Ubisoft / Heroes of Might and Magic III: Remake Cinematics

It all started with a passion project. Back in 2022, our Cinematic Director Radim "Hurricane" Zeifart rebuilt the iconic Castle city from Heroes III in 3D just to see what it could look like through a modern visual lens. That fan video caught the attention of Ubisoft’s Creative Director, sparking a conversation that eventually led to a 14-month production journey.

The result was ten narrative CGI scenes totaling nearly four minutes, designed to serve as the narrative backbone for the Restoration of Erathia campaign by reimagining 1990s cult lore for a modern audience.

Recreating 90s lore in realistic 3D without losing its original soul is a creative puzzle. We initially shot live-action reference footage with a real actress, but when that direction didn't click, we pivoted fast. After dozens of face concepts and 3D iterations, we built Queen Catherine’s final look completely from scratch, landing on a design both Ubisoft and our team loved.

To make a dark fantasy world feel tangible and alive, we focused heavily on physical optical behavior. Instead of relying on raw 3D outputs, our CEO and Lead Compositor Marek Stolun built a custom compositing pipeline in NukeX to replicate the subtle imperfections of real vintage Canon lenses.

By hand-crafting organic chromatic aberration, bloom, lens flares, and tactile color grading, we stripped away the typical digital sterility of CGI. Every scene was built to feel like real film rather than a synthetic render.

Beyond main characters, we designed and built key story-driven assets from scratch. From the intricate detailing on the Lich's crown to magical artifacts, weapon hilts, and subtle environmental props like cobwebs and poison vials.

Every asset went through high-poly sculpting, custom texturing, and realistic lookdev to ensure it held up under extreme macro close-ups. Even when objects were onscreen for just a few frames, we built them with full AAA cinematic fidelity to support the narrative weight of the scene.

Managing a 14-month project with Ubisoft’s Chengdu team turned the 7-hour time difference into an asset, with fresh renders uploaded overnight for morning client reviews.

To support this fast-paced loop, we built an agile pipeline mixing Blender, ZBrush, Houdini, and Unreal Engine MetaHuman tools. When standard setups hit limits, we adapted on the fly using manual Blender shape keys for custom faces, procedural Houdini setups for armor erosion, and motion capture retargeting for crowd scenes.

The reveal trailer premiered globally during Gamescom Opening Night Live, instantly placing the game among the top five most-hyped titles of the show and driving massive wishlist numbers. For our Prague studio, it was another leap toward the world’s top cinematic creators.

It proved that a lean team from Prague can go toe-to-toe with global giants through pure agility, creative grit, and relentless problem-solving. With Ubisoft planning to drop more of our cinematic sequences through the end of the year ahead of the 2027 game launch, this project stands as proof that we deliver AAA quality with absolute dedication.