.”
As the only shader writer on his team, Lerouge had to balance giving artists everything they needed without overwhelming them. “When you have many parameters, people get lost,” he says. “When I give an artist a shader, they only have what they need so that they can have fun.”
Scripting capabilities to save the day
Writing shaders was just the beginning for Lerouge. Perfecting the style in the “No One Rivals Doom” trailer required ongoing collaboration with his team.
“The hardest part was updating the shaders without breaking everything because there were hundreds of shaders inside the environment,” Lerouge says.
Fortunately, thanks to Arnold’s API, his artists didn’t have to worry about technical disruptions. “I was able to deploy scripts if we needed to replace a shader or fix a connection,” Lerouge explains. “That’s the cool thing about scripting: you can still help the artist in many meaningful ways.”
Working on an established franchise was also beneficial since the client provided all the character models. Still, ensuring consistent stylization was a challenge. “When you think of Iron Man, it’s easy because he’s a guy in armor,” says Lerouge. “When considering a raccoon, you must think about how its fur works. But the client had already answered this. We just had to find a way to make it react nicely and feel fluffy. We were having fun with the color and how the textures work.”
The Future of Stylization at Unit Image
Lerouge credits the rendering software with saving his team time and making their workflow stronger. “We would not have been able to do this project without Arnold,” says Lerouge. “For stylized projects, we always use Arnold now—we don’t even discuss it.”
Looking ahead, his next project will use Universal Scene Description (USD) with Arnold, enabling nondestructive workflows in Maya, 3ds Max, Houdini, and other 3D tools. “We are well aware that USD is the industry’s future, so for our next project, we’re doing all our work inside USD,” he says.
By fully exploiting Arnold’s rendering capabilities, Lerouge knows his team can continue delivering their highest quality work faster and more efficiently with fewer technical limitations. “All the shaders in the trailer are custom-made,” Lerouge says. “We gave value to the client by creating a custom style for them. We didn’t just use the basic tools; Arnold allowed us to go further.”
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