The Power of Stripping Things Down

I’ve always believed that the best way to understand lighting is to remove everything unnecessary and start from scratch. This principle applies equally to game design, where AdHoc Studio’s recent anniversary update for Dispatch demonstrates something photographers should pay close attention to: sometimes the rough draft tells you more than the finished product.

Their new Storyboard Mode does something unconventional—it lets players experience the entire game through its original animatic sketches. These aren’t polished renders or final assets. They’re rough, intentional, and brutally honest about what the designers actually needed to communicate visually.

Why Rough Sketches Matter More Than You’d Think

When I’m planning a studio shoot, I don’t start with final lighting setups. I sketch. I block out where shadows should fall, which surfaces need to catch light, where the viewer’s eye should travel first. The rough version keeps me honest about intention versus decoration.

The storyboard animatic approach mirrors this perfectly. Without fancy animations, color grading, or elaborate effects, you’re left with pure composition, timing, and spatial relationships. Every element earns its place because nothing is there to distract.

For studio photographers, this translates directly: before you add rim lights, catch lights, and fill bounce, understand your core composition. Can your pose and primary key light tell the story? If not, no amount of gear will fix it.

Commentary Mode: The Director’s Insight

The update also includes Commentary Mode, which I find genuinely valuable. Having the creators explain their choices is like watching a master photographer walk through their lighting decisions frame by frame.

This is something we should be doing more in photography education. Not just showing the final image, but explaining why the key was positioned at 45 degrees, why fill was set to 25% power, why the subject was posed with weight shifted left. The reasoning matters more than the recipe.

Applying This to Your Studio Practice

Here’s my challenge to anyone reading this: recreate one of your recent shoots using only your key light and reflector. No fill flash, no hair lights, no background lights. Then add elements back deliberately, justifying each decision like you’re adding a line to a storyboard.

You’ll find that rough animatic approach reveals what’s actually essential to your storytelling. Everything else is flourish—and sometimes flourish works. But only when you understand what you’re embellishing.

The best visual storytellers—whether animating games or posing subjects—know their fundamentals so thoroughly they can strip them down and rebuild intentionally. That’s what AdHoc Studio is demonstrating, and it’s a principle worth stealing for your studio practice.