ART DIRECTING VFX

VFX IS ALL ABOUT TEXTURES & TIMINGS

It’s carried on the back of our painting skills, & our understanding of contrast in time & space.

Timing & textures both follow the rules of 1,2,3: Primary, Secondary & Tertiary read. By breaking our designs down in this way, we can both deliver for all stages of the pipeline (MVP, Polish etc) & deliver high quality designs that understand the principles of contrast, emphasis & visual communication.

IT’S ALSO ABOUT COMMUNICATION

What do our colors consistently represent about gameplay & storytelling? What are we communicating to the players, & how will the vfx be viewed? A 2D platformer’s VFX is executed on very differently than a 3D RPG.

I like to think of this in the realm of dance.. What angle is your dance being viewed at? From some angles a great move is unreadable. It’s all about knowing where your players & audiences are at.

VFX is beautiful because it’s interconnected, like every other part of the game. It informs gameplay, & vice versa. All things in a game must play together, there can be no 1 driver dictating how the game should play from top down. Nothing exists in isolation.

& PERFORMANCE!

Are we using CPU or GPU particles? How are we re-using materials? Are we thinking modularly? Are we aware of transparency overdraw? Maybe relying on old school solutions like dithering because our style doesn’t need the best & the newest tech?

There are many considerations when it comes to performance, I endeavor to understand & learn from my IC’s as much as possible so that I can avoid decisions that will impact our game negatively down the line.

Art ALWAYS needs to account for game performance.. A beautiful game that runs at 15 FPS is not a beautiful game in my opinion.