I imagine that for FX artists, making beautiful effects is half of the creative work, the other half is to seamlessly blend it with the game’s environments and style, and to maintain a uniform style throughout the whole game.
I’ve heard studios and clients prefer to see reels with effects in proper environments, yet I see many experienced artists showing their effects in dark gray spaces or on dark grids.
So what’s the best way to show your work? I’m thinking maybe I should learn to design my own detailed environemnts to work with effects in.
If you put work into making your vfx match the environment, like matching its level of detail, style, color, dynamic lighting or other dynamic elements etc then show that off in the environment its made for.
I’m personally guilty of isolating my vfx in a grey environment because it looks clean alongside other vfx in a collection ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
100% what Nate said. It shows an extra level of competency to match things to lighting and colors, as well as showing you know when to reign things in because it’s what the game needs vs what you can do or want to do.
If you dropped one of those crazy over-the-top combat sequences you see on ArtStation into a fully fleshed out environment, it would be way too much, and the effect itself would even look bad.
Plus, with the almost overwhelming amount of reasonably priced (even free) content that you have access to through both Unreal and Unity, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel and make everything yourself. Most environment content packs come with one or more demo levels that are already set up and lit for you
