Client: Warner Bros Games (via CRAFTSMAN+)
Role: Lead Designer — built ads in Unreal Engine 5, concept through Blueprint logic to final delivery
Dates: November 2025–June 2026. Three ads shipped over 4–6 months, a fourth in progress.
Format: Four sizes per spot — 1920×1080, 1080×1920, 1080×1920 (TikTok), 1080×1080
Tools: Unreal Engine 5 (Sequencer, Blueprints), animated game assets, environment pipeline
Status: Live — iOS App Store and Google Play
The setup
Warner Bros used paid-media performance as a build signal while the game was still in development. A flying-based ad that performed well pushed the game toward flying mechanics. A tower-defense ad that performed well pushed it toward tower defense. Ad performance drove the roadmap instead of following it.
Reference creative came from proven top performers in adjacent titles, most notably King Shot, rebuilt as Dragonfire versions using the IP’s own assets. The ads had to look and feel like a finished game while the game itself was still being designed. It has since launched, so this loop played out for real.
What I did
I reviewed the reference material (King Shot ads and similar top performers) and rebuilt the same ad concepts in Unreal Engine 5, using Dragonfire’s existing game assets: animated soldiers, dragons, environment elements.
Assembling the shot in Sequencer — timeline, camera work, pacing — was the familiar part. The Blueprint logic was not. Instead of keyframing a character from point A to point B, I built point-and-shoot logic, aim-offset systems, and other reusable mechanics so animations resolve on their own. Setting up a ballista to track and target a giant stopped being a manual keyframing job. It became a system I configure once and trigger in Sequencer.
“I had to take off my motion designer hat and put on a game-developer hat.”
Results
Three ads delivered in 4–6 months. A fourth is in progress, with a fifth likely after that. Warner Bros keeps commissioning the same format from the same two-person pipeline while the engagement is active. That’s the clearest signal available that the work is landing.
The game is live on iOS and Google Play. The ad-into-roadmap loop this case study describes already shipped into a real product.
What I learned
Motion-to-Blueprint translation changes how I plan a shot. Work I’d have hand-keyframed before is faster and reusable once it’s set up as logic instead of animation.
Building inside the production engine cuts the handoff entirely. There’s no move from animation tool to engine, because the engine is the animation tool.
Performance creative for a product that didn’t exist yet is its own discipline. The brief carries more weight than usual, because I’m not advertising a game. I’m helping find one.