Hi everyone! My name is Barbara, and I’m from a Latin American country that has nothing to do with VFX, games, or anything like that. My question is: how can I start learning VFX for games, and do you think it’s possible to land a job in this field in about two years if I work hard to become a pro? You know how it is for us noobs these days with AI—we’re scared and worried about the future.
I have some experience in 3D and a bit of Unity from a small project I worked on in the past. I’ve also been adding Houdini to my toolkit over the last few months. I’d really appreciate your recommendations for a solid learning path and whether I should focus on Unity or Unreal for this.
Start from the color base, timings, etc. There’s a lot of resources like Tharlevfx, Simon Trümpler, Niels Dewitte, and 1mafx. Imo (like many of others, I guess) you should avoid most of the stuff from CGHOW - his behaviors are pretty dirty, which is uncommon and non performant in the industry.
You might work hard, but I wouldn’t say anyone will become pro without working +/- 5 years in the game industry. Right there, the real journey begins, and it’s a long journey. It’s all about getting better and better every day.
AI with real-time VFX is something different. You can’t be replaced… by now and definitely some years. It would only help you to save some time with making the asset textures, etc.
If more you know, you’re more attractive at the market.
Hard to answer this question. Market is broken atm. Even for entry positions, many of the seniors are applying because there’s just not enough workspace for them. It might be funny, but I am considering the future of the entry positions in the gamedev. VFX branch becomes pretty hard to break into like the other roles.
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Also, take a look at the “bible” of VFX: “Elemental Magic, Volume I & 2 by Joseph Gilland”
