How to (Not) Create Textures for VFX

[@MechMK1]

"Don't let perfect be the enemy of good enough" is a quote a lot of artists seem to have trouble with. I'm glad you encourage people to say "No, it's good enough as it is. I need to work on other stuff now."

[@PacTheOne]

hard to do when you directors like pixel fucking

[@StylizedStation]

Never thought about taking a photo and using the splatter node in designer to distribute it like in your fire creation example at 31:45 - I learnt so much about working quickly and efficiently in this video, thanks so much Simon!

[@Falconite]

Yeah that one is super nifty!

[@nullvoid3545]

This guy is amazing! Best talk in awhile! He built A freaking repo just to teach this stuff!

[@Simonschreibt]

that's great feedback, thank you! i put a lot of work into it and it is great to hear that it was worth it :)

[@3dbob891]

@@Simonschreibt thanks again for your talk, btw listening to you speaking about brushes.. i remembered black ink by bleank, it's a creative art software with wide range of procedural brushes. I got years ago but didn't had much use to it because everything it produces is super abstract but that might be a super powerful tool for vfx shapes, especially stylized

[@Simonschreibt]

@@3dbob891 Thank you for mentioning this, looks really cool!

[@godlike1024]

I am engine programmer that have no idea how to do effects, but this was so nice to listen. It was easy to understand and gave nice insight to artist creation process and thinking. Thanks a lot.

[@Simonschreibt]

Thank you very much for taking the time to write such a nice comment!

[@timsonss]

34:12 this picture conveyes this whole talk perfectly.

[@Simonschreibt]

Nugget-Boom :D

[@cosmicjaybird]

Simon continuing to be the MVP of Game VFX… I’ve been working in the industry for a few years now and I’ve learnt a lot from Simon’s tutorials and VFX breakdowns over the years. (Even got a little fire effect I made inspired by Rime featured on his website before!) - This talk though is perhaps the most useful VFX talk I’ve seen out there. The amount of useful information and little tips and tricks has just blew my mind somewhat. :’D

[@tanmuxu]

我和你想的一模一样，尤其是关于Rim的火焰。

[@unclejacksimulations9423]

What a wholesome talk! This was a treat to watch. I'm speechless and can't wait to get started with VFX thanks to Simon

[@baktubak]

This talk is incredible for those of us who are just starting out in creating game VFX! Thank you for sharing!

[@Simonschreibt]

That's great to hear, I made the talk exactly for that reason!

[@isilozcelik]

This was super helpful and fun, really enjoyed every second of this presentation. Thanks a lot!

[@Simonschreibt]

This is awesome feedback, thank you!

[@NycroLP]

You can tell he is nervous and yet he did a banger of a presentation. Good job man.

[@Simonschreibt]

Thank you! :) It was a very nice atmosphere with only cool people around.

[@yonjuunininjin]

That thumbnail is gold. Title is: "How to (not) create textures for VFX" and Simon shows a particles system from Luos, shoots fired :D

[@Luos_83]

Yea, this confused me XD For a second I thought someone uploaded a pack of mine.

[@Simonschreibt]

@@Luos_83 yes, i was a bit shocked as well. i'll write them. makes me look as i'd steel art from others. :(

[@Luos_83]

@@Simonschreibt GDC does this A LOT, and frankly I'm fine with it, but yea, it would make more sense to showcase something you did :)

[@Simonschreibt]

@@Luos_83 Ok, it's fixed now :) They changed the thumbnail.

[@Luos_83]

@@Simonschreibt whoo! also: awww XD

[@mitaywalle]

amazing talk and tools, thank you

[@Simonschreibt]

thanks

[@ItsBaffledd]

What a phenomenal piece of information. Thank you very much

[@charoleawood]

12:30 This bit is hilarious! Great speech, very practical and instructive

[@Simonschreibt]

Fast & Efficient :D

[@charoleawood]

​@@Simonschreibt I don't program or make technical art, but I do write and I have had to learn how to "calm my artist brain down" and go with what works. Now, that doesn't mean that I forget quality or my intentions for a story --- often times the easiest path is NOT the best one for a story and its characters. But I have learned to go with the flow while also making course corrections, I want to avoid ice burgs and I don't want to betray my characters or themes with lazy, anything-goes storytelling. If I didn't learn to quiet my artist brain then I simply wouldn't write, the "gag reflex" (as I call it) would be too great, but even you made the decision of prioritizing quality over efficiency when you created the waterfalls in your example project. One doesn't ABSOLUTELY quiet the artist brain, we just calm it so that we can get things flowing --- we don't want to choke the engine with gas and stall out before we even start. Gas IS needed to climb hills, but on the downslopes we put our engines in neutral to conserve the gas of inspiration, if the work is flowing there is no need to rely on extra inspiration.

[@blackpixel21]

Why is this video under programming talks? I completely miss a Tech Artist Talk section and seems that some videos are in the wrong sections. PS : Great talk, I've seen it live!

[@Simonschreibt]

Thanks for visiting my talky-talk!

[@ramelo07]

Besides photoshop, you could also use After Effects for creating textures. It has a bunch of different effects u can use to make procedural shapes, and you can even export png sequences to use as a flipbook in a game engine.

[@Simonschreibt]

Yes, AE is a very cool tool as far as I know but unfortunately I never got to work with it and it's a but too pricey just to get it for fun. But yes, I saw very cool vfx textures generated with it.

