Introduction

Hi, my name is Pawel Margacz, I’m originally from Poland and I’ve been living in the UK for about 10 years. I studied Game design at the University and I got my first job at Climax Studio. Initially, I was a 3D artist and quickly transitioned to being a 3D generalist but then I discovered that I really liked to problem solve. This led me to move into a technical role and learning visual effects. Currently, I’m working for 505 Games / DR Studios, I also do some freelance and I have got a few assets on Unity Asset Store.

I worked on Robocraft, Dead Nation (PS4), Legacy of Kain (AAA that was never released), a few mobile/console titles like Battle islands, Battle Islands Commanders, Battle Ages. Now I’m working on something I can’t talk about.

From Generalist to VFX Artist

Many people might say that starting as a generalist is not good for your career and I agree. However, I really had no idea what I liked and I naturally transitioned to other aspects of game development. I wanted to try different areas of game dev and as a result explored the technical aspect of it (a bit of programming and VFX), which in my opinion helped me understand overall game dev pipeline and communication with other departments.

I started as a 3D environment artist and I still make some environments, however, nowadays I tend to do more technical art and trying to support the environment team with the technical side of environment creation. I think I started to be interested in VFX when my lead asked me to make some small FX for a game we’ve been working on and I found the technical aspect of it very interesting. I especially like the shader creation in Unity/Unreal Engine using its node-based system. After a few weeks, I started working a bit more with VFX team in the studio.