What technical abilities do you attribute along with your success?

I’m seeking to make a profession swap from 2D artwork and animation into VFX as a result of the potential for progress is far increased than my present position.
I’m nonetheless studying the ropes in Unreal, although I’ve been utilizing Unity for the big a part of my recreation dev profession. I don’t suppose i’ll have the ability to make leaps on simply my understanding of Niagara, Shuriken, and Shaders/Supplies although.

I’d prefer to ask (particularly to the massive earners) – what technical abilities did you develop to entry increased pay tiers and what may you encourage somebody to give attention to early for greater returns later down the road?

I admire any response, thanks ya’ll!

I won’t be the right particular person to reply this as I received a bit totally different motivation for VFX, however from what I’ve seen round VFX artwork is about sure abilities:

• Most of our time is in engine: Niagara, Shuriken, Supplies/Shaders
• A while on asset creation: Photoshop, Designer, Blender and so on.
• A while on simulations/VAT: Houdini, Embergen and so on.

In lots of instances it’s effectively paid specialization afterall, I imagine it’s extra about high quality of results you make slightly than which instruments you selected (tho imo it depends upon so many components that it’s exhausting to foretell)

Hey Manus, you’re very energetic on the discussion board, and I admire your breakdown. I figured I’d must dig into simulation stuff in the end – which is seeming extra before later – however good level concerning the high quality of vfx being one of the vital essential figuring out components.

Does something come to your thoughts round sources to assist me be taught Unreal VFX? There’s a spot in what i’ve discovered between foundational/generic stuff and extra technical issues (which I can’t title trigger I don’t know)

Enormous a part of VFX are methods (so totally different approaches of fixing a particular drawback), to be taught them you mainly simply must create number of results and watch folks use totally different methods.

I’m undecided what’s your expertise proper now, tho if you’re nonetheless extra on newbie degree, then I might counsel following by way of results of CGHow: CGHOW – YouTube. They’re nice to be taught fundamentals and getting good understanding of Niagara.

Tharlev received tons of superior movies on many vfx/tech artwork subjects: tharlevfx – YouTube

There you will get many high quality of life ideas from Partikel: Andreas Glad – YouTube

If you wish to be taught extra superior results or higher work pipeline I counsel testing Simon’s results: https://simont.artstation.com.
It’s an incredible place to be taught, he received breakdowns of all these results + Unreal mission information so you may obtain them and tinker round. It’s really prime quality!
Other than that there are tons of proficient folks on this group, so learn by way of boards, possibly watch supplies about VFX, like talks on GDC: Can We Do It with Particles?: VFX Learnings from ‘Returnal’ – YouTube
And what’s most essential, benefit from the course of VFX are quite a lot of enjoyable!

Ah, legend!

Thanks a lot for all of the hyperlinks and sources. I’ve solely discovered a number of of those sources by myself, so this helps a bunch

This has given me extra to dig by way of. I don’t know precisely the place i’d sit on the competence scale with VFX, however there’s quite a lot of basic issues i’m sure i’m lacking.

I’d say crucial basic is simply studying the ins and outs of your particle editor. Studying all of the little tips and quirks you should use to make a novel impact. Past that you just’ll desire a stable grasp of animation and timing, as a result of that’s actually going to be the principle figuring out think about how an impact feels to the participant. With good timing you can also make any impact really feel good with even the only of supplies.

What you actually need to do is examine your contemporaries- see what different video games are doing to attempt to recreate it your self. Fashionable Warfare 2019 gained an award for its VFX and it did nothing too technically fancy- no volumetric simulations or advanced materials- simply quite a lot of very effectively constructed particle methods and flipbook textures.

Thanks for the heads up – I’ve been pondering this actual factor. Recreating fx definitely ought to assist scale back the workload required for the reason that design and timing of the impact is already set.