Spirit Halloween 2025 In-Store Holofan Character Loop

The final video brought Jack the Reaper, Mutant Sewer Rat, and the Twitching Banshee together into one continuous piece. Across the three vignettes, the Groove Jones team handled the character work, animation, rigging, look development, cables and effects, lighting, rendering, compositing, and final assembly. The video below shows the complete approved loop as it shipped. The audio in this version was added outside of Groove Jones and was not part of the production work.

I started blocking the shot with a temporary rat while the final Mutant Sewer Rat model was still being finished.

Once the approved character was ready, I built the production rig around what the performance needed, adding the controls, IK, blink setup, corrective skinning, and deformation support for the body, feet, neck, and clothing.

For the animation, I collected rat footage, tracked reference clips, and recorded performance reference to work out the movement and timing.

After I had a good idea of what the animation would be, I took the Rat from blocking through final polish, then animated the eyes and the smaller rats around him, including the sharper direction changes in their runs. I also handled the brief skeleton reveal that appears during the final performance.

Across all three vignettes, I built the shared procedural cable system, including the layout, color and material treatment, transition states, and the animation needed to keep the shots connected. I updated Jack’s cables around his hand interaction and animated the Banshee’s cable growth, regrowth, and final bounce.

I also built the electric VFX setups used across the three character shots and their transitions, including the Rat electrocution, Jack’s electricity, and the Banshee electric treatment. For Jack, I also built the EmberGen smoke simulation before handing the effects downstream for final rendering and compositing.

The fan changed what worked. Dark cables and hair could disappear because of its black levels, while very fast motion and electrical effects could break up because of the display refresh. Character framing, cable color, effect speed, transitions, and fades had to be judged on the physical hardware, not only in Blender.

The three independently animated performances also had to connect as one continuous loop. Cable states and effects had to line up between shots, including the final Banshee-to-Jack return.

Other team members animated the Jack Reaper and Twitching Banshee character performances and created substantial character models and textures. Final shading, grooming, lighting, render integration, color, compositing, and loop assembly were handled downstream, along with additional spark and transition finishing. I owned the Mutant Sewer Rat rig and animation, the small rats, the shared cable system, and the electric VFX setups, plus the Jack smoke simulation.

The final three-character loop was reviewed on the physical holofan, iterated against the hardware, and approved.