Selected Project
Final Fantasy XIV:
Dawntrail Campaign
There's a specific kind of discipline required to make motion graphics feel vintage without feeling cheap. For Square Enix's Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail campaign — a full-scale 1950s adventure travelogue starring Rhys Darby — I handled compositing, VFX, logo animation, and lower thirds across four of the Messages from the Board hero videos. The goal was a fictional travel board that felt like it had existed for seventy years. Working with the We Are Royale team to get there was one of the better times I've had on a project.
Campaign
Rollout
Welcome
to Tural
The first film establishes the language of the campaign: part travel board, part tourism reel, part warning sign. It introduces the fictional institution behind the series, locks in the tone of the world, and plants the first hint that this beautiful destination might not be entirely safe. Everything that follows is built on what this one promises.
Rules of
the Road
The second chapter leans harder into the danger. More locations, stranger restrictions, a growing sense that this world operates by its own logic — and that visitors who ignore it won't fare well. It was also an opportunity to push the graphic system further, expanding into more complex transitions, layered treatments, and visual storytelling devices that set the table for the finale.
When It All
Falls Apart
This is where the travel-board polish starts to crack. The danger becomes real, the chaos becomes visible, and the campaign earns everything it spent two films setting up. The heaviest compositing and VFX work in the series lives here — the explosive graphic moments, the transitions, the finish details that make the breakdown feel cinematic rather than cheap. This was the one I got to really dig into.
Good People,
Good Work
The team that built the world of Tural — caught mid-dailies, mid-laugh, mid-problem-solve. Good people make good work. This one had both.
Credits
Animator / Compositor — Nick Snyder
Client — Square Enix / Final Fantasy XIV
Studio — We Are Royale
Campaign — Dawntrail
Client — Square Enix / Final Fantasy XIV
Studio — We Are Royale
Campaign — Dawntrail