Overview | Technical Details | Bonus Overview This article does not contain a revolutionary discovery, but some observations about mirrors that may not be entirely obvious to people who never implemented them into a game. Sims 4 offers mirrors which actually work! For that, the game needs to render the room another time for each […]
This article was updated. Jump to Update 1. Introduction This article looks at how different types of shoes can affect game development and examines how games deal with this in practice. Before we dive in, let’s have a look what’s possible with high heels: Just in case I mess up the terminology, here is a […]
Hey sunshine! 🌞 I f*ckd up. This is how I originally planned this article: It should be short, contain 1-2 videos and express the following: “Look! In Infinity Nikki the character has a “real” shadow, but the developers fade it out while jumping to make space for a blob shadow (which helps to navigate while […]
This article was updated. Jump to Update 1. Update 2. I just noticed, that this window can not be seen through another window on the other side of the building: My guess: It’s an optimization to save some polygons. The back of the wall is most likely one huge quad (instead of at least four), […]
While playing Anno 1800, I noticed something which I’ve never noticed before in any other game (but to be fair, I don’t play too many city builders): The sun keeps a position relative to the camera and thus the shadows always fall from left to right: It almost looks like a time-lapse of a sun […]
This article was updated. Jump to Update 1. This post extends my Fallout 3 – Edges article. While the decal in Fallout “only” added detail to the surface but didn’t change the silhouette, we can see a beautiful breakup of the straight concrete wall in Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty: To me, this looks so good, […]
This is a talk I gave for the Toulouse Game Dev Master Class. I talk about my methods of discovering cool game art tricks (which I then document on this blog) by asking around, doing research, using mod tools or injecting into the rendering process with Intel GPA, RenderDoc or NVIDIA NSight. I hope that […]
This article was updated. Jump to Update 1. Update 2. Update 3. Update 4. Hey lovely people! I’m working on a small game and here are some techniques I used to create sprites and effects. Big Sprites I tried to use the most efficient workflow depending on the use case. The pixel art style allowed […]
Below, you can see a traffic light in GTA V at night. It has a nice glow. You might think this is nothing special but look at the scrollbar of this website. There is a lot to talk about! Get yourself a tea and then let’s go! Foreword First, we’ll talk about different solutions to […]
Three years ago, while playing Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, I noticed a nice little trick and tweeted about it – today is the day when I finally release it as an article. Do you guess, what’s this about? Correct answer: The terrain blends nicely with the stone! Let me explain it in more detail: Usually […]
This article was updated. Jump to Update 1. What can I say, I like water textures. You too? If so, let’s take a look at some water effects in Jedi: Fallen Order! If you want, you can jump to specific sections with this index: Splash • Impact • Drops • Bubbles • Waterfalls One day, […]
This article was updated. Jump to Update 1. Update 2. I’m not so much a Pokefan, but I saw this little burning pony and the VFX for the mane caught my attention in just a split second: Just to underline why I think this is a fascinating effect: Often, especially when using classic approaches (and […]
This article was updated. Jump to Update 1. This article is brought to by the year 2017. Back then, a very kind Madame J. (part of Larian Studios) was aware of my blog, saw that Divinity: Original Sins 2 was on my Steam wishlist and mentioned that to the team. Only a bit later, I […]
This article was updated. Jump to Update 4. Hey lovely people! I learned this little trick from a former co-worker and since I saw it the first time I just knew that I must-must-must make a little article about it! Glow So, I build a little Unreal demo scene (which you can download here) and […]
Foreword: Back to the roots! Some people might have noticed, that I didn’t create new “classic” articles lately. This has two reasons: First, my blog is the main reason why I have the privilege to work in VFX, giving talks and teaching classes. Unfortunately, the success of the blog makes me spend a lot of […]
I created this example project for a Tech Art Class I gave for SAE School Australia (but gave the class later also at Enjmin, Nord University, Howest & Vertex School). It is an extension of my previous project called “One Shader to Rule them All”. The basic idea of both projects: (Almost) all materials are […]
ℹ Cross-Post of my Twitter-Thread Here are some of my older VFX (2009/2017) & Breakdowns (also available on two artstation pages https://artstation.com/artwork/KOKkA4 & https://artstation.com/artwork/G8wJE1). Hope you like it or find it useful! Morphing two completely different meshes (Sphinx -> Stairs) was a challenge. I was lucky that everything needed only to be one bright color. […]
