Introduction

Hi, my name is Thomas Francis and I’m 22. I originally came from Thailand but currently, I live in Vancouver and work as a real-time VFX Artist at Navigator Games.

I initially got into 3D modeling around the time high school ended and I fell in love with the idea of creating game art. I then spent a year studying 3D modeling with sources such as Youtube, Cubebrush tutorials and digital tutors.

A year passed by, I decided to further my studies at Vancouver Film School: Game Design which is where I learned programming, 3D art/animation, and game design. As the final project approached, I realized that our game was lacking the polishing touches and user feedback needed and someone had to do the VFX. Following tutorials, I started by creating jump pad, explosions, and muzzle flashes VFX, etc. As I dug deeper into this mysterious art, I realized how much fun I was having and never stopped working on particles since.

Choosing technology

I’ve used Unity for 5 game projects to date and Unreal Engine for my final project at college. To me, both engines are very capable and have an intuitive toolkit. Once you know one it’s easy to hop on to other. The main reason I picked Unreal for this project was that I wanted to try something unfamiliar.

Houdini is also a software I’ve been using for a while to create effects such as smoke, fire and simple debris. Now I feel like it’s time to take it to another level and start learning procedural mesh creation which can be tweaked in-engine to help speed up the overall workflow.

The project

The inspiration for this project came from seeing entries for Real-time VFX’s official event and I decided to throw my hat in the ring. Here is the official event link.

My objective was to create a sci-fi shield which has a fluid energy-like force field effect that expands from its core, capable of reflecting approaching harm. It charges up the holder’s power by draining surrounding energy. I also wanted to model out the shield and use some animations from Mixamo as a base to create the more intriguing reel.

A quick rundown of the process:

Find reference or concept art that I like

In this step, we will gather references to set a visual guideline.

Find animations on Mmixamo and re-target to UE4 mannequin

This gives us a direction on how the shield’s effects should react to the animation.

Model the shield and VFX mesh

Preparation phase where we will build the groundwork meshes for the VFX.

Block-out each stage of the VFX

Here’s the part where we start playing with particles.

Presentation

Here we add extra camera work and camera shake to add the extra “UMPH” to the shield.