For the GEARS 5 DLC expansion “Hivebusters” I was tasked to help bring our hummingbird inspired Predator to life. One issue was our design required the creature be able to hover, so making such a large creature look like it was believably hovering was difficult.
A lot of experimentation went into the best way to effectively fake the motion-blur created by wings moving at such high speed.
The end solution, however, was quite simple. Large figure-eight translucent cards attached to each wing, with a scrolling pre-blurred texture. More information on how this effect was achieved (and some of the experiments that ended up not working out)
Gears 5 Hivebusters: Predator Wing Effect Dev Log
(Special shout outs to the amazing character, animators, and vfx teams involved in bringing this amazing creature to life.)