ℹ Cross-Post of my Twitter-Thread You may know PureRef for gathering references but I use it as Photoshop alternative. Let me show you how. Sometimes I want to combine 2-3 pictures and add simple notes to communicate something to colleagues (see image below). But starting Photoshop (or similar) takes forever and the workflow feels in […]
ℹ Cross-Post of my Twitter-Thread We all know it: Photoshop, 3DsMax or any #gamedev Engine stops, freezes, turns white and doesn’t even let us press the X to close the software. Waiting for the “Close program”-dialog is annoying. >:| Here is my workflow how I kill every software. WITHOUT. WAITING! In my Taskbar, I have […]
ℹ Cross-Post of my Twitter-Thread In most studios I’ve been, at some point coworkers asked me “Simon, how do you create so many videos/gifs/screenshots so quickly?” (because I make a TON each day to show work results, visualize bugs or explain workflows) – Here are my 3 main tools for my 3 main usecases. General […]
Welcome A while ago I gave a Tech Art Course and another one called 3D Engines for Artists. Here I share my materials and if you find them useful or inspiring, feel free to use them for your own teaching. Please note, that sometimes there are no long explanations on the slides or in the […]
I had the pleasure to give this talk at the GDC 2022 / ADDON 2022 which focuses on the creation of textures for VFX. Click here to watch it: The topic wasn’t discussed too much in the past and as I often struggle(d) making cool textures, I thought making a talk about it could help […]
This article was updated. Jump to Update 1. You can choose! Read the article or watch the movie. Both contain (almost) the same content. I stumbled across this funny video and after a short period of lolling I was thinking… maybe this isn’t a bug at all! Source: Artificial Stupidity (Game Fails #305) What we […]
This article was updated. Jump to Update 1. Update 2. Update 3. Update 4. Update 5. You can choose! Read the article or watch the movie. Both contain (almost) the same content. Grand Theft Auto V has some nice fountains which I would like to present you – but sometimes it’s a bit hard to […]
You can choose! Read the article or watch the movie. Both contain (almost) the same content. Preface This article was originally an interview for 80lv. For the 2k19 edition, I ditched the introduction but added more content: Advanced alignment & placement of particle systems around the obstacles (jump to section) Automated Reflection-Probe placement (jump to […]
You can choose! Read the article or watch the movie. Both contain (almost) the same content. Welcome! Today we’re going to talk about: An apple. Actually, it’s not directly the apple, but the bling-effect on the apple (from Zelda: Breath of the Wild) we’re interested in. Notice, that we still do see the effect even […]
This is a talk I gave on the Unreal Fest Europe 2018 about three stylized effects in RIME. It’s based on the one I gave 2017 but extended about the water materials of RiME. Thanks to Tequila Works for letting me speak about the effects and all the nice people I had the opportunity to […]
I gave this talk at the Digital Art Conference 2017 and it’s about how Textures can be used for other stuff than color. Almost all the content is based on a game I had the pleasure working on: The Invisible Hours from Tequila Works. Below the video you’ll find a lot of extra content. Extra […]
This is a talk I gave on the ADDON Conference about three stylized effects in RIME. Since it wasn’t based on an article, this time I can only offer a video and no text-version. Tips for better listening Play the video in 1.5x speed (saves time & reduces echo/reverb a little bit) I placed the […]
You can choose! Read the article or watch the movie. Both contain (almost) the same content. If your game demands for having boats swimming in water you might get interesting problems to solve. Since boat-water-interaction is pretty expensive to simulate, normally the water-plane just cuts through the boat-geometry like in this example: Today we’ll look […]
You can choose! Read the article or watch the movie. Both contain (almost) the same content. “The Joy of VFX” is thought as a happy place where several VFX artists come together and try to mimic awesome effects seen for example in movies. The goal is look at the different approaches and learn of their […]
You can choose! Read the article or watch the movie. Both contain (almost) the same content. Welcome guys to the yearly welding contest! Are you ready to show off your skills? With pleasure! Yes, Sir! Today we’ll compare the cutting torch of Alien Isolation with the one in Wolfenstein. At first let’s see which one […]
You can choose! Read the article or watch the movie. Both contain (almost) the same content. I noticed a very interesting way how Dark Maus handles trees and vegetation. If you would give this assignment to me… Assignment Make a swaying tree. You’re allowed to use TWO sprites. …I think my initial reaction would be […]
You can choose! Read the article or watch the movie. Both contain (almost) the same content. I really like the design of Tyrael in the Diablo games and I LOVE the design and animation of his wings: Source: Diablo II & Diablo III Not only in the great cutscene but also directly in Diablo II […]
