Lately I have really been wanting to be more active and involved within the rtvfx community. There’s just one problem I seem to constantly run into and thats coming up with and committing to an idea or concept.
I think the community sketches are such an awesome idea and would love to participate in more in the future. Although, I still seem to have a pretty tough time even after being given a generic brief.
I feel vfx can be especially hard to come up with ideas for as it tends to go hand in hand with other ‘action’ assets which can sometimes be quite difficult to find.
This is something ive tried to overcome for a while now, but I dont feel like im really getting anywhere very fast by myself. So here I am! Just wondering if anyone else has had similar problems in the past and ways they or techniques they’ve learnt to overcome them. Of course for anyone who feels like they dont have this issue, I would love to hear your process also
I’d really appreciate any and all advice and really just keen to hear peoples thoughts on the topic.
Thanks in advance!!
That’s an interesting subject, i think many of us have this problem. I find it’s always difficult to start working on an effect, this is probably the most important phase of creating an Fx so it’s kinda logical we hesitate to commits to an idea, i guess.
Although sometime i get so inspired i have no problem with that, but it’s quite rare, what i find to be useful is to surround myself with references of the stuff i want to create, the least sure of myself i am with an effect the more references i gather.
The real problem is that we don’t have a clear vision of what we want to do, so one thing that helps me tremendously is to check how other Vfx artists handle the same problem as me, if i need a stylised fire projecile, i just screenshot the hell out of the inferno skin of League of legends, or Battlerite, or any other game i like the style and motion. And when nothing does help, i just force myself and start, ideas always come after a while.
@Tayko Thank you for such a detailed reply, this is really insightful! Im glad to hear im not alone with this and hopefully your response can help other people in the future be more sure of themselves too
I really agree with your comment about not having a totally clear vision. It seems when I start looking around at other works for ideas I give myself too many options and struggle to then really hone in on one of them.
I believe what works best for me is to decide what the type of effect it is I want to make and what I would like to achieve before going out to find reference to help like you suggested. Seems lately I have been attempting to do this in reverse without realizing.
I think having a workflow for the creation of an idea is just as important as having one for the creation of that idea. It now seems pretty ignorant to believe that we should be able to spark up a concept every time.
Thanks again!
I find myself struggling with a block very often when I try to do something that doesn’t have a clear end goal. Most of the time, that’s because I didn’t put in the time to really figure out what it is that I’m aiming for, and sometimes, like you said, I look at too many ideas and get confused.
A really easy way to avoid this situation, at least for me, since I’m still just very much just getting into realtime fx, is to not start with a blank canvas. I find some type of training, and I make no creative decisions, I just follow the training and focus on the technical part of it. Once that’s done, I mess around with the end product just to get comfortable with it. It’s a nice way to warm up I think. Once I’m comfortable, I find some reference that would work with what I already have, and this avoids the information overload of trying to find a wide variety of references.
This is excellent advice and actually what is usually my go to when I want to get some work done. Recently I’ve been wanting to do some more unique work but maybe this is a realization I may not quite be at that point yet
