'Hero Dad', one of the first real-time animation series with Unity, is produced in Valencia

The 3D animation series, which uses the Unity video game engine, is directed by Maxi Valero and Nathalie Martínez and is produced at Wise Blue Studios, Paterna, in co-production with À Punt Mèdia.

Valencia is experiencing a pioneering success story of what, clearly, is the trend in the immediate future towards an even greater confluence and transversality of the animation and video game sectors and their respective technologies. Wise Blue Studios, in Paterna, in co-production with At the Middle Point and with the collaboration of the Institut Valencià de Cultura IVC, is carrying out the production of Hero Dad, one of the first animated series to use the video game engine Unity.

The series represents a technical challenge as it is one of the first series in the world to be produced with the Unity engine, which allows 4K rendering in real time, completely innovating the traditional computer animation workflow. The technical and artistic team at Wise Blue Studios has invested considerable effort in R&D&I to implement this technology from the video game industry, and unite the best of both worlds.

Hero Dad It brings us closer to the life of a father who, when he comes home from work, takes care of his 3-year-old daughter by dressing up as a superhero with a swimsuit, kitchen gloves and wellies. The animated series, conceived for preschoolers between 2 and 6 years old, tells through comedy the adventures of this homemade superhero, somewhat clumsy, whom his daughter always ends up rescuing, thus learning for herself the moral of each episode.

This 3D animated series, whose first season consists of 26 5-minute episodes, is directed by Maxi Valero and Nathalie Martínez.

Efficiency and artistic results

According to comments David Martinez, Look Dev supervisor of the series, or in other words, responsible for the final image of the same, "the biggest challenge has been to achieve a style specific to an animated series for children, with gradient tones, soft shadows, diffuse lights, and to separate this type of image from what we are usually used to seeing on the screen of a video game." The team, also headed by the art director Pablo Martín (Pablín Dibujín), feels very satisfied with the result and confirms having found the formula to extract the best from this new work system, “both in efficiency and artistic results,” adds the production manager of the series. Juan Calabuig.

"Hero Dad is an innovative series, from a technological point of view that allows us versatility and efficiency that has not existed to date. But it is also an innovative series in the very conception of the theme," says Maxi Valero, director and creator of the original story. Nathalie Martínez, co-director and producer of the series, adds that “in the end, technology is a vehicle that is at the service of the story, and in this series it helps us focus on the life of a single-parent family in which the father takes care of the daughter and both work together to solve the small daily learning that each boy and girl experience in their daily lives.”

"The series is very solid in its theoretical approach, but above all it is fun. We do not lose sight of the fact that children, especially at these ages, learn by having fun. We have based the didactics of the series on Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences, which are reflected in the daily tribulations of this family from adventure and comedy," continues Maxi Valero. Furthermore, the series, by normalizing the figure of the father as the caregiver of his daughter, explains Nathalie Martínez that "it transmits an integrative message to children by reflecting, from the very heart of the series, both the family diversity of our current society, as well as the evolution and equality of male and female roles in contemporary families."

https://vimeo.com/334999441