You can choose! Read the article or watch the movie. Both contain (almost) the same content. Do you need a fish tank for your game? No problem! This brochure contains three different fish tank solutions and at the end you’ll find two extra fish tricks! FlatFish 3000 Perfect for those who like it classic and […]
You can choose! Read the article or watch the movie. Both contain (almost) the same content. Alpha1-Materials only support 1 Bit color depth for transparency which means you can either see a pixel or you can not. You can NOT have half-transparent pixels like with Materials/Shaders supporting 8 Bit color depth (Alpha8): Alpha1 vs. Alpha8 […]
You can choose! Read the article or watch the movie. Both contain (almost) the same content. For me one of the hardest things while doing art is learning What makes things look good? For example: It is easy to notice, that the left sphere is missing a shadow to be “grounded” in the scene: Now […]
You can choose! Read the article or watch the movie. Both contain (almost) the same content. I don’t know why but when I started learning to do game art I thought a good artist must be able to draw/model/sculpt anything by memory without using references. That was stupid and took me nowhere. It just made […]
You can choose! Read the article or watch the movie. Both contain (almost) the same content. Case File Msh/Rm We’ve got a new case to solve: How did Bethesda do these fine mushroom-like explosion clouds? Source: Fallout 4 If you don’t know what’s so hard doing such effects, just continue reading. If you do know […]
Guest Article This post was written by Richard Nunes da Silva and he kindly allowed me to publish it here. If you have any feedback feel free to write into the comments or contact Richard directly via Mail. Today we’re going back in time, more precisely to 2008, to talk a little bit about Braid, […]
You can choose! Read the article or watch the movie. Both contain the same content. I didn’t believe in color banding. I trusted some half-knowledge for years and now I write about it so that you don’t make the same mistake. I’ll explain what color banding is and that texture-compression might look very similar – […]
Wasteland Diary – Doctor Kron Today a woman with imploded head came to me. Only eyes and teeth were left but everything else was fine. Her eyeballs looked great. Source: www.eggplante.com / Funny Assassins Creed Unity Bug Wasteland Diary – Doctor Kron This morning a guy came to me – also with an imploded head. […]
Lensflares are usually done by using textures (like the one below) which are oriented to the camera or may also be created via post effect. For X:Rebirth we used textures at first but had some problems with compression artifacts especially when we had huge lensflares like the haze around the sun which dominates big parts […]
++ Update ++ Not only for Notepad++!! ëRiC pointed out that there are ways to use this functionality with every selected text. Independent from any text editor! Click here to read how. Preface This article is about an easy-to-use plugin for Notepad++ which makes it possible to work in a TXT or XML and directly […]
Do you know the situation when you read or hear about a game design idea and think: That’s the stupidest idea ever thought of! But then you actually play the game and suddenly it makes *click* and you feel how great the idea turns out. This happens quiet often to me and I’m fascinated by […]
Thanks a lot Egosoft that I’m allowed to publish these internal infos about the in-house tools. Foreword Game Development is complicated an it’s just common that mistakes happen. For example: Can you see the difference between the upper and lower screenshot below? Answer: In the lower image the green highway tube is a bit brighter. […]
This post is one part of the Watchdog Series. Choose your weapon Before you start creating the script you have to choose a scripting/programming language. I started with BAT-Files but later ported everything to C# because it runs faster and you have more functionality. The BAT-Syntax is sometimes a bit cryptic. For example this %%~ni […]
This post is one part of the Watchdog Series. Make the game make Screenshots The first step is to make the game create screenshots. In X:Rebirth we had already a screenshot function that could write out PNG, BMP or JPG and we had a scripting language BUT both were not connected! So the first step […]
This post is one part of the Watchdog Series. Game Setup The first thing our program/script must do is start the game and tell it to create screenshots. For that it needs some parameters which were handed over to the wd.exe/watchdog.bat (described here). The minimum setup for us looks like this: XRebirth.exe -module effecttest -screenshotmode […]
This post is one part of the Watchdog Series. Compression The next step is necessary because we had to use BMP (instead of PNG) as output format. There are two reasons for that: We could not use PNG because of problems with the transparency channel.You’ll find more details in the problem section. Not all screenshots […]