[@ramelo07]

@@Simonschreibt about the pricing part, you could get it for free from "alternative sources". but i wouldnt encourage it (i know internet fbi is listening)

[@Simonschreibt]

@@ramelo07 True, but I really don't support pirating software as I'd like to be paid for the software I do myself. :D

[@nekrosarts2906]

This was incredibly helpful. Thank you very much, Simon

[@Simonschreibt]

Thank you very much for your kind words! :)

[@CuT7yFlaM]

@@Simonschreibt Hello Simon! KZbin recommended your GDC, so glad I got to hear you about the process, super interesting, confirming certain ideas I had regarding producing assets and how to think around certain problems. I'm only starting in 3D, and I really enjoy VFX for video games. What practical cases would you recommend to perfect and be attractive for teams and is relevant for being hired?

[@nuborn.studio]

Nice database project you started! Very helpful for beginners like me. Thanks a lot!

[@Simonschreibt]

With pleasure :)

[@obalfaqih]

Thanks for sharing such a very informative talk and creative tips!

[@Simonschreibt]

Thank you for taking the time writing such a nice comment. happy to hear that you found it useful!

[@LiMaking]

This is great. Thank you!

[@Kateryna-nu9fv]

thank you so much! you make gamedev world better :)

[@unrealengine5-storm713]

Great talk

[@NhatNguyends]

Super glad that I found this talk! Thank you very much for sharing all the nice stuffs for VFX.

[@ricniclas]

24:15 oh boy, I didnt knew this!

[@Simonschreibt]

yeah, i have the feeling adobe doesn't know how much gamedev love this feature and they didn't market it so much.

[@jacobchrist999]

Very inspiring! Great talk!

[@Simonschreibt]

Thank you

[@plastic2666]

TY!

[@Ascorbine]

God bless you Simon

[@Simonschreibt]

Thank you!

[@untitled_exr]

we love u, bro

[@Simonschreibt]

Thank you!

[@milztempelrowski9281]

Sis accent is so ruff. I love it

[@Simonschreibt]

Yeah I'm aware of sounding like german scientist :D

[@milztempelrowski9281]

@@Simonschreibt as long as you leave se rockets alone it's ok. Liebe Grüße, toller talk

[@garfield8963]

It's really hard to escape the imposter syndrome thank you simon

[@maessof91]

Thanks you legend!!!!!

[@Simonschreibt]

Thank you!!

[@Azer0sz]

Simon is a GOD :)

[@Simonschreibt]

Awwww, thank you! :)

[@lrgte8285]

very helpful

[@Simonschreibt]

That's great to hear. Thanks for the positive feedback!

[@syntax_error6882]

very good .. thks

[@Simonschreibt]

With pleasure! :)

[@Pcdrom]

33:15 Damn...

[@firemyst9064]

I wanted to add that in an interview Beeple said something along the lines of the first 10 years he was working on his artwork he created all his assets personally, and he had a similar ideology of that he needed to make all his own assets. Now he kitbashes because of course it speeds up his workflow drastically. And I think that it's important for new artists to do the hard work on modeling, drawing, painting, whatever their preferred medium is. But after really flourishing and having said skills, using free or paid for assets to speed up their process is the logical progression.

[@DarthBiomech]

Beeple's example is not very useful to follow actually, since he works in a very specific genre of kitchen sink abstract collages. Using kitbashed and bought asset helps cut corners, but you can't cut _all_ the corners - else you'll end up with a sphere, when what was needed is a beveled cube.

[@Lantalia]

It isn't cheating to buy paint, brushes, and canvas

[@w0nnafight]

yes it is not cheating to download photoshop

[@schebbi]

@@w0nnafight Even better, use a free alternative so Adobe doesn't get money with their horrible subscriptionbased payment system

[@w0nnafight]

@@schebbi 🏴‍☠

[@youngtran8986]

Holy molly...

[@okidokii2871]

KIENAAAAAN

[@Simonschreibt]

Yes, he's cool! :)

[@factchecker2179]

You don't need to draw any texture when you understand how shaders really work

[@majestic8274]

Could you point me in the direction of this?

[@Sergeeeek]

It's kinda impractical to do realtime fluid simulations for explosions, so you still need pre-baked textures

[@factchecker2179]

​@@Sergeeeek not in unreal engine. You don't need to draw all these textures. You can simply generate and distort them procedurally without any significant cost on modern gpus

[@Sergeeeek]

@@factchecker2179 why does it matter if it's unreal or not? Show me how you make a procedural explosion without any textures that matches prebaked Houdini simulation and runs just as fast/faster.

[@thisisfyne]

"My name is [insert[, he/him" ok bye lol

[@Simonschreibt]

bye

[@godlike1024]

just why ? o.O it is half second of maybe irrelevant info to you. it is no problem to skip that tiny bit of information.

[@GeekBrony]

Cope

[@blu3_enjoy]

Stands to reason he's soulless artist lol

[@monocore]

seeing blender and houdini in the same tier made throw up in my mouth a little bit

[@joa1401]

you should see a doctor about that

[@aaron-dx7gz]

I'm a blender user. I find it very easy to create almost any texture for vfx easily using blender nodes in material and compositor.

[@richardkoszegi6508]

He/Him omg, really had to mention that, give platform for that illness?

[@ties_s]

someone's mad lolllll