
Players all across the globe are looking for captivating visual experiences and high resolution. The ease of access to the Internet, the introduction of cutting-edge technology, and the excellent performance of video gaming devices have contributed to rising.
According to study analysis, the worldwide VFX market was worth roughly USD 11,500 million in 2019. The market is estimated to increase at a CAGR of 11.7 percent, reaching nearly USD 24,949.9 million by 2026. Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality, which have progressed rapidly in recent years, have played a significant part in this worldwide expansion. The visual effects (VFX) sector is one of the fastest-growing global media and entertainment market divisions.
What does VFX mean?
Special visual effects in video games blend traditional art with modern software to generate a variety of motions. Cutting-edge technologies can produce more realistic visible results. VFX improves the player’s understanding of how the game works, allows the game to run smoothly, and makes the game seem great.
How is VFX used in video games?
Creating visual effects in video games involves several disciplines throughout the game development process. Sometimes VFX artists should not only be aesthetic but also have programming skills. The visual effects of the environment and the game’s visual effects are the two primary VFX types used in video games. A VFX game might include the characters’ superpowers, spells, or the spells they cast in the game. To produce VFX, you must have a solid understanding of game mechanics and maintain frequent touch with the design team.
Fighting games, as well as hack and slash games, make extensive use of gameplay effects. Like rain or fog, environmental impacts that usually used by VFX artists in shooter games. They have to provide the game with a natural feel, duplicate reality as accurately as possible, and let the player experience the feeling of existence.
Another aspect to note is that VFX happens in real-time. As a result, VFX artists must put in much more work than those who create pre-rendered effects shown in movies and theaters. More ingenuity is required when creating VFX in real-time to represent gameplay via color, shape, and timing.
When playing video games, people are less concerned with the visual aspects and more concerned with understanding the game. They would, however, notice if VFX was lacking. In a shooting game, if the shot character’s responses and bloodstains are absent, the player will see, and the gaming experience will suffer.
To make their jobs easier, VFX artists use more sophisticated software pre-loaded with elements, including animations, models, and textures. VFX artists’ difficulty producing real-time visual effects and simulations is becoming less complicated as VFX software developers continue improving.
Morphing and image capture are two of the most common VFX in video games (MOCAP). Morphing transforms (or morphs) pictures into others with a smooth transition, while image capture captures the motions and saves them to the digital world.
Popular VFX software used in video games
In recent years, more and better tools for creating VFX have evolved. Thus, there are essentially no limitations in creating realistic games. VFX artists, for example, utilize popular tools like Fume FX, Phoenix FD, or Maya fluids to generate smoke effects, and Rayfire or MassFX for destructions or stiff body simulations.
We’ve compiled a list of some of the most popular applications VFX artists use in top-tier studios.
3D Studio Max
3Ds Max is a famous VFX program used by artists worldwide. In addition, most 4CROWS DIGITAL’S VFX artists utilize 3Ds Max to generate game assets, animations, and character models. This program has increased in popularity because of its ease of use, execution speed, and comprehensive feature collection. The company that developed 3Ds Max is Autodesk, which owns other popular software such as Maya and AutoCAD.
Unreal Engine and Unity
These two game engines are the most used in the video game industry, where VFX artists produce visual effects using Niagara, VX-graph shader graph, shuriken, and waterfalls. Unity is well-known for independent games because of its ease of use. Still, Unreal Engine is famous for producing high-quality visual outputs and is typically employed by giant corporations with enormous budgets. Unity has less sophisticated assets than Unreal Engine, which has numerous complex capabilities for putting even the boldest concepts into action.
Photoshop
VFX artists utilize Photoshop in almost every production. It is an essential tool game artists use to build textures from scratch, edit rendered graphics, clean plates, matte paints, etc.
After Effects
After Effects is an excellent post-production program that is simple and has endless possibilities. After VFX, artists use effects to produce texture and sprite sheets and add special effects to moving images and stunning explosions. They may also have visual effects like smoke, stars, disappearing effects, snow, etc.
Houdini
Houdini is used mainly by VFX artists for dynamic environments and particle effects. Because of the node-based procedural approach, this program is unusual in allowing artists to explore variations as they develop their work efficiently. This benefit enables VFX artists to tweak their work without going through too many processes. They also like to work with Houdini because of its powerful features, which allow the dynamic simulation to generate realistic visual effects. Houdini also offers a low-cost version for smaller studios or individual artists to use.
VFX artists can make even the most imaginative concepts a reality, thanks to cutting-edge technology and tools like EmberGen or Pop Corn.
EmberGen can replicate liquid flow in real-time, allowing VFX artists to iterate on their simulations in milliseconds. Because it enables artists to see the changes they make to the project quickly, this cutting-edge software saves time and energy.
PopcornFX is a real-time VFX node program that enables VFX artists to tweak particle effects. Because it is compatible with Unity and Unreal Engine 4, VFX artists are relieved to have a comprehensive and fast option for creating 3D visual effects in video games.
Visual effects (VFX) are always unique and fascinating in a great video game. However, you need to work with professional VFX artists with prior industry expertise to get remarkable results. At 4CROWS DIGITAL, our VFX artists push themselves to the edge for each project to achieve peak performance.